Black Death

The 14th century in England saw the Great Famine and the Black Death, catastrophic events that killed around half of England's population. The Black Death was the worst disease in recorded history, killing 50% of the population in a year. Chronic malnourishment weakened the population, perhaps making people more susceptible to the Black Death, the worst disease in recorded history, which arrived in Europe in 1347 and in England the following year. The plague returned in a series of periodic local and national epidemics. The plague only finally stopped at the end of the seventeenth century.