The plague in a medieval city: the dead, the idle land, the years to come back
The Black Death (1347-1352) killed on average 38.8% of the people of Western European towns: 15% in Milan, 60% in Florence and Venice (Jedwab, Johnson and Koyama, 2020). On average towns took two centuries to regain their population. London, about 80,000 around 1300, held hardly more than 50,000 until the early sixteenth century (Keene, 2001).
| Town | Dead | Fields left idle | Newcomers a year, before | Newcomers a year to be back in 25 years | Newcomers a year to be back in 50 years | Newcomers a year to be back in 100 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | 1,200 | 260 km² | 15 | 56 | 32 | 21 |
| 10,000 | 3,900 | 880 km² | 100 | 220 | 140 | 100 |
| 40,000 | 16,000 | 3,500 km² | 400 | 870 | 560 | 400 |
| 150,000 | 58,000 | 13,000 km² | 1,500 | 3,200 | 2,100 | 1,500 |
A town lives on newcomers: more of its people die than are born. Towns kept no rule for how fast they came back; these are the arrivals a year that would bring one back in that time.
Orders of magnitude for play: sourced figures and Hearth estimates together. Every source, and every figure still waiting for one, is listed in the builder under Sources.
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