There are many precedents for the societal reaction to the Black Death. Some are mentioned in the introduction to this study. The suddenness, calamity and helplessness of the victims, all played a part in changing the outlook of men. Thucydides and Procopius voiced observations of extremes initiated by the plagues of their times. Russell makes the observation that the Plague of Justinian, 541-542, probably halted the eastern emperor's drive to complete a reconquest of the West while paving the way for the "Dark Ages." (Russell, Earlier Plague, 1, 14-15)

In a similar way the Black Death, and subsequent plagues, can be considered as insidiously clearing a pathway to Renaissance and Reformation. The unprecedented plague of the fourteenth-century was deemed to have come from God, yet the clergy could do nothing to prevent infection or save lives. Those in authority, or those who could afford to flee, abandoned the common people. (Langer, 295) Repentance, which seemed to lack the force to stay the epidemic, was abandoned for extremes of depravity. Social ties were broken, as men sought life to ease their fear of death. "The father no longer visited the son or the son his father. (Hirst, 17) Charity seemed dead as hopelessness settled in. As the steadily rising bills of mortality became known, any past thoughts of repentance for sin were replaced with despair and desperation. "Unbridled license took the place of piety, and sounds of drunken merriment were heard instead of prayers." (Ibid., 17-21) James Westfall Thompson asserted that the aftermath of the plague can be most closely related to the aftermath of the Great War. He cites the same;type of social dislocation, moral decay and helplessness as his reasons for this assertion. (565-571)

The pandemic, which was supposed to make people better and which had been allegedly initiated in retaliation for sins, seemed only to intensify the prevalence of evil and wickedness. The era became one of fear of impending disaster--troubled, insecure and pessimistic. Chroniclers saw wickedness creeping over the world with no hint of repentance in sight. Deaux tells us that this sinfulness was only the natural life force of society awakening--as if it had been asleep since the beginning of the plague--the reaction of people shocked by the weight of death. The spirit of revolutionary change is said to have emerged at this time, creating a modern sensibility and paving the way to the modern world. (Deaux, 145-146)

Paul Johnson states that the plague shook traditional social relationships, relationships which were already under great stress before the Black Death. It became abundantly evident to those who survived that there was a blurring of clearly defined class distinctions . (Johnson, 183-184) Lowborn men "aped" the dress and habits of the nobility. "Inferiors" profited from the labor shortage and flaunted their independence. This brought about repeated attempts in parliament to enforce sumptuary legislation. (Myers, 1153-1154) Such legislation not only described guidelines for dress, but also such victuals as were suit-able for consumption by a particular class. Raymond Delatouche echoes the feelings of Johnson. He cites the "cracks" which were already forming in feudal society, crevices, which were widened, into chasms by the fourteenth century demographic crisis. (Delatouche, 47-55)

Chroniclers of the time are quick to point out human shortcomings and instances of infidelity to the Church. They moralize about man's inhumanity to man and the evil ways of foreigners. One item, by today's judgment a most evil and obnoxious act which they fail to mention, was the persecution of minority groups accused of spreading the plague by poisoning the wells. (Marcus, 43-48) In Spain, Arabs were charged with this pernicious crime (Ziegler, 97). Gravediggers also found themselves under suspicion and, in some countries, earned themselves the appellation "death." (Chamberlin, iv) It was now that the gravediggers came into their own, for they were indispensable. They were drawn from the dregs of society--ex-convicts, galley-slaves--men who had nothing to lose but hoped to gain pickings by robbing the dead or blackmailing the living. . . .Part of their work was to remove the sick from private homes to plague-houses. . . . The plague-house was not a place to which a sick person went in hope but rather a waiting room for the grave. . .He would therefore be prepared to pay handsomely not to be taken away, and the gravedigger, pocketing his ransom, would go elsewhere. However, it was the persecution of the Jews which drew the most attention, since they lived in greater numbers in most parts of Europe.

