How the Black Death Made Paris Peasants Rich

Paris, 1349. Colin is a young day laborer on the Grève, the gravel bank of the Seine where men wait to be hired. His great-grandfather was a serf. This morning he is about to ask for a raise. A year earlier the plague reached Paris. It killed perhaps a third of the city, rich and poor alike, and suddenly there were not enough hands to build, carry and bake. For the first time, men like Colin could name their price. The king answered with a law that made Colin's raise a crime. Then came Poitiers, a captured king, a ransom, bad coins, and Étienne Marcel, the merchant who led Paris against the crown. This is the story of how a sickness too small to see shook the oldest order in France.