Demographic Crises
Economic Effects
Cities were hit hard by the plague. While the plague was raging, markets vanished, even food markets. Work stopped. Income stopped. People tried, of course, and we don't have anything like a day-to-day narrative, but we get glimpses here and there. There's little doubt that when a thousand people were dying a day (as they were in Florence), normal business could not be sustained.
Financial business was disrupted as debtors died and their creditors found themselves without recourse. Not only had the debtor died, his whole family had died with him and many of his kinsmen. This created problems for quite a long time. With so many people dying, there was a sudden crush of probate cases, yet at the same time there were fewer judges, lawyers and notaries. It took years to sort out the implications, but the immediate impact was that there was property for which there were no heirs. Or, if there was a dispute, there was no one to hear it.
Construction projects stopped for a time or were abandoned altogether. We see evidence for this all over Europe. It happened not only because there were fewer skilled workers, but also because the towns suddenly were strapped for funds. In the ensuing years we see towns actively bidding against each other in certain key trades, but in some cases by the time the resources were again available, political circumstances had changed. One of the more famous examples is the cathedral in Siena, which had a massive expansion planned for it, to compete with the magnificent cathedral being built in Florence. The plague came, and Siena never finished it.
Guilds lost their craftsmen and could not replace them. Almost immediately after the Black Death we see guilds lowering the age of mastership in an attempt to replenish their ranks. In some cases, though, especially in smaller towns, the craft fell into permanent decline or else vanished altogether as the craftsmen migrated to other cities.
Mills and other special machinery might break and the one man in town who had the skill to repair it had died in the plague. It could be years before the community could afford to bring in a specialist to make repairs.
The labor shortage was very severe, especially in the short term, and consequently, wages rose. Because of the mortality, there was an oversupply of goods, and so prices dropped. Between the two trends, the standard of living rose . . . for those still living.
Effects in the countryside were just as severe. Farms and entire villages died out or were abandoned as the few survivors decided not to stay on. When Norwegian sailors finally visited Greenland again in the early 15th century, they found in the settlements there only wild cattle roaming through deserted villages. In Germany, literally hundreds of villages were abandoned, forgotten until modern archeology rediscovered their traces.
Whole families died, with no heirs, their houses standing empty. The shortage of labor allowed peasants to begin to make demands, and we see attempts at both wage and price controls in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death. The legislation was never very effective, but it's an indication of how serious the situation had become.