Date of Award

6-12-2020

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and History

Organizational Unit

History

First Advisor

Daniel Melleno

Second Advisor

Carol Helstosky

Third Advisor

Robert Gilmor

Keywords

Black Death, Plague, Government regulation, Medieval history, Economics, Politics

Abstract

The Black Death caused a mass mortality in England, drastically affecting society. However, it was the aftermath of the plague that had the greatest impacts. The loss of life removed pressure on the economy due to population density, which gave the peasants opportunities to improve their lives. But that was a short-lived phenomenon; the peasantry ultimately remained repressed, as they had been prior to the plague. Edward III meddled in the English economy in the wake of the Black Death by introducing price and wage regulations. These efforts were to maintain the status quo in English society so that the king could fulfill his personal political priorities. This paper analyzes the conditions of the peasantry in the wake of the plague and the role of the Crown in England’s post-Black Death economy leading to the continued repression of the peasantry.

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.



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