Pandemin effects and changes in Europe
Persecution and Migration
Religious Belief and Practice
Medical Knowledge and Practice
Socio-Economic
Women's Rights
Art & Architecture
Depopulation greatly reduced the workforce and the serf's labor suddenly became an important and increasingly rare asset.
The lives of the members of the lowest class improved as they were able to afford better living conditions and clothing as well as luxury items.
The higher class thought that the people of lower classes were forgetting their place, due to the fact that their lives were improving.
In this time the lord of an estate could not feed his family, himself, nor pay to the king or the Church his tithed without the labor of his peasants, and the loss of so many of them meant that the survivors could now negotiate for pay they didn't have before and better treatment.
Fashion changed dramatically: The elite demanded more extravagant looks, so they could distinguish themselves from the poor, who could now afford to dress more finely.
Efforts of the wealthy to return the serf to his previous condition resulted in an issue.
The feudal system divided the population in a caste system. Where the king was a the top, the middle occupied by nobles and wealthy merchants, and lastly peasants and serfs at the bottom.
Class struggle continued but the authority of the feudal system was broken.
People believed that those who died of the plague were suspected of some personal failing of faith and yet it was clear that the same clergy who sentenced them died of the same disease in the same way.
The people in Europe realized that the religion wouldn't help them in this situation. As using their religious methods didn't work to stop the plague and as even monks, priests, and nuns, etc died. After this realization they figured out that religion was not going to save them.
Since no one knew the cause of the plague, it was attributed to the supernatural, such as supposed Jewish sorcery. And, specifically, to God's fury over human sin.
However, something didn't add up to them. It took them time, to notice that it wasn't all about their religious beliefs, instead by a deadly disease, that was causing the death of millions of people.
The Flagellant Movement was not the only source of persecution; otherwise peaceful citizens could be whipped into a frenzy to attack communities of Jews, Romani (gypsies), lepers, or others.
The most common targets, however, were the Jews who had long been singled out for Christian hostility.
The frustration people felt at their helplessness in the face of the plague gave rise to violent outbursts of persecution across Europe.
Women, on the other hand, gained higher status following the plague. Before the outbreak, women had few rights.
Women's status had improved through the popularity of the Virgin Mary which associated women with the mother of Jesus Christ. However, Church continually view women as daughters of Eve who had brought sin into the world.
After the plague, with so many men dead, women were allowed to own their own land, cultivate the businesses run by their husband or son, and had better liberty in choosing a mate.
Medieval science was far from primitive.
Doctors and other caregivers were seen dying at an alarming rate as they tried to cure plague victims using their traditional understanding and, further, nothing they prescribed did anything for their patients.
Doctors based their medical knowledge primarily on the work of the Roman physician Galen (l. 130-210 CE) as well as Hippocrates (l. c. 460 - c. 370 BCE) and Aristotle (l. 384-322 BCE).
Post-plague art did not reference the plague directly but anyone viewing a piece would understand the symbolism.
Post-plague architecture, clearly resonated with the preoccupation with sin and death.
Artistic pieces tended to be more realistic than before and, a lot of them, were focused on death.
The lord of an estate would decide who a girl would marry. Woman would go from being under the control of her father, to the control of her husband.
Women joined guilds, ran shipping and textile businesses, and could own taverns and farmlands.
As peasants could now afford much more expensive things, building projects were not that easily affordable, resulting in more austere and cost-effective structures.
People recovered from the plague or died from it for no reason at all.
A cure that had restored one patient to health would fail to work on the next.
Medicine slowly began changing after the initial outbreak of Plague.
Large migrations of Jewish communities fled the scenes of these massacres, many of them finally settling in Poland and Eastern Europe.