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After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe
Praise for the first
"To give a sense of immediacy and vividness to the long period in such a short space is a major achievement." ―History
"Huppert's book is a little masterpiece every teacher should welcome." ―Renaissance Quarterly
A work of genuine social history, After the Black Death leads the reader into the real villages and cities of European society. For this second edition, George Huppert has added a new chapter on the incessant warfare of the age and thoroughly updated the bibliographical essay.
"To give a sense of immediacy and vividness to the long period in such a short space is a major achievement." ―History
"Huppert's book is a little masterpiece every teacher should welcome." ―Renaissance Quarterly
A work of genuine social history, After the Black Death leads the reader into the real villages and cities of European society. For this second edition, George Huppert has added a new chapter on the incessant warfare of the age and thoroughly updated the bibliographical essay.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionSchool
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 28, 2021
I chose this thinking it would provide some interesting insight into how a world reshapes itself after it is hit by a devastating plague. Really, this book actually isn't that, and its secondary title A Social History of Early Modern Europe is much closer to an accurate description. For what it's worth though, this book is still a very interesting one, if odd and sometimes not altogether academic in its presentation. Huppert infuses his own ironic personality into the commentary every once in a while, making for a book that is both shocking and humorous at different terms. What I love about books like this is it makes you realise people back in these earlier times were really more similar than they were different. But man, they sound like rough times to live in, especially for a peasant.
March 25, 2021
I'm looking forward to reading Persuasion.
He interviews her ...
Q: Give me one good and one bad reason for going back in time and living in a sixteenth century British village?
A: A bad reason would be imminent death. And there wouldn't really be anything good, except for it being England.
Q: What was something you learned from the book?
A: Umm. About ... uhhh. Women having babies later in their life than the rest of the world at that time. And the fact that they managed to not have out-of-wedlock babies.
Q: Reflecting on the state of the general population in religious matters, and the privileged position enjoyed by the Church, what is your view as a Catholic on the reformers like Calvin and Luther?
A:Well, I wonder if that guy who wrote it was a Protestant. It was an aspect that wasn't really looked at before. But I think it brings up some important questions. Like how did different people and cultures approach Catholicism?
He interviews her ...
Q: Give me one good and one bad reason for going back in time and living in a sixteenth century British village?
A: A bad reason would be imminent death. And there wouldn't really be anything good, except for it being England.
Q: What was something you learned from the book?
A: Umm. About ... uhhh. Women having babies later in their life than the rest of the world at that time. And the fact that they managed to not have out-of-wedlock babies.
Q: Reflecting on the state of the general population in religious matters, and the privileged position enjoyed by the Church, what is your view as a Catholic on the reformers like Calvin and Luther?
A:Well, I wonder if that guy who wrote it was a Protestant. It was an aspect that wasn't really looked at before. But I think it brings up some important questions. Like how did different people and cultures approach Catholicism?
June 28, 2020
Interesting but has a misleading title. I started this book under the impression that it would talk about how the black death changed the course of history and shaped our society. That's not what I got at all. It has barely anything to do with the black death. It's just social history in the period of time spanning centuries after the black death's occurrence. It makes no effort to tie in the black death to things at all. Needless to say, I was disappointed but if we disregard the first part of the title then it's not a bad book.
November 20, 2019
The eye-catching title of this 1985 social history begins with a misleading preposition, “after.” Huppert explains that bubonic plague and depopulation remained recurring threats to Europe throughout the period (1347-1720) he studies. As Le Roy Ladurie observed, this was an era of stasis in Europe, of halting progress and frustrated ambition. Most Europeans lived in highly conservative rural villages, whose denizens carefully controlled their resources and populations. Few could imagine change as a positive good. Some economic growth did occur in the cities, where merchants and master artisans accumulated wealth and influence. Through their loans to royal governments and peasants, and their acquisition of rural land, these nascent bourgeois came to rival the nobility as a dominant social power. Aristocrats, meanwhile, lost both wealth and influence, as inflation eroded rents and royal governments curtailed their independent military power. Peasants, too, saw little improvement in their status, for even where serfdom ended, debt peonage replaced it. Some protested through riot and rebellion, almost always futilely.
There were a few bright spots in the lives of ordinary people. Rural women enjoyed more autonomy than their upper-class counterparts, thanks to delayed marriage (which allowed them to accumulate property) and their ability to veto unwanted marriage partners. Artisans and peasants enjoyed increased access to education during the early modern period, which broadened their socioeconomic horizons and fostered an increase in anti-clericalism. Europeans remained devout, but not necessarily devoted to their churches.
