Richard Smith describes it as “England’s population was dealt a blow of enormous force with loss of life on a scale that has not since been experienced.” But adds “there is a steady accumulation of evidence indicating that demographic growth had faltered in many communities for more that two generations before the arrival of the plague.” Figure one clearly shows a decline from 1300 until the plague, the main reason I found for this population decline is famine.
In 1315-18 there was a famine that killed 10-15% of the population. This could account for the population decline prior to 1348. There were also severe food shortages from 1367-8 leading to famine conditions by 1369 and high food prices until 1373 so could also be partly responsible for the continuing decline through out the century. “There are obvious problems in distinguishing between years of epidemic diseases and years of hunger, and even greater difficulties in unravelling the cause of death when food shortages coincided with epidemics that were killing people independently.”
One of the reasons for this food shortage was that in 1300 England was overpopulated for its resources. With a population of 6 million there were a lot of mouths to feed and to do so marginal lands were being farmed that couldn’t provide enough and the fertile land was exhausted by the intensive farming. A row of bad harvests in the early fourteenth century left the population starving. Another series of wet summers in the 1420’s and 1438-40 would have helped slow recovery from the diseases. The effects of famine should not be underestimated as Botton states “for the north east it is argued that the consequence of famine were as important as those of the plague.” Although the plague was such a disaster it appears to have eclipsed the century, famine also had an important part play.
It is difficult however to see the extent of the damage famine did as I mentioned earlier there was often no cause of death written in the records although Dyer suggests examining the grain prices and death rates together. When grain prices rise so do the death rates suggesting it was a significant factor in the population decline. In Winchester when high grain prices appear [rising to over 7s a quarter] the number of heriots increase. It must also be remembered that an ill fed population would be far more susceptible to disease.
Of the three great causes of population decline that have been responsible for human deaths; famine, disease and war, the fourteenth century was surprisingly free of the third. The treaty of Bretigny was signed in 1360 and despite war breaking out again in 1369 it appears to have made little impact on population levels. Rigby claims that it may have affected those parts of France brutalized by troops but the war “had little lasting impact even on the populations of the regions where it was most fiercely fought.” Botton claims that the Hundred years war must have affected international trade but I can find no evidence that it made a serious impact on population levels.
“Demographers have grappled with the problem of why- indeed if- there were such high death rates from the first waves of plague, and with the possibility that other diseases, and perhaps famines, should be taken into account when trying to explain the most difficult of all problems: namely, why the population did not recover and replace itself in the later fourteenth and through most of the fifteenth century.” This was the most intriguing part of the population decline, previously the peasantry would replace their fallen numbers after an epidemic although not after a famine. Logically swelling the numbers after a famine would cause hardship through even more lack of food. After a disease however there was no reason not to have more children and the better standards of living they would have gained through less people would lead to earlier marriages [because land was more freely available so more couples could set up on their own] and therefore increased fertility. This did not happen after the Black Death.
The problem with examining this is “in contrast with the sparse evidence for mortality, direct measures of fertility appear to be virtually nonexistent.” There are no figures for birth rates but there are replacement rates as shown in figure 2. Rather than showing the numbers of sons and daughters born they show the number of sons surviving their fathers. These figures show a decrease in the early part of the century in sons succeeding their fathers but then a recovery. After the plague however there is a steep decline, some of this may be due to migration as sons left to find better lands rather than waiting to inherit.
One explanation for this low fertility is the psychological shock of the Black Death. Bailey suggests that it was the sheer horror of the epidemics that made people choose not to have more children and so preserve the extra status and privileges that had been bought about by the severely reduced numbers.
Work changed dramatically in this period as population dropped and labour was in greater demand. The iron and cloth industry grew greatly at this time and although the lead and tin industries showed some decline they still employed the same proportion of the population as they had before. With fewer men to do the work, women filled the gap in the labour market. There was also an increase in servitude as people opted to become servants on annual contracts. This is strange as there are many complaints from landowners that they couldn’t get the peasants to take on land on an annual contract yet the numbers of young people going into service increased. In Rutland 20% of the households had servants. Bailey refutes this saying it is necessary therefore for evidence that women ceased working causing the increase in fertility later on. As the population recovered that meant more men so the women were no longer needed to work so got pushed out. In the early sixteenth century they were banned from becoming apprentices in London. I feel this makes a valid argument as women started to marry later in some areas because they could earn good wages at work and could afford to wait a bit longer therefore causing decreased fertility. However in some rural areas the couples did marry earlier because of increased availability of land but this had been so since before the plague due to the deaths during the famines earlier in the century. They could not start marrying any earlier as the famines had made land available so at the time of the plague women were already marrying as early as possible.
