IN THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS, the forces set in motion during the 14th century played themselves out, some of them in exaggerated form like human failings in old age. After a heavy recurrence in the last year of the old century, the Black Death disappeared, but war and brigandage were renewed, the cult of death grew more extreme, the struggle to end the schism and reform the abuses of the Church more desperate. Depopulation reached its lowest point in a society already weakened
