Black Death DBQ Essay

In 1347 while everyone was off at the 100 years’ war, an unforeseen attack came from the east that took out nearly thirty percent of the known world’s population. It changed everyone’s lives, making the rich poor, the poor rich, and encouraging the population to be self-centered. It was the Black Death.

The Black Death killed thirty percent of Europe and the Middle East (Document 2). People living in this time believed that it was the end of the world while witnessing bodies being piled up in ditches every day. Christians and Muslims had different opinions of what the causes of the Black Death were and had vastly different responses.

Summary: The Black Death, by Philip Ziegler, covers the epidemic that spread throughout Eurasia around 1348. The book mostly focuses on England and how the disease affected this area. The book also covers other portions of Europe such as France, Italy, and Germany but not as in depth. Ziegler uses the research of many historians to piece together what occurred during this time of grief. Ziegler starts off the book explaining the origins and nature of the plague. He explains how the tartar attacked the port city of Genoa by catapulting diseased corpses in the city’s compound. The Genoese decided to flee and went further north, which caused the spread of

The Black Plague was a dreadful event that caused suffering in Europe, however it was also a wake up call for humanity. Many people believed that the pandemic was because the gods were angry at humanity for… some reason? After the bodies piled up on the street and pits were made to put them in instead of graves people wondered if the gods really cared about them. Another thing the black plague caused is a new class which was the middle class. Serfs and peasants were dying and the demand for them increased to a colossal extent. There was literally a law that had to be made saying basically you had to be part of a landlord's

The Black Death discusses the causes and results of the plague that devastated medieval Europe. It focuses on the many effects it had on the culture of medieval Europe and the possibility that it expedited cultural change. I found that Robert S. Gottfried had two main theses in the book. He argued that rodent and insect life cycles, as well as the changing of weather systems affect plague. He claimed that the devastation plague causes is partly due to its perpetual recurrences. Plague ravaged Europe in cycles, devastated the people when they were recuperating. As can be later discovered in the book, the cycles of plague consumed the European population. A second thesis, which he described in greater detail,

Introduction: The Black Death was considered as one of the largest turning points in history. For one, no one at the time knew what this plague was until it boarded on a ship to Europe to spread across a vast nation. It had killed more than 20 million people which was one third of Europe’s population. Europe’s population had been growing during this time which made it easier for the plague to spread.

Imagine the world as it is. There are many people living on the planet at a given time. Now imagine that out of the estimated 7 billion people on earth, about 4,200,000,000 people were suddenly eradicated because of a disease infesting just a part of the world. No, it isnt a scene or plot from a horror movie, this horrible reality is actually fact and has already happened in the distant past. I am talking, of course, of the Black Death of Europe. The Black Death or as its also known as “Bubonic Plague”, was a serious pandemic that infected Europe and nearly wiped out 60% of its population during its 2 year spread all across Europe. A rough estimate of about 60-200 million people were claimed as victims of The Black Death. At the time,

The Black Death was devastating and was one of the most significant events in Medieval Britain. The Black Death was also known the plague and bubonic plague it describes the spread of disease that caused mass deaths throughout Britain. The disease itself was carried by fleas and spread across Europe between 1346-1353 leaving towns and city such as Siena Italy with 85% of the population wiped out. This was seen all over Europe including Britain and it can be argued economic factors was the most significant consequences of the Black Death. However there are many factors such as political, social factors and Mortality rates that were also results of the Black Death and perhaps social factors may be more significant.

“The Black Death” is a pretty historically accurate movie. The costumes in the movie, the plot of the movie, the cause of the Black Death, how the Black Death spread, how to cure the Black Death, what the Black Death looked like, some of the sets in the movie, and the origin of the Black Death were all depicted extremely accurately. However, some of the sets in “The Black Death” were not completely accurate. The movie “The Black Death” gives the viewer a great deal of accurate information about the Black Plague; however, there are a few historical inaccuracies as well.

Finally, of course this was a terrible thing in history, but there is a silver lining in every cloud. For example after this was all over there were more jobs open, there was more land, and there was more houses. In addition to this, just like every thing in history the black death is effecting us in current day because we get shots so we are immune to diseases, and there are more reasonable procedures to take after showing symptoms.

There are many theories on how the plague found its way to Europe. A journalist from National Geographic, Cameron Walker said, “The bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, lives inside the gut of its main carrier, the flea. The plague likely spread to Europe on the backs of shipboard black rats that carried plague-infested fleas.” Europe’s widespread trade system was the main cause of the plague spreading to England, Italy, France, and other neighboring countries (Richard). This bacterium caused infection not only in rodents, but also in humans and insects. The flea attached itself to a host and infected them with the disease by producing blockages in the stomach, making it that no blood can pass through (Sutyak). The infection is highly contagious. Something as simple as a cough could cause the bacteria to go air borne and kill numerous people in a matter of days. The Black Death started to quickly spread, resulting in countries being blindsided and having the disease kill a vast sum of their population. The case of the bubonic plague was the only disease to affect Western Europe on a worldwide scale (Damen).

Everything gets worse before it gets better. A bruise turns into a gaudy green pigment before it fully heals; a rainstorm sends hail falling from the sky, impaling anything it sees, right before a beautiful rainbow appears; the red fleshed pimple on one’s face continues to grow bigger and bigger until it spontaneously disappears. A catastrophe can lead to success and hope, much like the Black Death leads to the Renaissance. The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics that resulted in one-third of europe’s population to die. Despite all the death and evil the Black Death brought, it has a good outcome - The Renaissance. The Black Death was the catalyst of the European Renaissance because of the effects it had on the European economy, artistic expression, and technological advances.

"The Black Death" alone was not the only factor that was responsible for the social and economic change although it was the most important (Ziegler 234). Even without "The Black Death" continued deterioration in Europe would have been likely. The social and economic change had already set in well before 1346. For at least twenty-five years before "The Black Death," exports, agricultural production, and the area of cultivated land had all been shrinking. "The Black Death" contributed a large part to all of this destruction and led to important changes in the social and economic structure of the country (Ziegler 234-235). The plague touched every aspect of social life (Herlihy 19). There was hardly a generation that was not affected by the plague (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Families were set against each other - the well rejecting the sick (www.byu.edu). Families left each other in fear. Many people died without anyone looking after them. When the plague appeared in a house, frightened people abandoned the house and fled to another (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Due to this, the plague spread more rapidly because people were not aware that being in the same house with the infected person had already exposed them to it. Physicians could not be found because they had also died. Physicians who could be found wanted large sums of money before they entered the house (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). When the

A plague is a bacterial infection that can take on more than one form. One of the greatest plagues that have stricken mankind throughout history was the Black Death. The Black Death was the outbreak of the bubonic plague that struck Europe and the Mediterranean area between 1347 and 1351. This plague was the most severe plague that hit the earth because of its origin (the spread), the symptoms, and the effects of the plague.

The Black Death, the most severe epidemic in human history, ravaged Europe from 1347-1351. This plague killed entire families at a time and destroyed at least 1,000 villages. Greatly contributing to the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century, the Black Death had many effects beyond its immediate symptoms. Not only did the Black Death take a devastating toll on human life, but it also played a major role in shaping European life in the years following.