Talk:Black Death in England

Black Death in England received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Praise

Splendid job!--Wetman (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Lampman (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Efforts at control

I'm certainly no expert on this, but some information on how the disease was controlled (aside from the superstitious remedies) might be helpful. 207.238.52.162 (talk) 20:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Change to opening paragraph

I'm deleting the "persecution of Jews to name a couple" from the introduction. As the article later points out, persecution of Jews did not happen because it was impossible; the Jews were expelled from England over fifty years before the Black Death arrived in England. Mentioning it so early in the article, without the explanation, seems unnecessary and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Throwawaygull (talk • contribs) 01:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources needed for Beak doctor costume article

A vigorous discussion is currently under way at Talk:Beak doctor costume about the historical use of the phrase 'beak doctor', and whether said costume was worn before the seventeenth century. I've not been able to find any reliable sources which show that the costume was worn before 1619, and therefore thought I'd ask here if anyone knew of any. Any other contributions, either to the discussion or the article, would be welcome.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 11:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a question...

On the article, I see that the Medical Practice heading is in bold. Is there a reason why this is the case? I was going to remove that but I wasn't sure if it was in bold because it's something of importance for the article or something. --BrydoF1989 (talk) 19:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ziegler source Although there are several footnotes attributed to Ziegler, there is no source citation that gives more than his last name. It would be helpful if the full citation were listed in the first use. I'm assuming that it's a book written in 1969, but I can't be certain - and that information is what I gleaned from GoodReads. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.132.197.149 (talk) 02:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New research contradicts common knowledge. Pneumonic plague not bubonic they say

The Guardian says: "Evidence from skulls in east London shows plague had to have been airborne to spread so quickly"

See: Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers

If confirmed would require a rewrite of the article. It is a huge shift in what we considered common knowledge for all these years. -- Alexf^(talk) 02:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did (real) wages really rise after the Black Death? & if so why?

Under Consequences, the present article states: "Among the most immediate consequences of the Black Death in England was a shortage of farm labour, and a corresponding rise in wages." This source https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/15748.html refers to this wage rise as a myth. And if there were fewer people to work weren't there also fewer people eating and wanting other goods and services? Possibly the answer lies in the section Social distribution, and that the people tending to survive were ones who tended to consume more, but if so, I think this should be made explicit and referenced.

I have just come across a separate WP article Consequences of the Black Death which states "Wages of labourers were high, but the rise in nominal wages following the Black Death was swamped by post-Plague inflation, so that real wages fell." (with a reference to what seems to be the same source I have given above, but with a different URL https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/munro-04-04.html ) and this may be the answer, but I do not want to change the present article without further investigation. (I will probably cross-link to that other article though.) FrankSier (talk) 16:36, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One of the outcomes of the Black Death was a shortage of skilled labour. This was probably the main driver for the end of feudalism. Workers were freed from their historical ties and were better able to negotiate their wages with any employer (rather than just be tied to the one). I think that this paper gives a wider perspective, than the one you quote http://www.academia.edu/5131350/The_Black_Death_resulting_in_the_breakdown_of_Feudalism_Medieval_England_14th_Century Wilfridselsey (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The argument I find most relevant in that article is "the plague’s inexorable progress led many to question established values and institution[s]". The idea of a simple shortage of labour (skilled or otherwise) I still do not see (with a smaller population, less food was needed; and also there would be less need to use more marginal land, so producing a given amount of food would now require less labour than before, which would lead to a lower demand for labour).

A lower population means there is now more land per person on average, which I could see could lead to greater mobility of labour; a landowner might find themselves with more land than they have workers to work, and might have an incentive to offer higher wages, and possibly produce a surplus of food that could be sold on a profit. I suppose this could be termed a "shortage of labour", but I think it would be better described as "increased opportunities for employment and production of food and other things". But, if I am correct, I am not clear why it is not described that way in the sources (not that I have come across anyway). FrankSier (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]