AFTER THE BLACK DEATH focuses on northwestern Europe - France, Germany, and England. I would expect some of Huppert’s observations to apply to the Mediterranean and eastern Europe, but it would be interesting to supplement his book with works like EUROPE’S STEPPE FRONTIER (1964) and to compare western Europeans’ experiences with those of post-reconquista Spain or the Ottoman frontier.
There were a few bright spots in the lives of ordinary people. Rural women enjoyed more autonomy than their upper-class counterparts, thanks to delayed marriage (which allowed them to accumulate property) and their ability to veto unwanted marriage partners. Artisans and peasants enjoyed increased access to education during the early modern period, which broadened their socioeconomic horizons and fostered an increase in anti-clericalism. Europeans remained devout, but not necessarily devoted to their churches.
AFTER THE BLACK DEATH focuses on northwestern Europe - France, Germany, and England. I would expect some of Huppert’s observations to apply to the Mediterranean and eastern Europe, but it would be interesting to supplement his book with works like EUROPE’S STEPPE FRONTIER (1964) and to compare western Europeans’ experiences with those of post-reconquista Spain or the Ottoman frontier.
June 4, 2020
This book describes the transition of Western Europe from a feudal society to a market driven capitalist society.
It spans the period between the 14th and 18th centuries in a mere 166 pages and thus the book is only meant to be an introduction to the subject matter.
It is very well written. Huppert intermingles broad strokes of historical trends with colorful individual anecdotes.
Europe in feudal times consisted of three "estates" or "classes": the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. The commoners consisted of the peasantry, the artisans and the merchants.
The commoners had to pay taxes to the nobility, under the guise that the nobility had to incur expenses for waging wars. Additionally they had to pay taxes (tithes) to the clergy, under the guise that the clergy took care of their spiritual well being.
The higher clerics, such as the bishops, the cardinals and the pope, took the lion share and became fabulously wealthy on the back of the working people. Local priests made a living. Neither the nobility nor the clergy paid any taxes.
On top of being taxed, the peasants had to work the lands of their lords three days a week for free, in return for the right to live in a house on the lord's estate and cultivate their own little plot of land for themselves.
The peasants were not free men. They were called serfs. They could not leave their lord's estate nor sign any contracts without his permission.
The nobility made up 1% of the population.
With the development of autonomous cities, an urban merchant and artisan class started growing.
With the expansion of international trade, they flourished and built up capital.
The black death of the middle of the 14th century had decimated about 1/3 of Europe's population.
There was a serious shortage of laborers and as a result the peasants started to demand to be paid for their labor instead of working for free. The lords had no choice but to pay them but as time moved on this arrangement became unsustainable for them. The cost of labor rose too high and so the lords resorted more and more to leasing the land to the peasants for a fixed fee. Some farmers became quite wealthy once they could benefit from the product of their own labor.
The fees paid to the landlord were fixed but the cost of living was rising. The majority of nobles could not sustain their expensive way of living and became impoverished. They borrowed money from the newly rich urban moneylenders and wealthy merchants but when they could not repay them, they got dispossessed from their estates. All that was left to them was their nobility titles.
Their estates passed into the hands of the moneylenders and merchants, who were now the "nouveaux riches". The became "rentiers", living off their investments in real estate. They also lent money to the Kings, who relied on them to finance their luxurious palaces and costly wars. Thus they also became influential politically.
By the 16th century, royal taxation had become a fact of life. Again, the nobility and the clergy were exempted from taxation.
Since the nouveaux riches too did not want to pay taxes, these wealthy "rentiers" bought for themselves nobility titles from the Kings.
With the wealthiest families removed from the tax rolls, the tax burdens on the peasants became heavier and heavier. They borrowed money from the moneylenders but if they could not repay them, they lost their farm and became wage laborers.
This led to many peasant rebellions in the course of these four centuries, especially when the Kings decided to levy yet another new tax to subsidize this or that war. The Kings borrowed money for the wars from wealthy financiers at high interest and then levied additional taxes on the peasantry and artisans and small merchants to repay the debts.
For example, in Southwestern France there were some 450 rebellions between 1590 and 1715. The tax exemptions of the privileged classes infuriated the peasants.
The rebellions were brutally repressed by the authorities and the peasants ruthlessly massacred.
