The Plague and Social Change

The climax of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

On the heels of the recent news article about how victims of the Bubonic Plague still exist in significant numbers today, we have this article on how the Plague in the 14th century wrought huge changes on the fabric of society.

The radical shift in the numbers of the workforce and in the population of consumers threw off the balance that a stable society requires. Some goods were in great demand, there being fewer laborers to make things. Some consumer goods were in great supply, there being fewer consumers.

What the article above, from medievalists.net (a website I strongly recommend ), has just covered this week, DailyMedieval looked at back when the Occupy movement was first going strong in the United States.

The first installment briefly explained the philosophy behind the Peasants' Revolt.
The second explained some of the other factors that ruled up the lower classes.
Part three described the prominent characters that spurred on the movement.
Part four described the destruction caused in London by the Revolt.
Part five explains how the Revolt was quelled; the illustration above shows the "death" of the movement when its leader was killed during a parlay.