The Black Death Was Not A Disease of the Poor
While it would seem obvious that a disease that was believed to be spread by fleas and rats would be one that mostly affected the poor. The rich would not be living in the squalor of the poor and their better living conditions would provide a better chance of avoiding the disease or surviving it. Reality, however was that the rich were just as affected by the Black Death as the poor. While the poor may have died in greater numbers their population also vastly outnumbered the rich.
Chroniclers of the period report that many important knights, ladies and merchants fell victim to the black death. Records from the time also show that many wealthy and well-fed convents, friaries and monasteries were just as devastated by the plague as the rest of Europe. Many of these convents, friaries and monasteries lost more than half their population and some even disappeared altogether. The Black Death not only killed the wealthy but it gave peasants power they never had before.
After the Black Death peasants who survived believed that they were blessed by God. This meant that they will not as willing to accept oppression and just accept their lot in life. They believed this blessing from God put them above Parliament and anything that the Parliament could do to them. In 1381 the peasants revolted in order to fight against rising taxes and the fear that power would once again shift back to Parliament.
The Black Death caused an employment shortage which along with the belief that the Black Death was linked to God emboldened the peasants to fight for the rights and freedoms they did not have under the feudal system that existed prior to the plague. It was the peasants themselves who brought about the end of the feudal system as they moved to towns and cities during and following the plague. Coincidentally the belief that the plague was brought by the Almighty did not increase confidence in the church but rather the opposite, which would eventually lead to the reformation.