Second pestilence of the fourteenth century ends

1390

Recurring plague outbreaks since 1361 finally subsided across western Europe around this time, leaving populations a third lower than at the century's opening. Labor remained scarce, wages high, lords resentful, serfdom decaying. Scarcity was, paradoxically, building the economic foundation of a post-plague Europe in which surviving workers commanded better conditions than their grandparents had ever known.