During the late Middle Ages of the 14th and 15th centuries AD, half or more of the population of Europe was killed during the Black Death epidemics. As a result (and for other likely related reasons), thousands of villages throughout the region were abandoned and never reoccupied.
Occasionally, the houses, streets and churches of the Deserted Medieval Villages (DMV) were left intact; in other cases only crop marks remain to indicate the sites. Archaeologists Maurice W. Beresford and John G. Hurst began seeking DMVs in the 1950s to identify these types of sites, and over 3000 DMV have been recorded to date. The best known DMV has to be Wharram Percy.
Sources
See some additional information associated with the ramifications of Black Death. Channel 4's Time Team did a bit on the DMVs of England, and there's a little bit on the English Heritage website as well.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
