Kishan Desai HIST 101-001 Winter 2017 The Plague The Plague Documentary Review The documentary focused on the black plague. The plague was a deadly bacterial disease which devastated Middle Age society. The documentary showed how the disease originated, how it spread, and the effects of it on society then and after. The plague started in the east with the Mongols and moved to west through trade with the Europeans. It then spread through fleas on rats on merchant ships in Europe. The disease had beginning symptoms of just fever, chills, and high temperature like the flu today then it escalated to buboes which are large swelling colored whelps on the body. The people started to spread the plague easily because of the disease’s highly …show more content…
The video was not formatted very well which made it very hard to follow. The names of some of the scholars were cut off. The quality of twenty five percent of the documentary was horrible because of very high pixilation which made it almost unwatchable. The documentary was also hurt by the repetitive scenes it kept replaying when there was someone speaking. The documentary appealed to logic when the pope at the beginning of the film had full-fledged trust in God to make sure the plague did not affect him. The pope at the time was a higher power than kings at the time. He slowly as more people started to die started to lose trust. He started to listen to his personal surgeon and at one point was in his palace with fires all around him to protect him from the plague. He eventually would flee to his country side estate much like the rest of the nobility. They slowly tried to convince you that if even the pope is starting to question God, then imagine the people fright. The documentary appealed to emotion when it showed King Edward the Third’s daughter happy about her marriage. She was portrayed as a beautiful, happy princess set to be married and was vacationing on her way to meet your fiancée. She was the most heavily guarded woman in all of Europe. The plague killed her before she met her fiancée. The filmmakers did a good job of convincing the audience that even armies could not stop the wrath of the plague. The documentary appealed to prejudice when
In the late Middle Ages the worst evil known to man terrorized Europe. People were dropping dead everywhere and there was no place to put them. This vicious culprit was known as the Black Plague. During the 14th century in Europe millions of people died from the plague and the plague brought about great change. Before the plague there was peace and prosperity in the High Middle Ages and after the plague things were different. Historians consider the outbreak of the Black Plague a watershed moment because of great social, religious and economical changes.
There are many ways to explore any period in history. The period that we will look further into will be Medieval Europe. I found an academic article that explores deeper into that period, especially the Black plague. Assembling three primary sources of the black plague, each has a different perspective of what was portrayed in the academic article.
Furthermore, the populace was extremely religious during the times of the plague, and many thought the Black Death was a way for God to punish the sinful. Several people believed that as long as God was on their side, they would be safe from the plague. One such man was Sir John Reresby, an English traveler who wanted to visit Italy. When he learned Italy had been struck by the plague, only he and three others would still risk traveling to Italy. Sir John “resolved to trust Providence rather than not see so
Nurs would let there passant die so they can inherit all that person money and they would also do the samething to the next person and do it over and over. Those people were so selfish the rich people left to let the poor poor people suffer with the illness and die and when all that is happening to the poor the rich is living there life not sick and not dieing far away from the plague. Rich people would do this because they are rich and higher class then the poor and that they can afford a new house and new things. When the bubonic plague was going on families were dying and there was a lot of dead bodies of loved ones and they had barely them if they could. “ The deed by hundred both day and night and all were thrown in ditches and covered with earth.” … buried my five children with my own hands” Document 7. Loved one for them where digging and probably thinking they were next in that line it impacted more of the children and elders. “ Many victims of those plague were children who were unable to take care of themselves even if they survived infection The plague had many people questioning religion if god was real or not people would
The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their
Doctors responded with a series of changes are to thank for the development of modern science. Gottfried succeeded in convincing me that his thesis was truth. The opening chapters gave me a solid background of plague, explaining why he believes it had such an impact on medieval population and culture. Next, it delves into the affect that changing weather had on the plagues, explaining the European environment during 1050-1347; the time of plagues greatest destruction. That complete, Gottfried describes the consequences immediately following the plague. It is said that the disease killed 25% to 40% of Eurasia and part of Africa. By this point, it is more than obvious that plague had a tragic affect on Medieval Europe, but it is unclear as to the causes, and the effect plague had on society, which seemed to be his theses in the opening chapters. But he does not ignore these topics. After giving a full background on plague and European culture and environment, Gottfried gives solid details to support his theses. According to Gottfried, the Medical structure of Medieval Europe, adopted from that of the Romans, was nearly eliminated in the search for ways to cure plague. The spread of plague, successfully stated by Gottfried, directly depends on climate. Plague can only spread under certain climate conditions. In order for Y. Pestis, a series of complex bacterial strains, to survive, it mustn't be too hot nor too cold.
