Innovation & Wealth › Medieval & Renaissance money › Commercial Revolution of medieval Europe
Black Death and the labor shortage
1347–1351· Event· Society: who gained, who lost
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
A plague pandemic that killed perhaps a third to a half of Europe's people in four years, leaving workers scarce.
See it on the Innovation & Wealth map →What happened
The plague bacterium, carried by fleas on rats and possibly spread between people, reached Sicily on Genoese ships in 1347 and swept Europe and the Middle East. With so many dead, landlords competed for scarce laborers and tenants. Wages rose and rents fell, despite England's 1351 Statute of Labourers capping pay. Serfdom weakened in western Europe. Jewish communities in many towns were massacred after being falsely blamed for poisoning wells.
Impact on society and the economy
The shock shifted bargaining power from landowners to workers for about a century, raising survivors' living standards and loosening feudal bonds in the West.
Think of it like
Like a market where half the tenants vanish overnight: rents fall and the remaining tenants negotiate hard.
How we know
Ancient DNA of the plague bacterium from burial pits, tax and manor records, wage series and chroniclers. A 2022 study traced the strain to Kyrgyzstan around 1338.
Still debated
Death tolls are estimates and vary. Historians debate how it spread so fast and whether it set Europe on a different long-run economic path.
Connections (3)
▸Black Death and the labor shortage ended the expansion of Commercial Revolution of medieval EuropeMostly agreed
The connection
Trade was already strained by the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the collapse of Florence's Bardi and Peruzzi banks in the 1340s. The plague then killed a third or more of Europe's customers and workers, shrinking markets and ending three centuries of population and trade growth.
When and how
Europe and the Mediterranean, 1347–1351, with recurring outbreaks for decades afterward.
How sure are we?
Population estimates, tax records and trade volumes all show a sharp drop after 1348 and slow recovery during the 1400s.
Debates
Some historians argue the boom had already ended before 1347; others stress that survivors' higher incomes later revived trade in new forms.
▸Black Death and the labor shortage raised wages, a possible root of The Industrial RevolutionDebated
The connection
The plague of 1347–51 killed perhaps a third to half of Europe's people. With workers scarce, English wages rose sharply and stayed relatively high. Some economists argue this high-wage, low-population path, reinforced by later trade and urban growth, made labor dear in Britain, so by the 1700s replacing workers with coal-powered machines paid off.
When and how
England and northwest Europe, 1350s–1700s; argued by economic historians Robert Allen, Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth.
How sure are we?
Wage series show English real wages rose after the plague and stayed above southern Europe's; the chain of cause to 1760 is a modeled argument, not documented.
Debates
Critics say English wages were not unusually high for most workers, and four centuries is a long gap; the link remains a hypothesis.
▸Black Death and the labor shortage saw its wage gains eroded by The Price RevolutionMostly agreed
The connection
After the plague, scarce labor kept English workers' real wages high for about a century. From around 1500 population recovered and American silver flowed into Europe; prices rose roughly fourfold or more while wages lagged, so laborers' buying power fell sharply, by some estimates about half.
When and how
England and western Europe, about 1500–1650; the wage evidence is best for England.
How sure are we?
Long wage and price series, such as Phelps Brown and Hopkins's for English building workers, show real wages peaking in the 1400s and falling in the 1500s.
Debates
Whether population growth or American silver drove the price rise more is debated, and the size of the wage fall depends on the data used.