The Black Death created a time that was a very influential period in European history. Some historians today argue that the Black Death was "a necessary and long-overdue corrective to an overpopulated Europe" (Aberth 3). Regardless, with mortality rates throughout Europe ranging from 40 to 70 percent of the population (Aberth 3), the plague was undoubtedly tragic as well. However, in addition to the obvious physical changes the victims underwent, Europe's economy and culture experienced their own "symptoms" as well. Initially, the decline in population was direct proportional to the decline in the amount of available workers there were. This resulted in a demand for higher pay and more benefits for individual workers and serfs (Aberth 69). This led to many economic dilemmas for which the government felt the need to intervene. .
In addition to the matters of the state, the church was under fire as well. Due to the extremely contagious and deadly nature of the disease, which was not helped by the medicine practices at the time, priests were more than often terrified to leave the sanctity of the church to visit the homes of the sick and dying. This led to many problems in in the eyes of the religious. As well as problems with the church, many people turned to blame the Jewish community for the arrival of the plague, many of such instances resulting in massacres of the Jewish people. Decline in population undoubtedly results in a corresponding decrease in a work force of a society. When this occurrence happened in Europe during the time of the Black Death, many employers found that their employees were demanding higher wages in addition to increased benefits in exchange for the same amount of work. In addition, due to the lack of consumers caused by the population decline, the prices of goods were going down due to the lack of demand. Although this caused the standard of living for serfs to increase, it also resulted in "lower manorial incomes for their lords" (Aberth 69).
