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So much death could not help but tear economic and social structures apart. Lack of peasants and laborers sent wages soaring, and the value of land plummeted. For the first time in history the scales tipped against wealthy landlords as peasants and serfs gained more bargaining power. Without architects, masons and artisans, great cathedrals and castles remained unfinished for hundreds of years. Governments, lacking officials, floundered in their attempts to create order out of chaos.

The Black Death reaches England. The summer of 1348 was abnormally wet. Grain lay rotting in the fields due to the nearly constant rains. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that there would be food shortages. But a far worse enemy was set to appear. It isn't clear exactly when or where the Black Death reached England. Some reports at the time pointed to Bristol, others to Dorset. The disease may have appeared as early as late June or as late as August 4. We do know that in mid-summer the Channel Islands were reeling under an outbreak of the plague. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences.

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.

In Europe, the study period was preceded by three years of torrential rains, which led to the Great Famine from 1315 to 1320, and marked the transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which began in the mid 1500s. During that time, extreme weather conditions were thought to be responsible for continued localized crop failures and famines throughout Europe during the remainder of the 14th Century