On June 11, 1352, a series of trials were held against laborers from Wiltshire, England who had violated a 1349 ordinance that decreed that all laborers must accept the wages they had received in 1346. This is a rare specific date when we can look at the economic impact of the Black Death and how the workers who survived sought to take advantage to improve their financial standing.

The impact of the bubonic plague upon Europe was truly amazing. Somewhere between 75 and 200 million people died in Eurasia, mostly in Europe between 1347 and 1351, killing between 30 and 60 percent of Europe's population. World population actually plunged by about 25 percent and did not return to the pre-plague levels until the mid-16th century. In areas such as southern France, southern Spain, and Italy, historians estimate that up to 80 percent of the population died. About 40 percent of Egypt's population died. It was 50 percent in Paris and 60 percent in Hamburg and London. And of course, waves of plague, not quite as deadly as the initial round but still devastating, rolled through Europe every few years into the 17th century. Half of Naples died in a 1656 outbreak, as an example.