"The persecution of the Jews. . .was a heathen orgy, for it was nothing less than human sacrifice to placate the powers of evil (Ibid.)." It has been asserted that the charges of well-poisoning levied against the Jews stemmed from the fact that fewer of their number succumbed to the plague because of cleaner living conditions and more conscientious care of the sick within their communities. Ziegler states that the Jews for hygienic reasons, normally drew their water from open streams rather than wells which often became polluted by seepage from sewage pits. (Ziegler,100) He maintains that this preference, though normal, aroused intense suspicion during the plague. This may be the case, but mortalities in Jewish communities were probably no less than anywhere else since plague is primarily a disease of the poor, and is not promoted or deterred by dirty living conditions. (Shrewsbury, 35) The chief motive behind the charges of well-poisoning is summed up by the fact that the Jews were the chief creditors of large segments of continental society--especially the upper class.

Christians were forbidden the practice of usury, so the Jew filled this vacuum. The massacres of the Jews revealed the extent of confusion and irresponsibility in medieval Europe. The ruling classes, the clergy, and other educated groups knew perfectly well that the charges against the Jews were false, but they feared the populace and they stood to profit from the pogroms. "In the most cruel manner [they] participated in the slaughter of the innocent victims." (Chamberlin, iv) However, not all public authorities permitted such carnage. In Cologne, the magistrates stated plague to be a scourge of God and refused to allow persecution of Jews. They feared that once mass murders began that no one would be safe. (Ziegler, 102-109) This was, unfortunately, one of the few exceptional cases. Generally, Jews were massacred and collectively burnt through-out Europe. They died by the thousands in Narbonne; Carcassone; Burgundy; Spain; Savoy; Geneva; Zurich; Berne; Strasbourg, where 16,000 were slain; Venice; Calabria; Frankfort; to provide only a partial listing. (Nohl, 182) Such killings abated in early 1349 but re-emerged in all their frenzy due to the encouragement of the Flagellant movement. (Ziegler, 106)

Great numbers of Jews fled to Eastern Europe, especially Poland, where they received protection from Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, (Zamoyski, 74) while others bought some degree of safety through payment of bribes. It was a credit to Pope Clement VI that on 4 July 1348, and 26 September 1348, he issued separate bulls demanding that Jews not be murdered, and he was personally responsible for the protection of the rights of Jews at Avignon. (Nohl, 182)

Society was to change in other ways. A great amount of social mobility not only drew the villain to the town or the city to seek higher wages, the plague also created a new upper class. The successive waves of disease caused
the extinction of many of the older families which had traced their lineage back to the Norman conquest. (Thompson, 568) There appeared a new class of noveaux riches. Titles remained the same but the blood lines were new. With the demise of the old aristocratic order, there also died the finest of the ideals of chivalry and courtesy. "The decay of manners in the last half of the fourteenth century is an established fact." (Ibid., 569) Common speech was more coarse and crude. Books on courtesy were much in demand in an endeavor to recreate the situation of times past. Fashions even reflected the changed conditions as clothing became less restrained and refined, exhibiting a tendency to be garish and showy. (Thompson, Later Middle Ages, 384)

The field of education, since it depended on a relatively small group of learned men, was particularly hard hit by the plague. The chancellor of Oxford petitioned the king for aid because of the " enfeebled" state of the university due to "pestilence and other causes. (Ziegler, 252) The needs of the universities did not go long unheeded. At Cambridge, Trinity Hall, Corpus Christi and Gonville Hall were founded as a result of the plague. (Ibid., 254-255)

The effects of war and the effect of plague worked hand in hand to create a national literature and to purge England from the dominance of Anglo-French. In 1369 a royal proclamation ordered all French students to leave the kingdom. (McKisack, 501) Johnson tells us that John of Trevisa, a contemporary of John Wycliff, (Ibid., 524) attributed the changeover from French to English as the work of the plague. (Johnson, 165-168)

