section_path: Late Middle Ages/Society and economy
section_name: Society and economy
paragraph_text: Society and economy
  
  The average annual temperature began declining c. 1200, gradually introducing the Little Ice Age. Climate anomalies caused agricultural crises, culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–1317. Starving peasants slaughtered their draft animals, and survivors had to make extraordinary efforts to revive farming. This was followed in 1346 by the Black Death, a pandemic that spread throughout Europe and killed about one-third of the population. As plague continued to strike Europe until 1400, its total population fell by about 50 percent.
  
  The trauma of the plague led to pogroms against the Jews and the self-mortification of flagellants. Peasants who survived the pandemic paid lower rents to landlords, but demand for agricultural products declined and lower prices barely covered their costs. Urban workers received higher salaries, but were heavily taxed. Governments occasionally tried to raise rural rents or keep urban salaries low, provoking popular uprisings which included the Jacquerie in France, the Peasants' Revolt in England, and the Ciompi Revolt in Florence. Conflict polarised ethnic groups, and local statutes prohibited intermarriage and limited guild membership along ethnic lines. Private feuds were almost permanent in politically-fragmented regions, and local skirmishes often escalated into full-scale warfare.
  
  Labour services owed by peasants for their land tenure were often changed into cash rent, providing landlords with a stable source of income. Landlords joined to extort privileges from their governments, but royal administrations began to protect the interests of the poor. Serfdom was officially abolished in many places, although in other regions (primarily central and eastern Europe) it was imposed on tenants who had been free. The rise of banking continued, fuelled partly by the cross-border movement of papal revenues with the mediation of large merchant houses. They also loaned money to warring royalty at great risk, and some were bankrupted when kings defaulted on loans.
  
  The Jewish communities were permanently expelled from France and, provisionally, from most German cities and principalities. In contrast, Hungarian and Polish rulers encouraged the immigration of Jewish moneylenders. Massive pogroms led to the mass conversion of Spanish Jews in 1391. The " new Christians " were suspected of heresy, and the Spanish Inquisition was established to test their faith. Jews who refused to convert were exiled from Spain in 1492, and from Portugal in 1497. Most Spanish Jews left for the Ottoman Empire.