Black Death, Bridbury article. Simply a review of A.R. Bridbury's article "The Black Death" in the Economic History Review.

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Bridbury ArticleIn A.R. Bridbury's article The Black Death in the Economic History Review, he shows the main problems that are created and solved by the Black Death on the English economy and population. He has authored several historical economic works before such as The English Economy from Bede to the Reformation (1992). He also taught at the London School of Economics where he was in charge of the medieval section of Economic History. In this work in the Economic History Review, he challenges existing thought on how the Black Death transformed the economic state of Europe concerning the demesne farming system and forms the basis for modern thought on the subject.

The primary point of the article is how the continued Plagues between 1348, 1361, and 1368-69 eventually lowered the population to the point that labor shortages forced a reform in wages. This is done by analyzing the harvests and subsequent wages earned by demesne farmers before, during, and after the culmination of major plagues.

His theory is supported by continuing price and wage conformity, whether it is up or down, through this time until after the final plague where grain prices fell yet wages stayed high in the year 1375. The plagues effect on the population was not felt on labor rates previous to this because of how high the population was before the 1348 plague. It took three separate occurrences of the plague to lower the population to a level that the farmers could demand adequate compensation without fear of reprisal from the land owners. Bridbury goes on to say that when reprisal did come from the land owners in the form of enforcing previous wage laws, the farmers rose up in the revolt of 1381. Because of the rise in wages and the lack of...