Unfortunately, not quite. The general argument applied in favor of the Black Death raising living standards (and it is a compelling argument, mind, and one that I agree with) is that the Black Death caused a contraction in the labor and food supply and a glut in land availability. Read: so many of The Poors™ who actually worked the land died that the remaining ones were valuable and had considerable negotiating power, especially in regards to the land that was left.
As great as it would be if the above commenter was correct in that broader sense, history is often… shitty.
That being said, the above commenter isn’t wholly incorrect either - the Black Death, by giving the common people of Europe more negotiating power, did disrupt traditional entrenched hierarchies, which allowed greater class mobility.
The only thing that raised peasant standard of living was the death of the nobles and decay of entrenched hereditary hierarchies.
That’s just a tortuous way of saying “Black Death”, so we agree!
Unfortunately, not quite. The general argument applied in favor of the Black Death raising living standards (and it is a compelling argument, mind, and one that I agree with) is that the Black Death caused a contraction in the labor and food supply and a glut in land availability. Read: so many of The Poors™ who actually worked the land died that the remaining ones were valuable and had considerable negotiating power, especially in regards to the land that was left.
As great as it would be if the above commenter was correct in that broader sense, history is often… shitty.
That being said, the above commenter isn’t wholly incorrect either - the Black Death, by giving the common people of Europe more negotiating power, did disrupt traditional entrenched hierarchies, which allowed greater class mobility.