CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: A - The depopulation that resulted from the Black Death led to higher wages for peasants because there were more jobs available. While serfs had been bound to the fiefs on which they lived and worked, there had never been a great deal of legal enforcement to keep them there since the lord only had control over his own manor. (If a serf could get off the manor grounds and away from the lord’s possible neighbors/allies, they were probably going to get away unharmed, apart from having no means to support themselves at that point.) Feudal society was already tenuous before the Black Death, but the depopulation weakened the serfs ties to the manor even more. Though peasants were able to gain higher wages, the gentry class, struggling with the added expense of having to pay workers more, took greater advantage of the local positions of power their rank in society afforded them. Subsequently, they found new ways to hinder the peasants but in institutionalized ways, like imposing harsher taxes.