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This interest stands in contrast, as Hatcher points out, to the view of the Black Death taken by historians at mid-century and it may be that the social and economic history of late medieval English society has emerged from the shadow of historians such as Postan and Levett, where the Black death was seen as a catalyst, not a prime mover. Colin Platt's King Death. The Black Death and its aftermath in latemedieval England is a work of synthesis which continues this trend. Written in a fairly chatty style (phrases such as 'Mickey Mouse numbers' and 'rich old ladies' abound) with a liberal sprinkling of modern marketing-speak ('shopping blight', 'customer base' and 'market spread', for example), it is a personal tour through a great deal of the recent secondary literature, largely generated by historians of town and countryside; the book also offers a brief survey of postplague art and architecture.

The Black Death also inspired European architecture to move in two different directions; there was a revival of Greco-Roman styles that, in stone and paint, expressed Petrarch's love of antiquity and a further elaboration of the Gothic style.[28] Late medieval churches had impressive structures centered on verticality, where one's eye is drawn up towards the high ceiling. The basic Gothic style was revamped with elaborate decoration in the late medieval period. Sculptors in Italian city-states emulated the work of their Roman forefathers while sculptors in northern Europe, no doubt inspired by the devastation they had witnessed, gave way to a heightened expression of emotion and an emphasis on individual differences

The sustained onslaught of plague on English population and society over a period of more than 300 years inevitably affected society and the economy. Evidence of the effects can be measured and responses traced not only in social and economic, political and religious terms, but also in changes in art and architecture. The effects of the Black Death in all these matters were disputed by contemporaries and are still hotly disputed today, which makes the topic so endlessly fascinating.

The plague also affected religion and art, which became very dark and preoccupied with death. Many people believed that the Black Death came from God's extreme anger at the world. A group of fanatics, called Flagellants, inflicted various punishments on themselves in an attempt to atone for the world's sins--and end the disease. An artistic style known as the danse macabre depicted skeletons and corpses mingling with the living during happy occasions. These actions reminded the people of the overriding sense of doom that shadowed their lives because of the Black Death.

From the 1360s, however, English architecture became simpler, moving to the more perpendicular style seen in Winchester Cathedral, which saw work on its west gate begin in 1360. The flamboyant masonry of major buildings was replaced by straight lines, partly due to the new shift towards austerity, but also because of the depleted workforce available.

In art, the changes were extreme. During the pre-plague times noble lords were shown in full health, in their best clothes and armor, holding their swords. Afterwards, half-decomposed bodies with parts of skeleton clearly visible were shown. The clothes draping the body were old dirty rags, and some sculptures showed worms and snails burrowing in the rotten flesh. Suffering became a favorite theme.

This, according to Keene, also focused wealth back into the city