Eventually, the oppression of the peasant classes ended in France with the 1789 revolution.
George Huppert also describes the religious and family life of that era. All of Western Europe was Catholic until the advent of Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. The reformation started a 30 year war in Europe between Catholics and Protestants.
Huppert describes the horrible toll peasants had to endure when mercenary armies passed through their lands, plundering and vandalizing and terrorizing them. An enterprising military contractor, Wallenstein, devised a system to profit from these wars. With the help of his banker, De Witte, he raised capital to run the war for the German Emperor, pay the soldiers, the weapons and ammunition etc.. To repay the investors with interest, he extorted huge sums of "protection money" from all the communities in the lands through which his army marched so they would not get looted by his soldiers. He became very wealthy with this racket until the villages and cities were wrung dry and had nothing left to give him. He could not repay his investors. De Witte committed suicide and Wallenstein was murdered by a contract killer.
Huppert tells the tale of slow transition of an agrarian subsistance economy with a fixed class system based on birth, title and tradition to a more flexible market economy based on property and money.
I wonder though why he omits talking about the Jews in his overview, except for a short reference in a couple of lines.
Jews were very much part of medieval and early modern Europe and they served an essential role in that society: the role of scapegoat. They were the victims of rabid Christian antisemitism, they were exiled in cramped urban ghettos, their freedoms were restricted, they had no rights, they had to pay high "protection" taxes and they were regularly accused of blood libels. In the period covered by Huppert's book, at least 100 towns all over Europe expelled their Jews.
And no mention of the Spanish Inquisition? Of the burning of Jews at the stake. Of the forced conversions? Of the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492?
Maybe the topic is so vast that it required a book of its own, but Huppert could have at least devoted a few pages to it, just as he devoted a few pages to the topic of the Reformation.
It spans the period between the 14th and 18th centuries in a mere 166 pages and thus the book is only meant to be an introduction to the subject matter.
It is very well written. Huppert intermingles broad strokes of historical trends with colorful individual anecdotes.
Europe in feudal times consisted of three "estates" or "classes": the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. The commoners consisted of the peasantry, the artisans and the merchants.
The commoners had to pay taxes to the nobility, under the guise that the nobility had to incur expenses for waging wars. Additionally they had to pay taxes (tithes) to the clergy, under the guise that the clergy took care of their spiritual well being.
The higher clerics, such as the bishops, the cardinals and the pope, took the lion share and became fabulously wealthy on the back of the working people. Local priests made a living. Neither the nobility nor the clergy paid any taxes.
On top of being taxed, the peasants had to work the lands of their lords three days a week for free, in return for the right to live in a house on the lord's estate and cultivate their own little plot of land for themselves.
The peasants were not free men. They were called serfs. They could not leave their lord's estate nor sign any contracts without his permission.
The nobility made up 1% of the population.
With the development of autonomous cities, an urban merchant and artisan class started growing.
With the expansion of international trade, they flourished and built up capital.
The black death of the middle of the 14th century had decimated about 1/3 of Europe's population.
There was a serious shortage of laborers and as a result the peasants started to demand to be paid for their labor instead of working for free. The lords had no choice but to pay them but as time moved on this arrangement became unsustainable for them. The cost of labor rose too high and so the lords resorted more and more to leasing the land to the peasants for a fixed fee. Some farmers became quite wealthy once they could benefit from the product of their own labor.
The fees paid to the landlord were fixed but the cost of living was rising. The majority of nobles could not sustain their expensive way of living and became impoverished. They borrowed money from the newly rich urban moneylenders and wealthy merchants but when they could not repay them, they got dispossessed from their estates. All that was left to them was their nobility titles.
Their estates passed into the hands of the moneylenders and merchants, who were now the "nouveaux riches". The became "rentiers", living off their investments in real estate. They also lent money to the Kings, who relied on them to finance their luxurious palaces and costly wars. Thus they also became influential politically.
By the 16th century, royal taxation had become a fact of life. Again, the nobility and the clergy were exempted from taxation.
Since the nouveaux riches too did not want to pay taxes, these wealthy "rentiers" bought for themselves nobility titles from the Kings.
With the wealthiest families removed from the tax rolls, the tax burdens on the peasants became heavier and heavier. They borrowed money from the moneylenders but if they could not repay them, they lost their farm and became wage laborers.
This led to many peasant rebellions in the course of these four centuries, especially when the Kings decided to levy yet another new tax to subsidize this or that war. The Kings borrowed money for the wars from wealthy financiers at high interest and then levied additional taxes on the peasantry and artisans and small merchants to repay the debts.