There were efforts in the universities to retain the study of French which occasioned the appearance of French language textbooks around 1400. (Ibid.) But society was changing and little by little English replaced French more and more, court proceedings in London were ordered to be conducted in English and in 1356 parliament was opened in the native tongue. Literature began to appear which spread and further nurtured use of the vernacular. The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer and Piers the Plowman by William Langland were among the works meant for a national audience. (Ibid., 168-169)

The nationalistic fervor had actually been fanned and nurtured by factors which included, prominently, the Hundred Years War. The public was kept informed of the progress of the war, and had reason to be interested. Edward's army was not made up only of knights and their retainers, but was a national contingent composed of paid troops. (Hewitt, 28) Letters concerning the war and its progress were sent to the sheriff to be read in shire courts. The parish church served the function of a soapbox for royal propaganda in following instructions passed down through the hierarchy to say patriotic prayers and conduct ceremonies of thanksgiving. More and more of the populace thought less of their own village, estate, or manor as a focus of loyalty. They began to conceive of the idea of the entire realm as a whole--to think in terms of "England." (Johnson, 144)

The government began also to adopt a national perspective. It was better informed due to the growing speed of travel and was able to better serve the current needs of the time aided by a system of improved roads not excelled until after 1600. (Darby, 237) The war and the economic policies of Edward III required frequent consultation with parliament, thus bringing the people and their king in closer touch.

Nationalistic fervor was expressed in other ways also. Mention has already been made of the Avignon papacy and of the growing distrust toward the Church and foreign priories." The popes were neutral: but they seemed to be neutral for France." (Johnson, 157) It was commonly believed that money given to the papacy was somehow used against the English war effort and this national feeling was directed at any and all foreigners. (Hewitt, 168)

Xenophobia was carried beyond the suspicion stage where the Church was concerned. In 1351, the Statute of Pro-visors was issued, followed in 1353 by the Statute of Praemunire. The Statute of Provisors held that in cases of appointment to Church offices within the realm, free elections be held with no influence to be exerted from Rome. (Myers, 659) The Statute of Praemunire stated precedents in asserting that clerics should seek redress of grievances in the king's court, while declaring that appeals made to powers outside the realm was forbidden. (Ibid.,661) The penalty for disobedience of these statutes was exile or banishment. Both statutes were updated during the reign of Richard II--in 1390 and 1393 respectively--and precursed the call for a national Church.

It was during the period from 1330-1340 that there emerged a more nationalistic trend in architectural style.
The death of many skilled stonemasons after the plague probably contributed greatly to the acceleration of this change. Skilled masons who had conceived and executed the fine traceries and figure sculpture of the Decorated Period were nearly wiped out. The remaining practitioners of this art were in so great a demand that the pressing time factor made use of the Perpendicular style more expedient. (Ziegler, 257)

McKisack observes, with no surprise, that the generation between the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 saw the occurrence of sporadic social disturbance in many sections of England. (336) The Statutes of Laborers have been offered as evidence of the awareness of workers of their importance and indicative, along with sumptuary laws, of movements to retain class distinctions and an aura of the past. Although there were repeated attempts made to enforce the statutes between 1351 and 1381, it became evident that landowners could not achieve a complete victory. (Oman, 27-28) A sort of migratory labor force emerged prepared at any moment to leave one job and move on to another if his wage was threatened by enforcement of the statutes. But with greater frequency villains of the manor opted to join in concerted efforts "to resist their lord, and refuse to execute customs and services of undisputed antiquity." (Ibid., 29) Discontent was no less among workers in the cities, where manufacturers and entrepreneurs endeavored to prevent journeymen from opening shops of their own after years of apprenticeship. (Ibid., 31)

An increasingly ineffectual monarch, reverses in the Hundred Years War which brought French and Castillian raids to the shores of England by 1377, and repeated poll tax levies aided in spreading discontent among the populace. It was the call for the poll tax of 1381 which finally instigated the Peasants' Revolt in that year. (Ibid., 32-33) John Ball, "the mad priest of Kent," one of the leaders of the rebellion, preached against the unjust nature of servitude. He based one of his most famous sermons on the couplet: (Knight, 190)

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?

