The plague did more than just devastate the medieval population. It caused a substantial change in the economy and society in all areas of the world.

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The precise demographic impact of the disease in the Middle East is impossible to calculate. Mortality

was particularly high in rural areas, including significant areas of Palestine and Syria. Many surviving

rural people fled, leaving their fields and crops, and entire rural provinces are recorded as being totally

depopulated. Surviving records in some cities reveal a devastating number of deaths. The 1348

outbreak in Gaza left an estimated 10,000 people dead, while Aleppo recorded a death rate of 500 a

day during the same year. In Damascus, at the  disease's peak in September and October 1348, a

thousand deaths were recorded every day, with overall mortality estimated at between 25 and 38

percent. Syria lost a total of 400,000 people by the time the epidemic subsided in March 1349. In

contrast to some higher mortality estimates in Asia and Europe, scholars believe the mortality rate in

the Middle East was less than one-third of the total population, with higher rates in selected areas.  

 

The plague did more than just devastate the medieval population. It caused a substantial change in

the economy and society in all areas of the world. Economic historians have concluded that the Black

Death began during a recession in the European economy that had been under way since the

beginning of the century, and only served to worsen it. The Black Death should have opened the way

to increased peasant prosperity. Europe had been overpopulated before the plague, and a reduction of

thirty percent to fifty percent of the population should have meant less competition for resources.

There was more available land and food, and higher wages. The great population loss brought

economic changes based on increased social mobility, as depopulation further eroded the peasants'

already weakened obligations to remain on the land.  

 

In Western Europe, the sudden scarcity of cheap labor provided an incentive for landlords to compete

for peasants with wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some argue, represents the roots of

capitalism. The resulting social upheaval caused  the Renaissance and even Reformation. In many

ways the Black Death improved the situation of surviving peasants. In Western Europe, because of the

shortage of labor, they were in more demand and had more power. Because of the reduced

population, there was more fertile land available. However, the benefits would not be fully realized

until 1470, nearly 120 years later, when overall population levels finally began to rise again.

 

The death of so many people concentrated wealth  in the hands of survivors. In many cases, those

workers who remained alive could earn up to five times what they had earned before the plague. In

the towns, plague had the effect of consolidating wealth somewhat, especially among the middle class.

The drop in population was accompanied by a corresponding rise in per capita wealth. There where

large increases in spending in the towns at this time. Profits, however, for property owners and

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merchants declined as they found themselves having to pay higher wages and getting less when they

sold their products. Governments were forced to adjust to the social disruption caused by plague. First

local governments, and then in the case of England, the monarchy, attempted to regulate the

movement and price of foodstuffs as well as wages paid to laborers. The English Statute of Laborers of

1351 tried to hold wages at pre-plague levels. Similar statutes were passed in various parts of France,

Germany,  and  Italy.  Property  owners  tried  to  collect  higher  fees  from  tenant  farmers ...

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