“How the Black Death Made Life Better | Center for the Humanities - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom” plus 1 more

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How the Black Death Made Life Better | Center for the Humanities - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:00 PM PDT "[The] mortality destroyed more than a third of the men, women, and children … such a shortage of workers ensued that the humble turned up their noses at employment, and could scarcely be persuaded to serve the eminent unless for triple wages. … As a result, churchmen, knights and other worthies have been forced to thresh their corn, plough the land and perform every other unskilled task if they are to make their own bread." — Account of the Black Death in the cathedral priory chronicle at Rochester (written no later than 1350) In its entry on the Black Death, the 1347–50 outbreak of bubonic plague that killed at least a third of Europe's population, this chronicle from the English city of Rochester includes among its harrowing details a seemingly trivial lament: Aristocrats and high clergymen not only had to pay triple wages to those toiling in their fields, but, even worse, they themselves had to perform manual labor. Curiously, the documentary record, which provides ample evidence that workers did demand and receive higher wages (on which more below), contains in contrast scant evidence that "worthies" ever dirtied their hands with fieldwork. Even if (or especially as) phantasms, however, these sickle-wielding lords reveal the importance of imagined possibilities in shaping pandemic responses. The eminent refused to take on menial roles, not because they could not perform these "unskilled" tasks, but because to do so would be unworthy of their social rank, and it was unthinkable to abandon that social and labor hierarchy. Farm work was peasant work, whether performed by serfs bound to a particular manor, tenant farmers or wage laborers hired by the year or the season. But the staggering mortality of the Black Death reduced this previously sufficient peasant population sharply enough to create a severe labor shortage. What happened next has been the subject of an enormous amount of scholarship, particularly in the case of England, where the large extant body of sources such as chronicles, legislation, court cases and manorial account books provides rich material for studying the social and economic changes in the wake of the Black Death. Scholars disagree about how and how much things changed, but they share a tendency to describe these changes in oddly passive terms: wages rose, inequality decreased, feudalism ended. Yet there was a great deal of deliberate (in)action behind these developments. Rather than supply some of the needed labor themselves, landowners turned to solutions that might produce the kind of world they were capable of imagining. In England they created first the Ordinance (1349) and then the Statute (1351) of Labourers, which froze wages at pre-plague levels, compelled workers not otherwise engaged in fixed, long-term employment into year-long contracts with the first employer who demanded it, and established penalties to ensure compliance. As Jane Whittle has noted, in putting their efforts behind the control of waged labor rather than the retrenchment of (already declining) serfdom, rural landowners sought a "thinkable" resolution to this impasse: They would use the existing market for labor, but control the terms of exchange. Many peasants, however, refused to play their assigned role of deferential wage earner. Court records from 1352, for example, show that "Edward le Taillour of Wootton, employee of the prior and convent of Bradenstoke … left his employment before the feast of St Nicholas [6 December] without permission or reasonable cause, contrary to statute," and that John Death of Wroughton demanded an "excess" of six shillings eightpence for reaping John Lovel's corn. Recalcitrant laborers remained a problem in 1374, when "John Fisshere, William Theker, William Furnes, John Dyker, Gilbert Chyld, Alan Tasker, Stephen Lang, John Hardlad, Cecilia Ka, Joan daughter of Henry Couper, Matillis de Ely, Alice wife of Simon Souter, all of Bardney, labourers, refused to work [for the Abbot of Bardney at the stipulated wages], and on the same day they left the town to get higher wages elsewhere, in contempt of the king and contrary to statute." With many state governments reducing unemployment benefits to push workers to fill open jobs, the aim, like England after the Black Death, is to reinstate and reinforce previous social and labor hierarchies, regardless of whose work has actually been "essential" over the past 16 months.  These records attest to some individuals' appreciation of the increased value of their labor in the new marketplace created by mass death. The number and geographical range of these individual acts of defiance, moreover, suggest a vibrant, if unrecorded, current of  communal discussions, rumors and calculations that supported such individual agency. In the face of official intransigence, workers pushed for higher wages and greater mobility, which they received because "churchmen, knights, and other worthies" were willing to make these concessions, rather than have to work the fields and herd the sheep themselves. As a result, wages rose, inequality lessened … and the social and labor hierarchies remained the same. Thankfully, the current COVID-19 pandemic is vastly less lethal than the mid 14th-century bubonic plague, and we can hope that people around the world do not experience the loss of human life on the same scale. What the Black Death does share with our present moment is the issue of labor and the limits drawn by the negative space of the unthinkable. The people who prospered under the pre-pandemic system are now deciding what "back to normal" looks like and how we get there. With many state governments reducing unemployment benefits to push workers to fill open jobs, the aim, like England after the Black Death, is to reinstate and reinforce previous social and labor hierarchies, regardless of whose work has actually been "essential" over the past 16 months. Workers in specific circumstances and with individual or collective determination might negotiate better labor conditions or higher wages, but these concessions' permanance remains in the hands of employers who saw no reason to implement them prior to the pandemic. As historians Ada Palmer and Eleanor Janega have argued, whatever gains peasants and artisans obtained in the decades after the Black Death did not survive the following centuries. Elites successfully reclaimed a greater share of wealth and income, hierarchies ossified, and laborers' power diminished. Simply stating that English society was changed by the Black Death not only discounts the people who did the changing, but also ignores the insufficiencies of the changes they produced. The Rochester chronicler raised the specter of knights and churchmen toiling in the fields to evoke the unthinkable scale of the disaster, and then refused to contemplate this radically different social order any further. We are not the Rochester chronicler. How can we think the unthinkable — about safety and health, racial justice, gender roles, immigration status, access to childcare, and the dignity, autonomy and worth of labor — for our own post-pandemic future? All quoted material from Rosemary Horrox, ed., The Black Death (Manchester University Press, 1994). Headline image: Medieval illustration of men harvesting wheat with reaping-hooks, on a calendar page for August, circa 1310. Queen Mary's Psalter (Ms. Royal 2. B. VII), fol. 78v, The British Library.

