... the culture of society, changing people's attitudes to powers such as the church, and the King. Despite the unpleasantness of the epidemic, many historians have seen the Black Death as being 'a blessing in disguise' (Gasquet) and claim that it started the rebirth of Europe (Lienhard) Prior to 1348, there were a number of social problems that existed in Western Europe. A lot of these problems I would argue were a result of the over-population of villages. The population in England in 1300 was about two to five million, (*1) and many of these villages, for various reasons did not have enough food to sustain this number of people. Factors such as the over cultivation of land, and poor crop yields meant that the peasants (the majority) were desperately hard up, and there was a great deal of starvation. I would argue that the feudal system that existed in Britain was ...

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