Economic and Social Changes in Europe

CLIMATE CHANGE and PLAGUE in the FOURTEENTH CENTURY HIST 1301 | History Economic and Social Changes in Europe During the course of the fourteenth century, social structures and hierarchies that characterised most of the mediaeval period, particularly in western Europe, broke down or developed in the same way as political institutions and empires. While the political and social structure known as feudalism started to wane in the countryside, the merchant class in many mediaeval towns started to amass greater money and influence. A tiny, privileged class of inherited landowners who controlled the lives of the serfs, or landworkers, who were peasants, had characterised feudalism. Serfs paid labour rent in return for this privilege, which usually kept them enslaved to the land and left them with little money to spare. But after the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, and the Great Famine, this reliant connection started to fall apart. People were choosing more and more to leave the places they had previously been tied to due to severe depopulation and the loss of resources necessary for survival. In order to lure labourers who could replace the dead, landowners abroad offered more advantageous terms of labour, which caused peasants to abandon the feudal estates on which their families had lived for centuries. A large number of peasants also fled the countryside in search of wage labour and jobs in the cities, which were facing severe labour shortages due to the epidemic's startling death toll. Peasants who stayed in the countryside, particularly the men, were now able to pressure their employers for more wages and rights since there was such a strong demand for labour. But the peasantry and common people did not suddenly gain power at the expense of the great landlords. By enacting legislation that set salaries at levels seen prior to the Black Death, European monarchs aimed to maintain the status quo and guarantee that the aristocracy had enough access to peasant labour. An English statute enacted in 1349 mandated that workers accept salaries equivalent to what they would have received in 1346. A mere two years afterward, the 1351 Statute of Labourers in England mandated that all jobless and physically fit individuals below sixty years of age do any job that was presented to them. Other parts of Europe passed laws along similar lines. Rules limiting guild membership for craftsmen wishing to practise their skills were frequently loosened in towns, where labour shortages were also an issue, making it simpler for newcomers to participate in craft production. In an effort to meet the need for labour, guild masters frequently reduced the length of apprenticeships, which may have drawn eager young men to their establishments. But the same masters also frequently altered the guild's bylaws to restrict mastery to the sons and sons-in-law of the existing masters. Hence, the industrious peasant might be able to secure an apprenticeship in a trade, but he would not be able to rise to the top and turn into a self-sufficient master or someone else's employer. Peasants, emboldened by the power shift and incensed by the nobles' attempt to curtail their economic prospects, began uprisings that further undermined the foundations of feudalism by challenging the lords' customary rights. Not only did peasants participate in these popular revolts, like the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and the Jacquerie (a French word for a specific type of garment that came to be associated with peasants and peasant uprisings) of northern France in 1358, but merchants, artisans, and other common people were also involved. Even while the landowning elites won most of these conflicts in the end, their position was quickly shifting. Their combined wealth fell sharply as fewer individuals were available to farm their property and bring in money. More strong monarchs and developing urban economies that supported the expansion of towns and cities were also displacing the influence of regional nobility and landlords. Additionally, monarchs became increasingly reliant on the merchant class to provide services that needed education due to the Black Death's widespread deaths among the clergy. Some of the customary advantages and prerogatives of the landed gentry were gradually undermined by the growing importance of the merchant class that followed and the increasing centralization of monarchical authority. By the end of the fourteenth century, England and France had started to build the framework for the centralised modern nation-state that would eventually displace the power of the nobility, even though some parts of the continent—especially the German territories of the Holy Roman Empire—remain a largely decentralised and fragmented collection of principalities. The Hundred Years' War served as another catalyst for the establishment of centralised monarchs and the decline in the power of the noble class. The character of battle was altered, and the aristocrats' traditional military function as lavishly equipped and trained cavalry leaders was diminished, in addition to strengthening nascent ideas of national identity. The feudal era's cavalry-focused armies were virtually rendered obsolete by the use of new weaponry and strategies because mounted knights could be defeated by longbowwielding professional standing armies funded by kings. Thus, the status of social elites and the old feudal prerogatives were undermined by the new kind of combat. Due to their ability to receive a regular income for their military duty and a portion of the spoils of war, peasants were also given the opportunity for social mobility with the rise of professional armies. Feudalism ultimately failed due to a variety of factors including depopulation, changing military tactics, and the consolidation of monarchical authority. The feudal division between commoners, serfs, nobles, and the wealthiest landowners started to dissolve with the rise of centralised monarchical bureaucracies and enhanced social mobility, even if significant socioeconomic gaps remained after it declined.