As the course as become underway, a variety of topics have been discussed but one in particular caught my eye. In Module II, when looking at land tenure, the Black Death came up and how land use was greatly effected by it. Personally, I already have a passion for history, medieval especially, and so I decided to dig into this more.
While the Black Death was a devastating occurrence in human history and resulted in the majority of Europe being slaughtered, some managed to prosper. Before the beginning of the Black Death Europe was already over-populated and peasants struggled to find work and food for their families. As waves of the Black Death rolled in and out though more land was left abandoned and less workers were available for land owners, the top of the social class, to employ. These changes caused the peasants of Europe to flourish.
With the low amount of workers, land owners were desperate. Peasants knew this though, and took advantage by demanding high wages. This resulted in peasants rising in the social order at a rapid pace. On top of this because of the vast amount of unattended land peasants were able to expand farms and take control of large amounts of land creating an influx of produce production and again made peasants become wealthy and powerful very quickly.
The newfound advancement in peasant wealth jarred the social hierarchy of Europe. So much so that the upper class citizens created Sumptuary law which prevented peasants from rising in the social order of medieval Europe by forcing them to wear specific clothing and by enforcing wage maximum’s, stopping the high wage demands made early on.
The fact that land can cause an entire social class to break boundaries and thrive proves how important it is in the world and its history. In the medieval ages land was a show of your power and importance, something which I believe still applies today. Countries in today’s world express their influence and power by expanding their borders or even creating map’s projected to make their nation look larger than others. Russia, for example, is currently showing aggression to eastern Ukraine in order to expand their land control.
Researching events like this feeds my expanding interest in Land Administration and only asserts my view on how crucial it really is to society. I look forward to learning about topics similar to this in class and will definitely be reading up on more historical events fuelled by the influence of land.
Resources:
Lets Talk Land 