Robert Palmer's pathbreaking study shows how the Black Death
triggered massive changes in both governance and law in
fourteenth-century England, establishing the mechanisms by which
the law adapted to social needs for centuries thereafter. The Black
Death killed one-third of the English population between 1348 and
1351. To preserve traditional society, the king's government
aggressively implemented new punitive legal remedies as a mechanism
for social control. This attempt to shore up traditional society in
fact transformed it. English governance now legitimately extended
to routine regulation of all workers, from shepherds to innkeepers,
smiths, and doctors. The new cohesiveness of the ecclesiastical and
lay upper orders, the increase in subject matter jurisdictions, the
growth of the chancellor's court, and the acceptance of coercive
contractual remedies made the Black Death in England a
transformative experience for law and for governance. Palmer's
book, based on all of the available legal records, establishes a
genuinely new interpretation and chronology of these important
legal changes.