Lesson video

Hi everyone and welcome to lesson four of the unit on the Black Death.

Now this is our last lesson of this unit.

So it's time for us to finally answer the inquiry question of how far the Black Death changed the mediaeval world.

Now, this question in and of itself is actually really difficult for us historians to answer in a really detailed way.

Some countries across the world might have experienced huge changes whilst others might have experienced just a little one.

So what we've decided to do so that we can answer this question to the best of our abilities is just to zoom in and tell the story of one village.

And you already know the name.

Yes, it is Walsham-le-Willows.

It's been provided to us by this book by John Hatcher.

So what we're going to be looking at this lesson is just the lasting consequences of the Black Death, how it affected the feudal system before we then make our final judgement on just how far life changed for the Walsham villages.

So before we get started, please make sure again, that you've got a pen and paper in front of you as that's what you'll be needing for this lesson.

If you don't have them, just please pause me whilst you run and grab them, and then we will begin.

Okay so we've now finally reached the last lesson of this unit on the Black Death.

Really well done for getting this far.

So to start off as always, I'd like you to put the date in the top right hand corner of your piece of paper and the title, which is now our inquiry question: "How far did the Black Death change the Mediaeval World?" Please make sure both of these are underlined and just pause me whilst you get that done.

Okay I just wanted to start this lesson looking at the changes that we've already studied across this unit.

You remember that we started off in 1347, looking at how the Black Death spread from the East to the West.

As people started to change their everyday lives to stop the spread of the disease.

We moved on 1348, how people used different methods to try and treat the Black Death and prevent it from entering Walsham.

Last lesson, we were in 1349 and we looked at how people that survived the Black Death, and particularly some peasants, started to inherit some land and how lives changed for them as their wealth started to increase.

And this lesson we're going to go to 1350, which is the year that the Black Death left England and Walsham, and we're going to look at the long lasting consequences of this.

Now we're going to come back to all of this at the end of the lesson.

So it's just worth having this in our minds now.

Okay, as always to fully appreciate any change that happens in the Mediaeval World, it's always going to be linking back to the feudal system.

Last lesson in particular, we looked at the relationship between the peasants and the nobles and how that started to shift as more peasants started to inherit land after the Black Death.

And they seem to grow a little bit in power as their wages rose and the nobles were having to pay them extra.

So that's one way that we've seen the feudal system change slightly as a result of the Black Death.

And you'll remember as well adding onto that the King himself got involved the Monarch because he wanted to stop the peasants from rising up the ranks and he pushed through the Ordinance of Labourers, which I'm sure you remember, put a limit on the amount of wages that peasants could be paid.

Now for this lesson I want to add an extra level to the feudal system.

And that is by bringing in the Church.

Now it was the belief at this time that the feudal system was created by God himself.

And the reason for this, is that they believe that peasants had been created so that they would complete the work.

They would do all the farming and they essentially put all the work in so that everyone in the country could be fed.

And it was then believed, that once that job had been taken up by the peasants, that the members of the Church, the priests were then free to spend their time teaching the Word of God.

So it then followed that if these peasants were deciding, "Actually, no, I'm not going to work "for this little amount of pay," then actually that would have a huge negative knock on effect because if the peasants were refusing to work then that might mean that those priests might have to go out and farm the land and therefore the Word of God could no longer be taught to the public.

So actually at this point, if workers are starting to rebel and go away from this feudal system, then it was a common belief that God would become quite angry from this and therefore resent the peasants for doing so.

So we've come to a pause point here.

We've got four statements that look at how the feudal system started to change as a result of the Black Death.

What I would like you to do is write down the ones that you think are true and just write them down in your books or your piece of paper for me before we go through the answers.

So just pause the screen here whilst you get that done.

Okay great work.

Really really well done.

We're just going to go through these now.

Feel free to tick or cross out any answers as we go through.

So, "A," well done, I'm sure a lot of you got this correct.

"The nobles were worried that the peasants "were gaining too much power." Absolutely, we learned this from last lesson and it was mainly down to the fact that the peasants were being paid much more than they were before.

And that money was being taken away from the nobles.

You've got a shift of power there.

"B- The Church was happy to see "that peasants were getting richer." Well done for getting this correct, some of you.

This one was false.

You'll remember the Church really supported the feudal system.

