The Black Death: window of opportunity or disaster? Demographic growth, stagnation and decline in the County of Hainaut (1349-1541)

Abstract

Historians have observed a strong degree of divergence in population trends after the Black Death across Europe. A comprehensive explanation for this divergence is still missing and previous scholarship has cited the importance of either endogenous or exogenous factors. The most prominent exogenous factor cited in the literature is regional variation in the impact of the Black Death and repeat plague outbreaks, while explanations referring to the effect of endogenous factors have pointed to the role of fertility as a prime mover in long-term demographic developments instead. This article will use the County of Hainaut in the southern Low Countries as a case study to analyze the effect of endogenous socio-institutional factors on diverging regional population developments. However, by using data from a single (nearly) continuous source of mortmain accounts, this analysis will also take into account long-term mortality trends. This article concludes that diverging regional population trends after the Black Death in the County of Hainaut are mostly due to endogenous societal factors and not differentials in exogenous mortality trends in the long-run.