Metal Detectorist Discovers Black Death-Period Coins | Smart News - Smithsonian Magazine Posted: 28 Jun 2021 04:00 AM PDT An English metal detectorist has discovered two rare gold coins dating back to the 14th century. As Stuart Anderson reports for the Eastern Daily Press, the treasure hunter unearthed the coins in Reepham, a small town in southwest England, in 2019. Together, both coins are worth an estimated £12,000 ($16,650) and someone "at the top of society" probably owned them, writes BBC News. "It seems likely that both coins went into the ground at the same time, either as part of a purse loss or as part of a concealed hoard," the United Kingdom's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) notes in a statement. One of the finds was a 23-karat gold leopard, which was minted in 1344, and the other coin was a type of noble, which was minted in 1351 or 1352. Both pieces portray Edward III, who tried to bring gold coinage to England in 1344. The leopard coin, also known as a half florin, was only minted from January to July 1344. Though the 0.12-ounce medallion is considered valuable now, this type of currency was considered a "failure" when it was initially created because the costs of producing the coins were too high; the value given to them was also disproportionate to the cost of silver, per the statement. According to Live Science's Laura Geggel, Edward III introduced new coins from 1344 to 1351 to solve these issues, and craftsmen minted the 0.3-ounce noble during this period. Both coins were relatively well preserved and only had slight scratches, likely a result of agricultural activity. If a local coroner (an independent legal authority) reviews the discoveries, then they may be classified as "treasures," a term that "refers to bonafide, often metal artifacts that meet … specific archaeological criteria" outlined by the PAS, notes Laura Geggel for Live Science in a separate article. In the U.K., amateur treasure hunters are required to hand their finds over to local authorities. Current guidelines define treasure relatively strictly, but as Caroline Davies reported for the Guardian last December, the U.K. government is working to expand these parameters to better protect the country's national heritage items. Objects designated as treasure become the property of the state and may be displayed at national or local museums. These finds were particularly notable because "hardly any have survived," notes BBC News. The coins may help experts to understand historical changes to English currency after the Norman Conquest. "The royal treasury might talk in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, but the physical reality was sacks of silver pennies," archaeologist Helen Geake tells BBC News. "Then Edward III decided to reintroduce the first gold coins in England since the Anglo-Saxon era—and no-one knows why." Eventually, England's government melted down most of the leopards and recast them. Once the leopard was taken out of circulation, officials replaced it with the noble, which was worth six shillings and eight pence, according to BBC News. "Almost none [of the leopards] survived because they were all pulled back in and reminted, and this is the first time that we know of that one has been found with another coin," Geake tells the Eastern Daily Press. "It implies that this leopard is either in circulation or being held onto by someone who thinks it is worth it, which is weird behavior." Scholars believe that one reason for the leopard's uncharacteristically long circulation is that the Black Death came to England in the late 1340s and killed at least one third of the population, which would have distracted government authorities from less immediate issues like coin circulation. "Usually, the authorities would be keen to remove a withdrawn coin as soon as possible," but the Black Death probably prevented this from happening, Geake tells Live Science.

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