For example, in Southwestern France there were some 450 rebellions between 1590 and 1715. The tax exemptions of the privileged classes infuriated the peasants.
The rebellions were brutally repressed by the authorities and the peasants ruthlessly massacred.
Eventually, the oppression of the peasant classes ended in France with the 1789 revolution.
George Huppert also describes the religious and family life of that era. All of Western Europe was Catholic until the advent of Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. The reformation started a 30 year war in Europe between Catholics and Protestants.
Huppert describes the horrible toll peasants had to endure when mercenary armies passed through their lands, plundering and vandalizing and terrorizing them. An enterprising military contractor, Wallenstein, devised a system to profit from these wars. With the help of his banker, De Witte, he raised capital to run the war for the German Emperor, pay the soldiers, the weapons and ammunition etc.. To repay the investors with interest, he extorted huge sums of "protection money" from all the communities in the lands through which his army marched so they would not get looted by his soldiers. He became very wealthy with this racket until the villages and cities were wrung dry and had nothing left to give him. He could not repay his investors. De Witte committed suicide and Wallenstein was murdered by a contract killer.
Huppert tells the tale of slow transition of an agrarian subsistance economy with a fixed class system based on birth, title and tradition to a more flexible market economy based on property and money.
I wonder though why he omits talking about the Jews in his overview, except for a short reference in a couple of lines.
Jews were very much part of medieval and early modern Europe and they served an essential role in that society: the role of scapegoat. They were the victims of rabid Christian antisemitism, they were exiled in cramped urban ghettos, their freedoms were restricted, they had no rights, they had to pay high "protection" taxes and they were regularly accused of blood libels. In the period covered by Huppert's book, at least 100 towns all over Europe expelled their Jews.
And no mention of the Spanish Inquisition? Of the burning of Jews at the stake. Of the forced conversions? Of the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492?
Maybe the topic is so vast that it required a book of its own, but Huppert could have at least devoted a few pages to it, just as he devoted a few pages to the topic of the Reformation.
March 5, 2023
Walls hold back profane nature. This applies to city walls and the walls of convents. Broken walls are dangerous bother literally and symbolically.
Neighborhoods were the organization unit of urban society, and every resident was included. Couples usually established their own, new household; few lived with extended family. Also, few people lived alone.
Labor shortage after plague led to renewnal of slave trade. Slaves were not incorporated into familial household.
Neighborhoods were the organization unit of urban society, and every resident was included. Couples usually established their own, new household; few lived with extended family. Also, few people lived alone.
Labor shortage after plague led to renewnal of slave trade. Slaves were not incorporated into familial household.
April 20, 2010
Delightful account of beneficial effects of a post-apocalypse. The chapter that stayed with me discussed the surprising level of equality women enjoyed even in the late Medieval period - in some regards the past was vastly more egalitarian than we suppose.
February 23, 2023
Picked up this book to help get my bearings in relation to how cities rebuilt after the plague hit Europe in 1347. First thing I realized was the plague arrived but did not leave. It stuck around, subsided, returned and make life precarious for many decades. Seconds thing I realized was that this book is not a fast paced public intellectual's accounting for how things generally got sorted out during this period. It is much more of a text book-style compilation of primary source facts and anecdotes that paint a picture, in broad strokes, of what daily life was like in non-major European towns at the time when Europe was emerging from the plague period. It turns out to be really fascinating. Social bonds and social attitudes during this time revolve mainly around subsistence agricultural work. They are also shaped by proximity to large cities and the discrepancy between the two is a source of major tension. People not living in the big cities are deeply distrustful of tax collectors and the church. They also become quickly overrun by what is essentially financial innovation, and the period sees the appearance of estates holders who borrow money and amass land and considered good for nothings by the people whose land they're buying.
April 27, 2025
Come già indicato nella prefazione, questa è un'"introduzione" al tema e non uno studio dettagliato di ogni aspetto della storia sociale durante l'età moderna.
Letto in tal modo, il testo funziona e anche bene, riuscendo a darci una panoramica generale, ma estremamente interessante, della storia di tutti i giorni. Non quella dei grandi cavalieri, re o prelati, ma quella dei piccoli borghesi e contadini in un mondo che stava rapidamente cambiando.
