After the Black Death Book

The eye-catching title of this 1985 social history begins with a misleading preposition, "after." Huppert explains that bubonic plague and depopulation remained recurring threats to Europe throughout the period (1347-1720) he studies. As Le Roy Ladurie observed, this was an era of stasis in Europe, of halting progress and frustrated ambition. Most Europeans lived in highly conservative rural villages, whose denizens carefully controlled their resources and populations. Few could imagine change as a positive good. Some economic growth did occur in the cities, where merchants and master artisans accumulated wealth and influence. Through their loans to royal governments and peasants, and their acquisition of rural land, these nascent bourgeois came to rival the nobility as a dominant social power. Aristocrats, meanwhile, lost both wealth and influence, as inflation eroded rents and royal governments curtailed their independent military power. Peasants, too, saw little improvement in their status, for even where serfdom ended, debt peonage replaced it. Some protested through riot and rebellion, almost always futilely.

There were a few bright spots in the lives of ordinary people. Rural women enjoyed more autonomy than their upper-class counterparts, thanks to delayed marriage (which allowed them to accumulate property) and their ability to veto unwanted marriage partners. Artisans and peasants enjoyed increased access to education during the early modern period, which broadened their socioeconomic horizons and fostered an increase in anti-clericalism. Europeans remained devout, but not necessarily devoted to their churches.

AFTER THE BLACK DEATH focuses on northwestern Europe - France, Germany, and England. I would expect some of Huppert's observations to apply to the Mediterranean and eastern Europe, but it would be interesting to supplement his book with works like EUROPE'S STEPPE FRONTIER (1964) and to compare western Europeans' experiences with those of post-reconquista Spain or the Ottoman frontier.