My topic is about the black plague. I choose this topic because I thought that it would be interesting to learn about the most catastrophic disease to happen in Europe. The exchange of the black throughout Europe was the greatest catastrophe ever because it killed 50 million people, more than any other bug or virus, there were smaller breakouts, and family’s abandoned each other.
The Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history. It was first discovered 550 years later in the 1800s by Alexandre Yersin, a french biologist. In his honor, the plague was named Yersinia Pestis. The plague traveled in two major ways. Yersin discovered that it traveled by infected fleas; the flea would attempt to feed on a human or animal and would then regurgitate the disease into the new host, further spreading the illness. Urban areas across Europe were populous with rats, which were one of the main hosts of the plague. These rodents spread the Black Death throughout cities in days. The unaffected still were not safe if they did not come in contact with an infected flea or rat. The plague also traveled pneumonically, or through the air. It caused large boils full of blood and pus, which would pop and spread. Another symptom was coughing, which was one of the many ways of proliferation. The disease eventually spread throughout Europe and killed a third of it’s population. It’s wrath caused many shortages, loss in hope, riots, and even some good things, such as many changes in art, science, and education. Therefore, the Black Death was one of the most life-changing pandemics in history.
In the movie “The Black Death” Osmund and the soldiers set out to find a necromancer that is supposedly raising plague victims from the dead. Although witchcraft may not have been against the law at that time, many people believed that they needed to earn God’s forgiveness and the only way to do that would be to get rid of everyone who was causing problems. According to the article “Black Death”, “Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers.” Ulric and his soldiers were sent, by the Bishop, to a remote village to find the necromancer and the other people in that village because the necromancer was producing problems. This gives the viewer of the movie a better look into what was taking place in England during the Black Death. The plot of the movie, while being a hypothetical scenario, is accurate considering the fact that it is something that could have happened.
The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.
The Black Death was one of the worst pandemics in history. The disease ravaged Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa between 1346 and 1353 (Horrox 1994). It is difficult to understand the reality of such a devastating event, especially given the fact that science during the middle ages was severely underdeveloped. No one knew about bacteria, viruses, or other microbial agents of disease (Benedictow 2004). They had no way of protecting themselves during that time and no one was safe from the effects of the plague. Those who wrote chronicles claimed that only a tenth of the population had survived, while others claimed that half to a third of the population was left alive (Horrox 1994). In 1351, agents for Pope Clement VI predicted the number of deaths in Europe to be 23,840,000 (Gottfried 1983). Obviously, not all regions experienced the same mortality rates, but modern estimates of the death rate in England give the first outbreak a mortality rate of about forty-eight percent (Horrox 1994). That is, England lost half of its population in about a year and a half. Clearly the chroniclers ' who claimed that ninety percent of the population had died were overstating the magnitude of the plague, but this overemphasis demonstrates how terrifying the pandemic was to those who experienced it (Horrox 1994). The Black Death had huge consequences on the lives of those who were impacted directly, as well as major religious and cultural effects that came afterward.
"The Black Death" is known as the worst natural disaster in European history. The plague spread throughout Europe from 1346-1352. Those who survived lived in constant fear of the plague's return and it did not disappear until the 1600s. Not only were the effects devastating at the time of infection, but during the aftermath as well. "The Black Death" of the fourteenth century dramatically altered Europe's social and economic structure.
The plague was a catastrophic time in history, and happened more than once. It took millions and millions of people’s lives. It destroyed cities and countries, and many people suffered from it.
The pandemic known to history as the Black Death was one of the world’s worst natural disasters in history. It was a critical time for many as the plague hit Europe and “devastated the Western world from 1347 to 1351, killing 25%-50% of Europe’s population and causing or accelerating marked political, economic, social, and cultural changes.” The plague made an unforgettable impact on the history of the West. It is believed to have originated somewhere in the steppes of central Asia in the 1330s and then spread westwards along the caravan routes. It spread over Europe like a wildfire and left a devastating mark wherever it passed. In its first few weeks in Europe, it killed between 100 and 200 people per day. Furthermore, as the weather became colder, the plague worsened, escalating the mortality rate to as high as 750 deaths per day. By the spring of 1348, the death toll may have reached 1000 a day. One of the main reasons the plague spread so quickly and had such a devastating effect on Europe was ultimately due to the lack of medical knowledge during the medieval time period.
Medicine was a major aspect of the Restoration time period that the film focused on. The depiction of the plague greatly represents the real events. The people affected by the bubonic plague were always seen sweating. People affected would begin to sweat so their bodies could drain their system of the bacteria. Another technique of healing the plague in the film was blood letting. This was also commonly used to aid the body in removing bacteria, but this technique was used to speed up the natural process. The approximate death toll of the plague in London is 20 to 60 percent of the population during the Restoration time period. The dark tone of the film is expressed through with the tremendous