If peasants were away working on the farms then this allowed the priests to then teach the Word of God.

They wanted to keep that very strict structure and hierarchy in society.

"C- The peasants felt more equal to the nobles "and their relationship improved." Now this is indeed false as well.

Some of the peasants might have indeed felt that that power was rising up a little bit, but one, they definitely wouldn't have felt equal to the nobles.

And two, that relationship between them would not have improved.

Instead, as we've seen, tensions started to rise between the peasants and the nobles at this time.

And "D- The King issued a law to limit "the amount of wages peasants could be paid." That was indeed true, very well done for those of you that remembered that one.

It was indeed called the Ordinance of Labourers, that limited peasants amount of wages so it couldn't be any higher than what they had been five or six years before the Black Death.

Really well done for getting that completed.

Okay the remainder of this lesson, we're going to look at Walsham-le-Willows in detail and see whether or not it is indeed a new village after the Black Death as a result of all of these changes.

So by 1350, the Black Death had left England.

And there were two main knock on effects of this caused some big changes.

One, relating to the power of peasants and two, the power of nobility.

Now, as we already know from last lesson the power of the peasants massively increased at this time.

We say massively, but obviously they're not going to overtake the nobility in the ranking of the feudal system, but a lot of them enjoyed a much better quality of life as they started to have a little bit more money they could choose the days of the week that they wanted to work and they could work for less days.

And really they just felt a lot more comfortable.

So that was a lot better for them, an improvement.

But what we're going to be looking at in more detail now is how the power of the nobility and the Church decreased slightly at this time.

And we're going to go through that now.

So to fully understand how the power of the nobility decreased, we need to understand how they kept their power and authority in a normal year before the Black Death.

Now you can see on this diagram, we've got another level that we've not seen before.

You've got the nobles still at the top, the peasants at the bottom, but you'll see a new job.

And that is the reeve.

Now the reeve was essentially a peasant that was responsible for all other peasants completing their work.

It essentially a peasant that was the boss of all other peasants, okay.

So the same structure would work.

The Nobles would pay the reeve and manage the peasants.

The reeve would then supervise the peasants to complete all of their work to make sure that they're doing all the farm work that they're meant to do.

And also the reeve punish any peasants that misbehaved.

So really, this is a really early, early example, almost like a policeman today.

So in return for this, the peasants would farm the land and follow the nobility's rules for the reeve and then the reeve would give the nobility regular updates on how the village was doing.

Whether everything was going well.

Or if indeed there was some problems that they needed the nobles to step in and help with.

However, as we know, after the Black Death hierarchy changed quite a lot.

We've got less peasants than before, as we had any only 30 to 50% of Walsham surviving the Black Death.

And indeed the reeve that Walsham had had for years and years and years, lost his life to this disease.

So what happened after the Black Death is a new person had to step in for this job that they were very inexperienced.

And so this had a huge knock on effect, but just how much power the nobility could put down into Walsham.

So let's see.

Still same as before, the nobles paid the reeve to manage the peasants.

But because now that the reeve was inexperienced and sort of lacked authority, whenever they tried to pass those orders onto the peasants, they were met with a lot of resistance.

A lot of peasants simply refused to complete the work that the reeve asked them to do.

Instead they'd argue for higher wages or they'd say, "No, today's my rest day.

"I'd much rather work tomorrow.

"I'm not going to do what you want me too." So they would meet back with a lot more resistance, these reeves.

Also due to their inexperience, some of these people that went into becoming reeve were just in it for the money.

Sometimes if they caught a peasant doing something that they shouldn't be, the peasants could often give bribes to the reeve so that he would not punish them for their poor behaviour.

So again, he's losing control of the peasantry.

He's unable to keep law and order because these reeves would just accept bribes instead.

And again, this dishonesty of these reeves would then go back to the nobles because they'd cover up any bad news.

If a reeve went to the navel and gave bad news then they're most likely going to get told off by the nobility and they might be fined for doing their job really badly.

So if they can just try and cover it up, then that's good for them.

But the knock on effect of this is that the power of the new nobility changed because people are essentially getting away with a lot more now after the Black Death than they had done before.

Okay so we're now going to look at how the power of the Church changed and decreased slightly due to the Black Death.

Now you'll remember that when the Black Death started to travel across from the East of the West and ended into England, a lot of people turned to the Church for guidance as to how they could stop the Black Death from infecting them.