Unica pecca, a mio avviso, è la priorità data ad alcuni Paesi (Francia, Italia, Spagna e Germania) a scapito del resto d'Europa. Stati cruciali come la Confederazione Polacco-Lituana o l'Impero Ottomano non vengono minimamente considerati, limitando, e non poco, il risultato finale dell'opera.
Letto in tal modo, il testo funziona e anche bene, riuscendo a darci una panoramica generale, ma estremamente interessante, della storia di tutti i giorni. Non quella dei grandi cavalieri, re o prelati, ma quella dei piccoli borghesi e contadini in un mondo che stava rapidamente cambiando.
Unica pecca, a mio avviso, è la priorità data ad alcuni Paesi (Francia, Italia, Spagna e Germania) a scapito del resto d'Europa. Stati cruciali come la Confederazione Polacco-Lituana o l'Impero Ottomano non vengono minimamente considerati, limitando, e non poco, il risultato finale dell'opera.
February 5, 2025
Read for class
This was a decently engaging and very educational source. It was really dense and had a lot of information. It went really in-depth into a lot of things I knew nothing about and weirdly does not touch on the Black Death very much at all. It is very clearly focused on the historical period following and aftereffects of the black death, but not what the period of the Black Death was like. I would not have read this on my own so that was interesting enough. Though I will not be rereading any time soon.
This was a decently engaging and very educational source. It was really dense and had a lot of information. It went really in-depth into a lot of things I knew nothing about and weirdly does not touch on the Black Death very much at all. It is very clearly focused on the historical period following and aftereffects of the black death, but not what the period of the Black Death was like. I would not have read this on my own so that was interesting enough. Though I will not be rereading any time soon.
June 28, 2017
best history book I have ever read! loved understanding the complexity of human beings during this time period.
May 22, 2019
So engaging but also informative! Written very well!
May 23, 2019
Fascinating. discovered the origins of some social/political norms we have now
December 21, 2022
I had to read this for school (ECE Mod. West) so that probably made the reading experience worse then it would have been other wise, sorry Goerge Huppert. But, the book was just so boring, ever time I had to pick it up my mind was jsut like, "can I read somthing else, anything else, please", but alas I had to finish it and yup, it was pretty boring. I think the cover says all you need to know about the book.
July 17, 2013
This was a decent study, but flawed because of the many generalizations it makes. It is difficult to make claims about the entirety of Europe, as there were myriad differences. However, Huppert does a good job in recognizing overarching trends. This is a good introduction to the time period.
As a side note, this is a poor title for the book. Very misleading. The Black Death is only mentioned twice, and very briefly at that. Going into it, I thought that this would analyze the effects of the Black Death and the ensuing changes to society, but it did not do that with any sense of depth or meaning. It's a shame because I think it would have made this book much stronger.
As a side note, this is a poor title for the book. Very misleading. The Black Death is only mentioned twice, and very briefly at that. Going into it, I thought that this would analyze the effects of the Black Death and the ensuing changes to society, but it did not do that with any sense of depth or meaning. It's a shame because I think it would have made this book much stronger.
July 19, 2016
I particularly enjoyed two chapters. One on the organisation and structure of early modern city communes, which made sense intuitively but which I had never thought about. The second was the chapter on marriage and family in early modern Europe, which paints quite a different picture than the one I was used to about core families and family structures as well as the autonomy of women back in the day.
Of course, since the book spans hundreds of years and various different countries it is only an introduction and does not go in depth every time, but it does serve as an interesting overview.
Of course, since the book spans hundreds of years and various different countries it is only an introduction and does not go in depth every time, but it does serve as an interesting overview.
October 19, 2008
This was one I had to read for my Renaissance and Reform class. It's pretty good if you are interested in that sort of thing. I wouldn't recommend it as a "settle into to a candle-lit bubble bath with a glass of wine" book, but it's interesting as a historical book.
August 4, 2016
The Black Death is a fascinating topic in history and the foci of many books. But what about the aftermath of the Black Death? Huppert discusses the aftermath of the plague, offering a succinct social history that is interesting and informative.
March 26, 2016
Huppert's book serves as a fine introduction to the social conditions of Europe after 1347; but it is just that, an introduction. If one wants a more thorough study of the period-- and why shouldn't one ?-- one should be prepared to work through his bibliography.
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September 27, 2015
Pre course reading for AP European History before my senior year in high school. Dense.
April 24, 2016
Not only did I read this book, I had the pleasure of taking Prof. Huppert's class. This book deepened my love of European history.
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