Text 1: Historian Banks argues that the Black Death of 1347–1351 transformed European society for the better. By killing roughly a third of the population, the plague raised wages for surviving workers, weakened serfdom, and accelerated the transition from feudalism toward a market economy.
Text 2: Historian Park accepts that some social mobility followed the plague but resists reading the catastrophe as net positive. The benefits Banks describes accrued unevenly; many regions saw landlords reimpose harsher controls, and the trauma of mass death reshaped European culture in ways that include xenophobic violence and religious persecution. Calling the plague's legacy "for the better" misjudges the scale of loss.
The authors most clearly disagree about
- Acheck_circle
whether the Black Death's overall legacy should be characterized as positive.
- B
whether the plague occurred in the fourteenth century.
- C
whether the Black Death killed many people.
- D
whether wages rose for some surviving workers.
Explanation
Both accept the death toll, the date, and rising wages for some. They disagree on the overall framing. B captures the evaluative dispute.