And you'll remember that the Church said, what you need to do is confess all of your sins to God, he'll forgive you and he will not give you the Black Death as punishment for your sins.

However, many people did all of that and they still died from the Black Death.

So what you saw is some people starting to come up with their own methods of how they could get God's forgiveness.

And that's what you can see here, with these two people in this drawing.

So I just want you to try and work out, pause the screen if you need too.

What are they doing to try and gain God's forgiveness? What are they doing? Excellent, really well done.

I'm sure lots of you managed to work out that these two people are whipping themselves for God's forgiveness.

That is what they've got in their hands.

Now, these people were called, "Flagellants." And what they would do is that they would whip themselves repeatedly until their back started to bleed from all of the violence that they've incurred onto themselves.

And they did this because they're trying to show God, "Look, I'm punishing myself "for the sins that I've committed." And they believe that therefore, God would then not punish them for their sins with the Black Death.

They've done that punishment for him.

And this went against the Church's teachings.

So the Flagellants are kind of undermining the Church and what they're trying to, the message that they're trying to spread by coming up with their own methods.

Okay so we've come to another pause point here.

Multiple choice question is, "How did power change in Walsham after the Black Death?" And there are two options here that you need to pick.

Okay so just pause the screen here, write down the question and then underneath write down the two options that you believe are correct.

Good, okay.

So let's go through these option by option and see how well we've done.

So option one, "The peasants lost power "due to the worker shortage." And I'm sure none of you wrote that down as being true.

That is indeed incorrect.

As we know that the peasants actually gained some power due to their being workers in such high demand.

Option two, "There were challenges to the Church "as Flagellants used their own methods "to gain God's forgiveness." Yes, this is absolutely correct.

They went against the church's teachings that said that people needed to confess their sins instead choosing to whip themselves.

So that was going against the Church.

That is correct.

Option three, "The Church's power increased "as everyone turned to God in their panic." Now this one is incorrect.

Some of you might have written this down because absolutely right, before the Black Death, the Church's power increased, as everyone turn to the Church to find ways that they could treat the Black Death.

But remember, this question is asking about how power changed in Walsham after the Black Death.

So the consequences.

And indeed the Church's power decreased slightly.

So then that leaves options four, "The nobility's power weakened as new, inexperienced reeves "were unable to keep law and order." That is indeed correct.

Remember, they'll take bribes from the peasants and they also lied to the nobles and kept from them any negative information.

Really well done.

Okay so we now come down to the part in the lesson where you need to read extra information about the consequences of the Black Death within Walsham.

So what I'd like you to do is just come out of these slides, open up the worksheet and complete these comprehension questions.

Remember, in full sentences before we then go through them.

Okay so just pause the video now and then answer those comprehension questions.

I will meet you back here once you're finished so that we can go through the answers.

Okay really well done for getting that completed.

And we're now going to go through the answers to the comprehension questions.

As always, please give yourselves a big tick for any answers that you've got correct.

And if there's any that you need to improve, or you'd like to add any extra information to then please feel free to pause me at any point as I go through these answers so you can add that information to your work.

Okay so question number one, "What could peasants spend more time doing "after the Black Death? "Choose at least three." And you'll remember they've got that extra time because with the increase in wages, they now have to work for as many days out of the week, which is fantastic for them.

An acceptable answer: "Drinking in alehouses, gambling, and organising football matches.

But as always, we want to try and make a full sentence.

So we need to take those words from the question and apply them to our answer.

So an even better answer would be: "After the Black Death peasants had more spare time "to spend drinking in alehouses, gambling "and organising football matches." Good.

Question number two: "Why did the worker shortage increase peasants power?" An acceptable answer: "They could ask for higher wages." That is absolutely correct.

The more money you have, the more power you have.

But an even better answer is going to explain that a little bit further.

"Due to the worker shortage "peasants could ask for higher wages.

"Peasants knew that the nobles would prefer to pay more "rather than risk a poor harvest." And this answer is better because it's starts to talk about the fact that peasants have this new confidence.

They have this ability to bargain with the nobles now because they realised that actually being able to survive the Black Death has put them in a really valuable position because the nobles really do need their skills as being farmers.

Question number three, "What did William Ward encourage peasants to do?" An acceptable answer: "Travel to nearby villages to find better wages." Again, we can go into more detail I feel.

