The Black Death as a reset

Plague spread along the trade routes from Asia to the Mediterranean and Europe, killing about 25 million people in Europe between 1347 and 1351 by the common estimate and 50 million, 60 per cent, by Ole Benedictow's; the figures are disputed. With workers scarce, landlords turned labour services into wages and money rents and wages rose; England's Statute of Labourers (1351) tried to freeze wages at pre-plague levels and bind workers to employers, feeding the grievances of the Peasants' Revolt (1381), and in Strasbourg on 14 February 1349 some 2,000 Jews were burned and every debt owed to them cancelled.

The mechanism

RELEASE

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
• Letter eraTHE CAPTURE 313 to 1302
• SourcesRECORD — Britannica, 'Black Death'; O. J. Benedictow, 'The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever', History Today 55:3 (2005); Britannica, 'Statute of Labourers'; Britannica, 'Peasants' Revolt'; Jacob von Königshofen's chronicle (trans. J. R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World), Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations · checked 19 September: Britannica (read in a browser; WebFetch is refused by the site), 'Black Death'; O. J. Benedictow, History Today 55:3 (2005) (read in a browser); Jacob von Konigshofen on Strasbourg (trans. J. R. Marcus), Fordham Internet Jewish History Sourcebook; Wikipedia, 'Ordinance of Labourers 1349' / 'Statute of Labourers 1351' (1346 wage level); search also surfaced Bailey, Economic History Review 2025