Another reason for the later marriages is that there were fewer men for the women to marry. The plague hit the male population hardest, when it reached America the death rates were 2:1. To 100 women there were 95.7 men in Carlisle, 92.9 in Sheffield and 85.6 in Shrewsbury. This shows that women had to wait longer because there were fewer men, so also some wouldn’t marry at all and the number of widows remarrying decreased as well. Although there was still a marriage rate of 60%, marriages now took place roughly a decade later than earlier in this period.
It is hard to say which group the Black Death hit hardest as there seems to be some disagreement. The Anonimalle and Meaux chronicles described it as “a plague of children.” And Thomas Walsingham called it “a great pestilence which affected men more than women.” Hatcher’s study of Christ Church, Canterbury between 1373 and 1450 discovered that the plague did affect the younger monks more than older ones [unfortunately we can not compare women versus men death ratios in this study]. This meant not just high death rates at the time but as it created an aging population it meant lower birth rates later on.
In seven manors in the south [including Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Norfolk, central Essex] 50% left no heir and 30% left no children. This was an exceptionally low amount of children. Although I don’t think it is a main reason for the low fertility I think it must be considered that the fertility rate may not have dropped very drastically at all. In Scarborough there were between 30- 68 births a year and on average 30 deaths. However in 1438 there were 161 deaths in total totally overtaking the birth rate. I think it must be taken in to account that the population may have kept breeding at a reasonable level but the death rates were so enormous they couldn’t compete and particularly as they hit hard at the young population it meant later the fertility rates were bound to fall as less people were left. However the evidence for less and later marriages means that probably both were a contributing factor. Poos’s detailed study of Essex between 1350 and 1525 did discover “a phase of somewhat higher mortality and lower fertility than the century and a half that followed” which confirms that fertility rates did actually drop.
It is fairly simple to see that the main causes of the population decline in this period were the Black Death, famine and changing attitudes to nuptials and fertility. However the lack of direct evidence makes it very difficult to assess the contribution each one made to the problem. Increased migration complicates the issue as it is difficult to see how many men left heirs if their children have left the village and choose not inherit. It is important to remember that although the Black Death had an astounding impact on the population there were other causes for the crisis.
Bibliography.
Secondary sources.
1. Bailey M and Hatcher J “Modelling the middle ages, The history and theory of England’s economic development” Oxford, 2001
2. Dyer C “Standards of Living in the later middle ages, social change in England c1200-1400” Cambridge, 1989
3. Gregg P “Black death to industrial revolution, A social and economic history of England” London, 1976
4. Hatcher J “Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530” London, 1977
5. Howell C “Land, family and inheritance in transition: Kibworth Harcourt 1280-1700” Cambridge, 1985
6. Rigby S H “English society in the later middle ages, class status and gender” Basingstoke 1995
Journals/ articles
7. Bailey M “Demographic decline in late medieval England” Economic History review 49:1 [1996]
8. Botton J “The world turned upside down” from Ormrod M and Lindley P [eds] “The Black Death in England” Stamford, 1996
9. Smith R “Human Resources” from Astill G and Grant A [eds] “The countryside of medieval England” Oxford, 1988
Appendices.
Hatcher J “Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530” London, 1977 p21
Bailey M “Demographic decline in late medieval England” Economic History review 49:1 [1996] p1
Botton J “The world turned upside down” from Ormrod M and Lindley P [eds] “The Black Death in England” Stamford, 1996 p17
Gregg P “Black death to industrial revolution, A social and economic history of England” London, 1976 p5
Hatcher J “Plague, Population and the English Economy” London, 1977 p23
Smith R “Human Resources” from Astill G and Grant A [eds] “The countryside of medieval England” Oxford, 19889 p208
Dyer C “Standards of Living in the later middle ages, social change in England c1200-1400” Cambridge, 1989 p140
Botton J “The world turned upside down” from Ormrod M and Lindley P [eds] “The Black Death in England” Stamford, 1996 p33
Dyer C “Standards of Living in the later middle ages” Cambridge, 1989 p270
Rigby S H “English society in the later middle ages, class status and gender” Basingstoke 19956 p110
Botton J “The world turned upside down” from Ormrod M and Lindley P [eds] “The Black Death in England” Stamford, 1996 p18
Bailey M “Demographic decline in late medieval England” Economic History review 49:1 [1996] p4
Rigby S H “English society in the later middle ages, class status and gender” Basingstoke 1995 p170
Botton J “The world turned upside down” from Ormrod M and Lindley P [eds] “The Black Death in England” Stamford, 1996 p30
Bailey M “Demographic decline in late medieval England” Economic History review 49:1 [1996] p5
