territory, population, climate

Central and eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages was home to many ethnic, cultural, political and social systems. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this region, whose character had been taking shape over a number of centuries, experienced an increase in settlement density, especially in the kingdom of Poland and certain areas of the grand duchy of Lithuania. Together with the growth in rural settlement there came a slow but steady advance in population.

Demographic estimates for the period before statistics merely represent orders of magnitude. About 1370, the kingdom of Poland had 2 million inhabitants with a population density of 8.6 persons per square kilometre. By contrast with western Europe, which was adversely affected demographically and economically by the Black Death, the outbreak of plague in Poland did not have the character of a catastrophe, as can be seen from the increase in internal developments and quite intensive colonisation of the fourteen and fifteenth centuries.