Pandemics do not just sicken and kill. They have political and economic effects, too. After the Black Death wiped out a third of the people in Europe, fake news proliferated: rumours that the plague was caused by Jews poisoning the wells led to pogroms. Wages soared (because there were too few labourers) and rents collapsed (because so many homes were empty). Rulers tried brute force to block change, banning farmworkers from leaving their lord’s land to go and work for another who paid better. But this provoked uprisings, such as the Peasants’ Revolt in England in 1381, an impulse that ultimately led to the end of serfdom in most of Europe.