The Black Death and recurring plague during the late Middle Ages in the County of Hainaut: Differential impact and diverging recovery

Abstract

Few historical relationships have as intimate or disruptive as that between humans and infectious disease. Diseases have influenced the course of human history from the earliest times and severe epidemics have been credited by historians for shaping long-term societal trajectories. No single epidemic stands out more in this regard than the mid-fourteenth century Black Death, which killed around half the European population, making it one of the greatest mortality crises ever. Post-Black Death Europe has long been described as a place fraught with long-lasting demographic collapse and economic decline. However, historians no longer accept any direct association of plague with long-term decay, instead they focus on significant regional and chronological divergences. For instance, it is commonly accepted that the Black Death and recurring plagues of the Second Pandemic did not have equitable demographic consequences across the whole of Europe. While some European regions experienced long-term stagnation, others witnessed comparatively quick and full recoveries. However, the causal mechanisms behind these regionally diverging population trends, remain ill-understood. To understand these mechanisms, my research focuses on the diverging demographic trajectories of three distinct regions in the late medieval county of Hainaut in the wake of the Black Death. The central question this dissertation poses, is whether demographic divergence was caused primarily by regional differences in plague mortality, or whether societal processes dictated diverging demographic trajectories. In short, were medieval societies simply at the mercy of plague, or could they stimulate demographic recovery even in the wake of the Black Death?