Ball preached that all men were equal, and that the people of England now had a chance to restore their primitive freedom. (Oman, 39) Herein may lie a parallel revealing a psychological effect of the Black Death. It had been plain enough to see that the plague, while taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of common people, did not spare those of high degree. Among the dead were kings and princes and many learned and talented men and women of the day. Andronicus Comnenus, son of the Byzantine Emperor; the Queen of Aragon, Lenora of Portugal; Princess Maria of Aragon; the Count and Countess of Ribagorce; Ring Alfonso XI of Castile; and Joan of England, daughter of Edward III, on her way to marry Pedro the Cruel, son of Alfonso XI; all died during the Black Death. Others of note to die during the plague were Thomas Bradwardine, eminent scholar and Archbishop of Canterbury; the renowned scholar, Simone Fidati de Cascia; Cardinal Giovanni Colonna; painters Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, noted Sienese artist; the Florentine painter, Bernardo Daddi; Sir John Pulteney, a prominent London banker; and Sir John Montgomery, the first English captain of Calais. (Renouard, 112)

Death conquered all equally. No further explanation was necessary. It was a visual fact of everyday life which was brought home again and again, day after day, during the successive waves of plague which racked Europe. The plague might be explained as the work of fate by astrologers or blamed on perfidy, but to many people it was the wrath of God which had been visited on a sinful people. The clergy dwelt on this theme as priests used the corruption of man as the topic for countless sermons. Popular feeling could even be aroused against those who might have aided in man's down-fall and corruption. Thus the makers of gambling dice were able to survive only by converting to the making of rosary beads. (Chamberlin, iv)

Again and again the ubiquity of death was underlined. No one was immune. In Piers the Plowman we read: (Langland, 371-372)

Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed
Kynges and Knightes, Kaysers and Popes,
Learned and Lewde: he ne let no man stande;
That he hitte even, stirred never after.
Many a lovely ladle and her lemmans of knightes
Swouned and swelte for sorwe of Death's dyntes.

This age was marked by a doleful mood of misery, depression and anxiety--a sense of impending doom. There was a morbid preoccupation with death. Interests ran to depictions of Christ's passion, tombs, and illustrations of the human corpse. There were many paintings of the Last Judgment and the tortures of hell, "all depicted with ruthless realism and with an almost loving devotion to each repulsive detail." (Langer, 297) Besides the religious processions, pilgrimages, mass preaching, veneration of relics and reverence of, and appeals to, saints, there was also an underworld of impiety, immorality and desire for loose living. The years after the Black Death were perhaps no more evil than before, but there was a growing sense of guilt and fear of divine retribution.

O you people hard-hearted as stone
Who give all attention to worldly things,
As if you were going to live forever.
What will you say about your future
When you look upon the sudden violence
Of cruel death who is so wise and sage
Who slays all by stroke of pestilence,
Both young and old, of low and high lineage. (Warren, 2)

The Dance Macabree was looked on as affirmation that no man was immune from inevitable death and it pointed out the weakness of claims to higher station as valid criteria to set men apart from one another. The Dance of Death was the subject of many paintings and murals found in nearly every major city, as at Lubeck, Basle, Berne, Strasbourg, Minden, Paris, Dijon, and London. (Nohl, 87) The theme and symbolism are easily recognized. A long procession unfolds before the viewer, with the figure of death, depicted as a nearly flesh-less or decomposing corpse, (Warren, 1) hand in hand with pope, emperor, empress, king, queen, cardinal, lord, knight, burgher, merchant, etc. (See illustration of the Dance of Death) This only underscored the repeated theme and served as a graphic reminder of divine providence. (Boase, 241-242)

Society in England had been affected by the plague as much as the economy or the Church. In most cases the Black Death played the part of intensification of forces already in progress. Even in the persecution of the Jews one can see an outburst of pent-up hatred and fear. The plague had spread its tentacles into every facet of life, bringing out the most noble and the most base of human feelings.