It felt like the end of the world, but this medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming

From the early 1300s to the century’s close, England endured a sequence of calamities so severe and overlapping, that to many it felt like the end of the world had arrived.

“The greatest human catastrophe, the Black Death, happened in the 14th century. That was also a period of famine and two major wars. I think it's reasonable that it’s been called the ‘calamitous century’.”

But while this period of a hundred years is often defined by collapse, it was also a century that laid the foundations of immense social and cultural transformations that created the framework for a better future.

A very wet disaster

The first crisis of the 14th century was brought about by rainfall of biblical proportions.

Beginning in 1315, England was struck by years of near-continuous rain that resulted in widespread crop failure. What followed was the Great Famine, a disaster that ravaged much of northern Europe, but hit England particularly hard.

Harvests failed and food stores ran dry. Grain prices soared. Disease wiped out herds of livestock. Entire villages “ceased to exist because of the famine”, says Carr, and they disappeared from the record.

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The “appalling situation”, says Carr, “often gets overshadowed by the Black Death, but the famine was pretty bad as well,” Carr explains. “It just constantly rained.”

Malnutrition made the population more vulnerable to disease, and the social fabric began to fray. In some regions, reports of theft, cannibalism and infanticide spread.

Though the rains would eventually ease by 1317, the memory of the disaster, and the collapse precipitated by it, remained stark and keenly felt. But the population would have little time to recover.

How wars and brutality abroad led to strain at home

England’s kings soon plunged the realm into another ordeal: the Hundred Years’ War.

Though the conflict formally began in 1337, its roots lay in earlier tensions between the English and French crowns, particularly over English territorial claims in France.

Edward III’s campaigns during the 1340s and 1350s became legendary for their triumphs at battles like Crécy and Poitiers, where English longbowmen routed larger French forces. But the supposed heroism often celebrated in later chronicles – which Carr describes as having been “glamourised” – came at a terrible cost for those living through it.

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“It was appalling, what the English did in France and at the behest of Edward III,” says Carr. “Rape, torture and the killing of innocents; people's homes were destroyed. Their very existence destroyed, their families were wiped out.”

At home, the war required huge taxation and military levies. The Crown’s efforts to finance its continental ambitions stretched the economy, fuelling resentment among taxpayers, and added to the general climate of strain and instability.

The arrival of pestilence

The hardship wasn’t over. In 1348 the Black Death arrived, and it swept through the population with devastating speed.

“It completely turned the world upside down,” says Carr. “Fifty to sixty per cent of the population were killed,” as the disease left no part of society untouched; even “the king and the queen lost three children to the Black Death.”

With no effective medicine and the scale of death incomprehensible, many turned to divine explanation. The plague was seen as punishment for sin, evidence of divine wrath, or a sign that the end of days had come.

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Writing in a feature for BBC History Magazine, Professor Samuel Cohn explained that “The devastation wrought by the Black Death was massive and unprecedented. Such was the Black Death’s lethal power, it’s been estimated that it took the world population 200 years to recover to the level at which it stood in the early 1340s. And this was a psychological calamity for the people of Europe, as well as a physical one.”

It was, all things considered, a cataclysmic event that shattered England– and Europe.

“It was like an apocalypse,” Carr explains. “And I think that's what people thought it was … they thought it was the wrath of God, and this was a divine punishment.”

Revolt, resistance and the rise of new voices

As the plague’s death toll slowly receded, England now faced a new type of reckoning.

With so much of the population gone, labour became scarce. The survivors of the plague were able to demand better wages, more freedom and improved living conditions. But the ruling classes attempted to clamp down.

Laws like the 1351 Statute of Labourers tried to freeze wages at pre-plague levels, provoking widespread resentment.

This tension built through the following decades, erupting in 1381 when thousands of peasants, artisans and urban labourers rose up in revolt. Marching on London, the rebels demanded lower taxes, an end to serfdom and greater accountability from their rulers. Though the rebellion – known as the Peasants’ Revolt – was ultimately suppressed, it was a moment that signified a social shift.

“The Black Death actually really is the initiator of the Peasants' Revolt,” Carr explains. It sparked “the shifting of the class system and the development of these social groups… They didn't want to be taxed as much. They wanted something akin to Magna Carta.”

For the first time in centuries, the structures of medieval feudalism faced serious and sustained challenge.

How medieval England limped through the crisis

Dragging itself through the trauma and upheaval, and limping out the other side, England survived the 14th century and emerged a changed country.

The labour shortages caused by the Black Death gave workers more autonomous power. Tenants negotiated better terms. Skilled workers gained mobility. Urban life expanded.

“There [was] no serfdom anymore,” says Carr. “With so few people, they suddenly were quite worth something and they could demand higher wages… London became much more of a commercial hub.”

Trade networks, too, became more ambitious. “There was a lot more globalisation happening,” she adds. “People were traveling, people were working seasonally.” New guilds formed. New industries grew. And novel ideas began to circulate, laying the groundwork for later shifts in politics, culture and thought.

The 14th century was a time of unrelenting horrors: of rotting crops, weeping skies, battlefield butchery and mass graves. It was an age when famine, plague and war struck in endless waves. But, Carr explains, this century of calamity was also one of incredible change that spurred on immense progress – albeit at an unfathomable cost.

This article is based on an interview with Helen Carr, speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

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