14th C plague pit uncovered in Lincolnshire

[Imperial Dave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-38146468

surprised to learn the mortality rates have been adjusted upwards since I studied it in school being now stated as being up to 60%. Not surprisingly it prevented any major military efforts until 1355 according to Wikipedia. 

[Patrick Waterson]

The Wikipedia entry may need a bit of refining, as the main reason for lack of significant campaigning seems to have been not the Black Death (although this was not a negligible influence) but the Truce of 1347.  This led to King Edward largely staying at home and confined the fighting to peripheral regions.  In 1349 the French lost a battle at Lunalongue in Poitou and were spectacularly defeated at Calais by King Edward himself (he nipped over to take full advantage of a double-cross when the French tried to bribe the governor).  The following year saw the Battle of Winchelsea, in which King Edward defeated a Castilian fleet; 1351 saw the Battle of Saintes (in Brittany), another French defeat, and a rare French success at Ardres outside Calais following Henry of Lancaster's almost successful attempt to seize Boulogne (he took everything but the citadel and then found his scaling ladders were too short for the latter).  The French had waited until Henry departed on crusade and then engaged and defeated Beauchamp.  In 1352 the English seized Guines (near Calais) and in Brittany Bentley foiled the French siege of recently-recaptured Fougeres.  The year was rounded off with a smashing English victory at Mauron (Brittany again).

From 1353 to 1355 there were serious negotiations aimed at converting the truce into a permanent peace, but in 1355 these broke down and the Black Prince launched his Grand Chevauchee, followed by the Battle of Poitiers the following year.

[Imperial Dave]

I thank thee for thine most learned correction 

[Duncan Head]

But presumably the effects of the plague are one reason that an original 9-month truce got extended for eight years: both parties too debilitated to renew full-scale warfare.

[Patrick Waterson]

But presumably the effects of the plague are one reason that an original 9-month truce got extended for eight years: both parties too debilitated to renew full-scale warfare.

It certainly contributed, but my impression is that more than anything else it was the inability of both sides to agree on peace terms which both prolonged and vitiated the truce and hence reduced the scale and extent of action.  Once both were certain that no agreement would be reached, England's war machinery once more ground into action in AD 1355.  (France's had already tried in 1352 and had come to grief at Mauron, together with the new Order of the Star.)  Given that the Black Death had struck in 1348, seven years would not have been sufficient for the population to recover and hence I very much doubt the argument that England did not undertake significant action in the intervening years because it could not.  Had there been no truce, this might have been an argument with some validity.  Yet if anything, the Black Death seems to have re-ignited the war, not hindered it.  The scale of fighting increases annually from 1349 to 1352 despite the ravages of the Black Death in 1348-1350.

I thank thee for thine most learned correction 

Hey, Dave, I am correcting Wikipedia (in a manner of speaking), not your good self!  Thanks for airing the article, by the way.

Incidentally, Geoffrey le Baker narrated the following about Black Death effects on population, which makes even 60% seem tame.

"The seventh year after it began, it came to England and first began in the towns and ports joining on the seacoasts, in Dorsetshire, where, as in other counties, it made the country quite void of inhabitants so that there were almost none left alive.
... But at length it came to Gloucester, yea even to Oxford and to London, and finally it spread over all England and so wasted the people that scarce the tenth person of any sort was left alive."

[Imperial Dave]

I'd always gone with the 25% figure fed to me in school so the recent-ish upscaling of the severity is quite something to wrap your head around re mortality rates

[Patrick Waterson]

I think contemporary accounts were 'laundered' by subsequent history teachers.  Whatever the actual figure was, the interesting thing is that history, and in particular military history, seemed to carry on pretty much without interruption despite a massive loss of population.

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.