Published: | Updated:

WHAT WAS BRITAIN LIKE IN THE 14TH CENTURY?

During the 14th Century, Britain was in the depths of the Dark Ages. 

Child mortality was high, up to a third of all children did not survive past the age of five due to illness, disease and poor medical knowledge. 

Up to 20 per cent of women would die during child birth or because of post-birth infections.

If a person survived a risky childhood and lived in a time without war, the average life expectancy peaked at around 40-45 years of age.

The House of Plantagenet were the royals that oversaw the entire century; from Charles III through to the deposition of Richard II in 1399.

In the middle of the century, a four year span between 1347 to 1351 saw one of the worst pandemics of all time - The Black Death.

It killed an estimated 200 million people - between 30 and 60 per cent of the total European population.

The Oriental rat flea was infected with the Yersinia pestis bacterium which spread the plague through the dirty streets and villages that were so popular during this era as hygiene and germs were not understood. 

As well as one of the worst cases of diseases in human history which killed millions of people, scores of people perished due to a lack of food thanks to The Great Famine which spanned from 1315 to 1317.

Poor weather conditions saw a terrible yield of grains and caused a Europe-wide food shortage.

Starvation accounted for millions of death and a rise in crime, cannibalism and infanticide during this time.

If childbirth, diseases, plague or starvation didn't cause a premature death many people met their end in a more violent manner as conflicts were commonplace. 

The Hundred Years' War (which lasted 116 years from 1337 to 1453) was a series of conflicts waged between the kingdoms of England and France over the 'rightful' succession to the French throne.  

In 1381, the working-class people snapped back at the affluent rulers in the 'Great Rising' or the 'Peasants revolt' in which 1,500 rebels died in protest against poor living conditions and increasing taxes.  

Advertisement

Read articles that feature this panel

Stunned pensioner, 69, finds two halves of the same valuable 14th Century gold ring just a year apart

Paul Schorn, 69, from Lee-On-Solent found the second half of a £12,000 ($16,600) ring in the same Winchester field where he found the first...

The nun who faked her own death to pursue a life of lust: 14th Century Benedictine nun made a DUMMY in her image to escape her convent’s...

Joan of Leeds was living at the house of St Clement by York in 1318 when she decided to enlist the help of her fellow sisters to create a...

Remains of six people unearthed at a building site in Kent by unsuspecting builders date back to the Middle Ages 

Contractors using a digger found a rubble bag buried six feet below ground at the location in Whitstable, Kent, on January 21. Police...

The plague that killed 200 million: As world worries about coronavirus, archaeologists find mass grave of 48 victims of the Black Death...

A mass grave of 48 skeletons discovered at the site of a 14th century monastery hospital at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, is a reminder of...

Muchelney Abbey in Somerset had a 'state of the art' TOILET BLOCK for up to 40 monks that proved crucial when meat was introduced into their...

It may sit in an idyllic spot overlooking the Somerset Levels, but as it turns out things weren't always so heavenly for Muchelney Abbey,...

Friar muck! Medieval friars were twice as likely to be riddled with intestinal parasites as townspeople because they fertilised their...

The study by University of Cambridge researchers, is the first to compare parasite prevalence in people from the same medieval community who...

Anglo-Saxons were only 24% English! Mass migration into the UK from Germany, The Netherlands and Denmark during the Medieval period may have...

Researchers from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology carried out a genetic study to understand the scale, nature, and impact...

Most watched News videos