So good answer: "William Ward encouraged peasants "to break their oath of loyalty to the nobles.

"This was because the nobles in Walsham "had been paying the peasants low wages "and they could find better wages in nearby villages." So again, this goes into more detail.

It talks about the relationship between the peasants and the nobles.

And that when the peasants first start out working for the nobles they have to swear an oath of loyalty that they will forever farm on their land, do everything they can to help that noble.

But William Ward said, "No, we're worth far better than this.

"Break that oath of loyalty, come with me "and I will get you some riches." Good stuff.

Question number four: "In what ways was the feudal system being challenged "after the Black Death?" Acceptable answer: "Peasants argued for higher wages, "stole from the nobility and dressed up as them." So you can see there's quite a few different answers for this question.

Then even better answer, it goes into a bit more detail.

"Peasants challenged the feudal system "by showing a new level of confidence.

"Peasants pretended to be of a higher rank "and some dressed up as the nobility and went hunting, "whilst others stole from the nobles "and argued for higher wages.

"This showed the nobles' power had weakened." So what you can really see is that the peasants are kind of acting up.

They're being quite defiant against the nobles through many different methods.

I just want to highlight to you here where it talks about peasants pretending to be at a higher rank, dressing up as the nobles and going hunting.

Remember this is them doing it for fun.

They're not trying to do this with any sort of seriousness.

They're not trying to impersonate a noble because remember at this time the people of Walsham, they all knew each other.

If they saw someone that was definitely a villager pretending to be a nobleman they'd absolutely know that that was not the case and that he was having a bit of a laugh.

But it's all of this sort of, having a lot of thought at the noble's expense that the nobles hated because it really showed that their authority had weakened.

And that actually the peasants were not as scared of them as they once were.

Question five: "How did the Church's power change "following the Black Death?" Acceptable answer: "It decreased as people challenged the Church." Good, but again we can be a lot more specific than this.

So a good answer: "The Church remained the most powerful organisation "but it's failure to stop the Black Death "tested people's faith.

"People began to challenge the Church "as they found other ways to gain God's forgiveness, "such as supernatural methods "and the Brotherhood of Flagellants.

"This shows how the Church's power decreased slightly." So again, in there the first sentence explains why people started to question the Church and then it gives some concrete examples of the supernatural methods with the use of magic and omens, and then the Brotherhood of Flagellants.

So those people that whipped themselves for God's forgiveness.

Really, really, really well done for getting all of that done.

Okay so we are finally at the point where we can make a really clear judgement on our inquiry question.

"How far did the Black Death change the Mediaeval World?" Now, how we're going to do this is via a graph.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Miss Hillman, what are you playing at? "This is not a math lesson." I know, I understand, but this is going to be really, really good for us to clearly show how far change happened throughout the Mediaeval World through each point that we studied in this unit.

So what I'd like you to do is just pause the screen here and copy down this graph on the sheet in front of you, preferably on a full 8/4 page so that you've got enough space to add everything that you need to on your graph.

Okay so to complete this graph, what we're going to be doing, is going back over all of the knowledge that we've learned over the past four lessons including this lesson as well.

And we're going to plot just how far we think the world changed due to the Black Death at each stage.

And you'll see that we can decide just how much change occurred by looking at the Y-axis that is going up.

So you can see right at the bottom there, we've got the measurement that, "Life did not change at all." So this is almost as if the Black Death never even happened.

Everyone's going about their everyday lives, much as they had done before.

And it goes all the way up to the top where it says, "Life completely changed." And what you want to think of this is if, monumental massive changes occurred.

You want to think that the feudal system has been completely blown apart, and people aren't using anymore.

You want to think of people, everyone turning against the Church.

And that would be a complete change in the Mediaeval World.

Okay so you might already be thinking, "Not quite sure if I'm going to go up that high," but let's see how we go.

So it'd be really useful if you've got all of your notes throughout this unit to help you complete this task.

So after I've explained the instructions if you need to go and get those, then please do once you've paused the slide, but I'm just going to show you what I've done for the step one, in 1347 at the spread of the Black Death, just so that you know how to complete this at home with yourself.

So in 1347, you will remember that the Black Death travelled from the East over to the West, along the Silk Road.

And there were a few changes that came from this.

