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Causes And Effects Of The Great Famine

Decent Essays

Giovanni Williams
14 October 207
#4
During the next few years, the European economy slowly improved, and agricultural and manufacturing production eventually reached pre-famine levels. This return to normalcy was suddenly ended in the year 1347 by a disaster even worse than the Great Famine.Since the failure of Justinian's attempt to reconquer the lands of the Western Empire in 540-565, Europe had been relatively isolated, its population sparse, and intercommunication among its villages slight. It was as if the continent were divided up into a number of quarantine districts. Although many diseases were endemic, contagious diseases did not spread rapidly or easily. So the last pandemic to strike Europe had been the one brought to the West by Justinian's armies in 547. By the 14th century, however, the revival of commerce and trade and the growth of population had altered that situation. There was much movement of people from place to place within Europe, and European merchants travelled far afield into many more regions from which they could bring home both profitable wares and contagious diseases. Moreover, the diet, housing, and clothing of the average men and women of Western Europe were relatively poor, and a shortage of wood for fuel had made hot water a luxury and personal hygiene substandard. The Black Death seems to have arisen somewhere in Asia and was brought to Europe from the Genoese trading station of Kaffa in the Crimea . The

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