The Black Death reached Europe in 1347 after spreading across trade routes from Asia and the Black Sea region. It killed a vast proportion of the population and disrupted agriculture, settlement, labour, and religious life. Abandoned fields, empty villages, and mass burial became part of the lived environment.

The plague transformed European literary culture, influencing Boccaccio, Langland, Chaucer's world, and later plague poetry. Its imagery of corrupted air, rotting bodies, flowers, bells, and deserted streets deepened the memento mori tradition and altered poetic thinking about nature, mortality, and divine order.