You had the death rates starting to increase as people over in the East were beginning to lose their lives to the Black Death.

You had quarantine starting to be used again as traders that had come along the Silk Road, we're forced to stay isolated before stepping on the land of a healthy country.

And you also have new warfare tactics.

You'll remember how some people that had died from the Black Death, their corpses would then be catapulted over the walls of the castle as a way of trying to get the enemies to die, and therefore they could win any battles.

And looking at those changes, I've decided to put my little plot there.

So really life has mostly stayed the same is what I think because yes, we've got these three changes, but they're quite small and it's definitely not affecting all of the globe yet.

Especially with those warfare tactics.

That's just a very, very small amount of population those soldiers that use that.

I'm not going to say that it's a massive change.

The feudal system is very much as it always has been.

There's been no challenge to that.

And with the Church, everyone's very much following that as they had done for many years before.

So what I'm just going to write down next to that cross is my reason for doing so.

Reason for putting it there.

"Increased death rates, use of quarantine, "and new warfare tactics." Okay so what I'd like you to do now is write down some plots throughout the rest of this graph and as I've done, write a reason, a little judgement , a little quick explanation as to why you've put that cross where it is.

Now, if some of you, I'm sure a lot of you are, are up for a bit of a challenge then what would be really, really good is if you could give specific examples from Walsham as justification for your plots.

So you might remember about Sir Edmund, and how he tried to create some very strong smells as part of his way of treating the Black Death.

Or you might want to think about Lady Rose, the noble and how she had to dealt with the peasants and sort of the tension that occurred as they began to get more of her money, if you're looking at 1349 for instance, okay.

So just pause the screen now, complete the rest of this graph and then we'll go through it together.

Excellent work, okay.

We're now going to go through this all together.

You might have slightly different plots than what I have.

That's absolutely fine.

As long as you've been able to justify it, then I'm sure it's going to be fantastic.

So gone through the spread of the disease, we're now moving onto treatment and I'm sure lots of you would have risen your plot a little bit higher to say that actually life is really staying the same, but it's moving on to a bit more of a change.

And the reason for this is we've got, "increased power of the Church," as people move towards it for guidance.

"The use of sweet smells," as they started to surround their homes with incense and strong smelling flowers.

Some of you might've used the story of Sir Edmund as well.

Well done if you did.

"And increased quarantine methods." So again, these are all quite small changes, which is why I've kept it in and around where "Life mostly stayed the same." Now when we come to 1349.

So we're looking at sort of the peak of the Black Death has happened.

Many people have lost their lives.

This is where I think we see the biggest jump with change.

So I put my plot up here, sort of at the top end of "Life slightly changing." And the reason for this is that "The peasants have managed to grow in wealth." You remember because of the worker shortage, they have been able to argue for higher wages and they've got a better quality of life overall as they simply don't have to work for as many days of the week as they used too.

And the reason why I didn't put it all the way at the very top of my graph to, "Life completely changing," is because these peasants, as you all know, were met with a lot of resistance.

One from the nobles, but two from the King himself.

And actually because of the Ordinance of Labourers that he put into place, this limited the amount of power that the peasants could gain.

And it really made sure that peasants stayed at the bottom of the feudal system, so that feudal system remained in place.

So that's why I didn't go any higher with that one.

And then lastly, looking at 1350, the Black Death leaving the country, I'm going to put my plot a little bit higher.

And the reason for this is that the peasant had that new confidence that they'd never had before.

And actually as well, another change that happened is that the Church started to be questioned.

And again, that never happened before.

So again, I didn't put it right at the top by saying that "Life completely changed," because we still definitely have the feudal system.

And also the vast majority of people, if not all the people, are still very much on the same side as the Church, it was just a tiny amount that started to challenge them.

So that's why I've just gone for, "Life slightly changing," just putting a little bit higher up.

So hopefully graph looks something like mine.

If you feel like you want to add any extra information from this graph onto your own, again please pause if you do so, but overall amazing work for this lesson and throughout this whole unit.

I'm very, very impressed.

It's fantastic work.

So please, if you would like to, you've got the option to share your work with Oak National.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

It'd be a real pleasure for me to be able to see all of the hard work that you've put into this inquiry question.

Really, really well done.

I hope you go on to learn some fantastic lessons.

Good work.

That was a hard one.