How did the Black Death affect supply and demand?

How did the Black Death affect supply and demand?

As people died, it became harder and harder to find people to plow fields, harvest crops, and produce other goods and services. Peasants began to demand higher wages. European rulers tried to keep wages from rising.

What happened to jobs during the Black Death?

In England, more than 1300 villages were deserted between 1350 and 1500. 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. Labor was in such a short supply that Lords were forced to give better terms of tenure.

Why did trade decline during the Black Death?

Whatever the actual numbers, the massive loss of population – both human and animal – had major economic consequences. Those cities hit with the plague shrank, leading to a decrease in demand for goods and services and reduced productive capacity. As laborers became more scarce, they were able to demand higher wages.

How did the Black Death ruin the economy?

In the aftermath of the plague, the richest 10% of the population lost their grip on between 15% and 20% of overall wealth. This decline in inequality was long-lasting, as the richest 10% did not reach again the pre-Black Death level of control on overall wealth before the second half of the seventeenth century.

What was the result of the Black Death?

The Black Death (1348 – 1350) had killed many people. This meant there was a shortage of workers and wages went up. Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers (1351), which set a maximum wage and said that people would be punished with prison if they refused to work for that wage.

Where did people go to trade during the Black Death?

[Answer: First along the shipping routes to trade ports along the Mediterranean Sea and then overland from the ports into the European interior.] Have students act on their analysis by asking: How prevelant was the Black Plague in Europe in the mid-1300s? Turn on the Black Death Cities: Europe Animation Across Europe layer.

How did the Black Death improve the lives of medieval peasants?

Court records show that peasants and labourers frequently demanded more pay for their labour, left before the end of a contract, and abandoned one position if they were offered more money in another. They were charged for these offenses, but they kept doing them. As working conditions and salaries improved, so did the lifestyles of the peasants.

How did the Black Death make the rich richer?

This concentration of wealth greatly accelerated a pre-existing trend: the emergence of merchant entrepreneurs who combined trade in goods with their production on a scale only available to those with significant sums of capital. For example, silk, once imported from Asia and Byzantium, was now being produced in Europe.