The Bright Side of the Black Death

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The disease apparently removed the weakest individuals on a very broad scale over much of Europe, whether their frailty was due to poor immune systems, prior disease, or malnutrition.

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We know the Black Death marked the beginning or, at the very least, an acceleration of a huge economic and sociological shift in Europe,” says DeWitte. It took 200 years for population levels to recover. In the meantime, the medieval system of serfdom collapsed, because labor was more valuable when there were fewer laborers. Despite the dearth of workers, there was more land, more food, and more money for ordinary people. “You might see this as a benefit to the laboring classes,” she says.

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Descendants of plague survivors were more likely to live through their reproductive years, thus passing on whatever genetic advantages enabled their ancestors to survive the plague.

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