The Black Death in Britain
History · Key Stage 2 · The School
Arriving on a ship, 1348
The BLACK DEATH reached England in 1348, carried by trading ships. It spread fast, along roads and rivers, from town to town. Nobody at the time understood what caused it, or how to stop it.
What it actually was
We now know it was mostly bubonic plague, spread by fleas living on black rats. Symptoms included fever and painful swellings. Without knowing about germs, people at the time blamed bad air, sin, or poisoned wells. None of those explanations were true, but none seemed less likely than the real cause either.
A third to a half of everyone
Historians estimate the plague killed somewhere between a third and a half of England's population within about two years. Many villages were left with too few people to farm all their land. Priests, doctors and gravediggers died in huge numbers too, since they were most exposed to the sick.
Philip Ziegler tells of one ploughman at Cuxham, a village in Oxfordshire. Ziegler gives his cash pay before the plague as 2 shillings a year. With so many workers dead, those left could ask for more. In 1349 the king ordered workers to take only their old pay. Even so, his pay rose. In 1350 to 1351 his cash pay reached as much as 10 shillings and 6 pence. Ziegler says these cash figures leave out changes in the goods he was paid. He thinks his real pay that year was nearer half of that figure. He adds that the 2 shillings was only a small part of his whole pay. In 1351 Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers. It said pay should stay at its old level. Then his cash pay fell back. From 1353 to 1359 it was 7 shillings and 6 pence. Historians disagree about how much the laws helped. Ziegler says they did most of what they set out to do, but not all the fall was their doing. David Routt says they perhaps slowed pay rises for a time. Either way, his cash pay stayed more than three times its old level.