The Black Death

Wage Increases in the Post-Plague Economy

The decades following the Black Death witnessed the most dramatic increase in real wages in European history before the Industrial Revolution. The labour shortages created by mass mortality gave workers unprecedented bargaining power, and the resulting wage increases transformed the living standards of the labouring classes and the economic calculations of employers across every sector of the medieval economy.

The Evidence for Wage Increases

The evidence for post-plague wage increases comes from a variety of sources: manorial account rolls, which recorded the wages paid to agricultural workers; municipal records, which documented the pay of urban artisans and labourers; and royal and ecclesiastical accounts, which recorded the costs of construction projects and other enterprises.

In England, the evidence is particularly detailed. The manorial accounts of individual estates record the daily or weekly wages paid to reapers, ploughmen, thatchers, carpenters, and other workers. These records show that wages rose by fifty to one hundred percent in the decades following the plague. A carpenter who earned two pence per day before the plague might earn three or four pence by the 1370s. A reaper who earned three pence per day might earn five or six.

Similar patterns are documented in France, the Low Countries, Italy, and the German lands. The consistency of the evidence across regions and sectors confirms that the wage increases were a general phenomenon, driven by the universal scarcity of labour rather than by local or sectoral factors.

Nominal vs. Real Wages

The distinction between nominal wages (the amount of money paid) and real wages (the purchasing power of that money) is critical to understanding the post-plague economy. Nominal wages rose significantly, but real wages rose even more dramatically, because the prices of many goods fell as demand contracted.

The price of grain, the staple food of the medieval diet, fell in the decades following the plague. With fewer mouths to feed, the demand for grain decreased, and the price dropped accordingly. The price of manufactured goods also fell in some sectors, as the reduced population meant less demand for clothing, tools, and household goods.

The combination of rising nominal wages and falling prices meant that the real wages of workers — the amount of food, clothing, and other goods that their wages could buy — increased by a factor of two or more in the decades following the plague. The economic historian Robert Allen has calculated that the real wages of English building workers roughly doubled in the century after the Black Death — though the rise came only from the later 1370s onward rather than immediately — reaching a late-medieval peak that was not matched again until the nineteenth century.

The Impact on Living Standards

The increase in real wages translated into a significant improvement in living standards for the labouring classes. Workers who had previously subsisted on a diet of bread, pottage, and ale could now afford to eat meat, cheese, and fish. They could buy better clothing — woollen cloth rather than rough linen — and could afford better housing.

The improvement in living standards was noted by contemporary observers, many of whom viewed it with alarm. The chronicler Henry Knighton complained that the lesser people had grown so self-important that even the greatest lord struggled to hire a servant except at an excessive wage. The sumptuary laws enacted by governments across Europe — which attempted to restrict the wearing of certain fabrics and the consumption of certain foods to specific social classes — reflect the anxiety of the elite about the erosion of traditional social distinctions.

The Response of Governments

Governments across Europe attempted to control wage increases through legislation. England’s Statute of Labourers (1351) was the most famous example, but similar laws were enacted in France, the German lands, Italy, and elsewhere. These laws attempted to freeze wages at pre-plague levels and to prohibit workers from demanding higher pay.

The legislation was largely ineffective. The economic forces driving wage increases — the fundamental scarcity of labour — were too powerful to be controlled by law. Workers flouted the statutes with impunity, and employers, desperate for labour, were willing to pay the higher wages despite the legal prohibitions. The enforcement of the statutes was sporadic and inconsistent, and the penalties for violation were often too small to deter offenders.

However, the legislation was not without consequences. The attempt to control wages generated resentment among workers, who saw the statutes as an unjust attempt to deprive them of the benefits of the new economic conditions. This resentment contributed to the social unrest that characterised the post-plague period, including the Peasants’ Revolt in England (1381) and the Jacquerie in France (1358).

The Duration of High Wages

The high wages of the post-plague period persisted for several generations. The recurring waves of plague that struck Europe in the 1360s, 1370s, and beyond prevented demographic recovery and ensured that labour remained scarce. Real wages in England remained at or near their post-plague peak throughout the fifteenth century, only beginning to decline in the early sixteenth century as the population recovered and the labour market tightened.

The persistence of high wages had significant long-term consequences. It encouraged the adoption of labour-saving technologies and production methods, as employers sought to reduce their dependence on expensive workers. It stimulated the shift from labour-intensive to capital-intensive agriculture, as landlords replaced grain farming with pastoral agriculture. And it contributed to the gradual erosion of the feudal system, as the economic basis of serfdom — cheap, bound labour — was undermined by the market.