What was life like in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death in western Europe?

by babrooks213

There's a lot of literature about how Western European society and culture evolved in the wake of the Black Death, but I'm wondering if that was gradual, or if it was more immediate. So I'm curious what it was like for survivors in the first, say, year or three after the Black Death.

Just things like, were taxes still collected? How did they deal with the shortage of labor for gathering crops? Did kings/dukes/etc still try to go to war, and if so, was there any resistance along the lines of, "Dude, a bunch of people just died. Maybe we don't try to kill even more people?"

I'm not necessarily looking for answers specifically to those above questions, but just trying to get a sense of how people lived in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death. Thanks!

amandycat

This question had a very different scope - it was more to do with how people cope with the great loss incurred by the black death (and whether humour was considered appropriate), but you may find it interesting.