With the plague decimating the ranks of laborers, surviving workers started pining for higher wages. When the monarchy responded by enacting taxes and restrictive labor laws, the peasants rebelled.
PODCAST: Between a third and half of Europe’s population died from the Black Death. The first episode of a new podcast series from The Anthill on how the world recovered from past shocks.
Those experiencing stress and uncertainty amid the coronavirus may find guidance in medieval responses to plagues, which relied on both medicine and prayer.
The cities of Europe have experienced disease outbreaks for centuries, but they were able to bounce back using quarantine, economic stimulus and patience. Not all were successful.
Racism against fellow Indians and classism against the poor characterised India’s early response to coronavirus, that is reminiscent of British imperial public health policies.
Sure, there were no Zoom calls or ventilators. But thanks to a prolific diarist, we can see some striking similarities, from daily death counts to quack remedies.
The 14th century Black Death pandemic catalysed enormous societal, economic, artistic and cultural reforms in Medieval Europe. Infectious disease pandemics can be major turning points in history.