IMC 2026: Sessions

Recent scholarship has made a strong case that the Black Death was a turning point in economic history on the European and even global scale. Such approaches have argued that this epidemic helped break down feudal practices allowing for the expansion of market forces in the exchange of land, labour and capital, and in the long run promoted the so-called Little Divergence in economic development between northwestern Europe and the rest of the continent.

However, other approaches have been more sceptical. While the Black Death reduced inequality in the short-run, this ultimately proved a blip in trends of long-run inequality increase. Narratives of golden ages for labourers and women following the Plague have been tempered by the evidence of more limited wage growth, the role of labour laws in constraining certain workers’ living standards, and persistent gender inequality in inheritence practices and opportunities for work.

These panels will contribute to this debate through analysing the impact of the Black Death in a variety of spheres of economic and social activity taking place in medieval Europe. The second panel examines the social and health impacts of the Plague in England. Spike Gibbs investigates how the pandemic effected village networks, seeing whether this event led to changes in the key agents in village communities, the role of kinship in structuring patterns of exchange and violence. Sophie Henle focuses on the position of key women within rural communities to see how far the Plague led to increased female agency or reinforced gender inequalities. Grace Owen examines infirmity among tenants in late medieval England, to understand how non-fatal illness impacted on peasants’ ability to work. Overall, the session provides opportunities to reflect on how Plague was experienced as part of everyday life within rural communities.