Never before had so frightful a calamity been known; never since has it
been equalled. Men died by millions. All Europe had been swept by the
plague, as by a besom of destruction, and now England became its prey.
The population of the island at that period was not great,--some three
or four millions in all. When the plague had passed more than half of
these were in their graves, and in many places there were hardly enough
living to bury the dead.
We call it a calamity. It is not so sure that it was. Life in England at
that day, for the masses of the people, was not so precious a boon that
death had need to be sorely deplored. A handful of lords and a host of
laborers, the latter just above the state of slavery, constituted the
population. Many of the serfs had been set free, but the new liberty of
the people was not a state of unadulterated happiness. War had drained
the land. The luxury of the nobles added to the drain. The patricians
caroused. The plebeians suffered. The Black Death came. After it had
passed, labor, for the first time in English history, was master of the
situation.
Laborers had grown scarce. Many men refused to work. The first general
strike for higher wages began.
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