The Black Death Of The Middle Ages

In the year 1348 the world changed forever. The Black Death, which is another name for the Bubonic Plague, laid havoc on the entire world. “The plague chases the screaming without pity and does not accept a treasure for a ransom. Its engine is far-reaching. The plague enters into the house and swears it will not leave except with all of its inhabitants…” (Al-Wardi, #29, 113). The plague did not care if the people were rich, poor, white, black, Muslim or Catholic, it would kill whomever it could. The plague brought out the worst in people because people acted selfishly, people were completely inhumane, and there was no peace.

The Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague, was a disease that devastated Medieval Europe, between 1346 and 1352 it killed 45 million people, wiping out a third of Europe's population. Today, we know that there were many causes of the Black Death. Medieval towns had no system of drains, sewers or trash collections. In such slovenly conditions, germs could grow, and diseased rats could call these medieval towns their homes and infect the people who lived there. Many historians believed the plague originated in china and spread to other countries by trade routes. Infected people and/or infected rodents such as mice or black rats. The Black Death was caused by strains of the bubonic plague. The plague lived in fleas, and fleas lived on

From 1347 to 1352 a string of the bubonic plague lay waste to western Europe, killing millions. In Italy, nearly a third of the population died; in England, half. The plague was a looming presence, always in the back of people’s minds. The symptoms of the Black Death caused great strife for westerners. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet, described the symptoms he saw during the first outbreak of the plague: “Not such were they as in the East, where an issue of blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men a women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli.” Both Italy and England desperately searched for answers, claiming that the Black Death was the cause of a higher force, but realising that the squalor of their countries also played a part in spreading the illness. Although Italy and England both had a common explanation for the cause of the plague and they both implemented better public health standards, they adopted different public health practices after the plague.

The black death arrived in Europe in October of 1347. It was brought by twelve Genoese trading ships that docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a lengthy expedition through the Black Sea. The people that were gathered on the docks to meet the twelve ships were greeted with a terrifying surprise: the majority of the sailors that were on they ship were dead, and the ones that were still alive were somberly ill. They had fevers, were unable to hold down food, and were delirious from pain. They were covered with big black boils that oozed pus and blood. The illness was named the “Black Death” because of the black boils.

During the 13th centuries all the way to the mid-15th century, the European nation experiences tough moments, which defined their history and the nations. The Black Death was among the many distressing pandemics in the human history, which was contributing to the death of 75 to 200 million people with the most in Europe. There are different theories, which have been developed since then to explain the deaths. The most reliable, which is based on the DNA from the victims in northern and southern Europe is the existence of the pathogen known as Yersinia Pestis, which was responsible for the plague. From there Oriental rat fleas that were popular on merchant ships and then spread in Mediterranean and Europe carried it. The death and depopulation of many places in Europe were the main changes by the Black Death. Hundred Years War was a conflict between the kings and kingdoms of France and England during these time. These were wars that took place in three stages, and the war was between the Roman Empire and the Carthage. The battle took place at around 264 BC to 146 BC. The Roman nation had wanted to expand because at that time Carthage was powerful than the Roman Empire. As the war began, in the first stage of the war, the Carthage was mighty than Roman Empire, but at the end of the third stage, the Roman Empire had defeated Carthage and expanded its Empire. There was a transformation in Rome regarding the population. Many people decided to go to the cities and abandoned the

The Crusades were wars between the Christians and the Muslims who fought for control of the Holy Land, Jerusalem. With the Crusades began the decline of feudalism because they brought back new ideas and items. The Black Death was one of the biggest epidemics in history which resulted in 1/3 of the European population dying. The Black Death brought lots of death which was bad because the more people they had, the stronger the Feudal Empire looked. Trade & Towns were used for trade fairs which brought many new ideas and items into feudalism.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and into the duration of the Renaissance, the Medieval Church’s social and political power dwindled. Centuries prior the Catholic Church gained a surplus of control, largely due to the stability it maintained during the chaotic breakdown of the Western Roman Empire . Yet toward the end of the Middle Ages the Church set in motion factors that would ultimately lead to its downfall as the definitive figure of authority. However, despite political and social controversy surrounding the church, the institutions it established cleared a path for a new way of thinking, shaping society in an enduring way.

Starting in the early 14th century and ending around 1353, the Black Death was a horrific time in history. The Bubonic Plague killed about sixty-seven percent of Europe’s population. People living in Europe at the time of the Black Death responded differently to the devastation around them: many people fled, some stayed to investigate, and others saw it as an opportunity to obtain what others had lost, mostly money.

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in history. Many Western Europeans were living with this disease for nearly four hundred years. The disease was able to spread rapidly and affected Europe in many ways. Since this disease was rapidly spreading throughout Europe it scared many of the people during this time. Many historians considered the Black Death in the fourteenth century a turning point in Western European history. According to Streissguth, “Before the epidemic of bubonic and pneumonic plague died out three years later, it would kill more than one-third of the continent’s population.” Hundreds of thousand people died from this horrific disease which changed Europe forever. Near the end of the fourteenth century it was obvious to the people living during that time that the plague had become a regular and destructive aspect of life. The plague had left many rural areas untouched after the late 1300’s but the epidemic began almost every decade. When the Black Death began to spread across Europe it caused unimaginable fear, panic, and chaos for the people. The Black Death was an important turning point in Europe, where the economics, politics, and society would never be the same. The Black Death spread rapidly across Europe causing many people to become ill and die which resulted in social, economic, and religious upheavals.

The Black Death was one of the largest epidemics the world had ever seen, having wiped out mass amounts of people the plague came to completely shift European medieval society into the modern era. The black death showed no regard as to who it affected, it affected rich and poor, man, women and children all the same. The plague was so widespread among Europe that death was increasingly frequent. Such an epidemic caused people to have a completely new idea of life and death. In this essay I intend to argue that the key components of medieval society’s outlook on life and death are how death affected the living, through the ways people coped the mass amounts of loss. The various interpretations of the cause were a way for society to

There were three major outbreaks of the Black Death pandemic in the world. In the history the Black Plague is also called as the Black Death or Bubonic Plague. This research paper will mainly cover the European outbreak of the 14th century as it is considered to be the era of the worst time of the Black Death period. Many historians would agree that the events of 1300s led to dramatic changes affecting every European country in all the aspects. Creating economic, social, religious, and medical issues, the Black Death caused renovation of the Europe. New circumstances forced Europe to reconsider its political system, improve the medicine and look at the situation from a different perspective, shifting from the medieval to modern society. Paul Slack, in his book The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, provides a detailed description of the most affected places and the approximation of the victims, estimating that Europe had lost about one third of its population. Comparing to cholera the number of deaths caused by the Black Plague in England is doubled making The Black Plague the most devastating disease (Slack 174). In the book, The Black Death, Robert Gottfried examines the history of the Black Plague and its political consequences as well as social. He introduces the facts how the European population was affected in both positive and negative ways. From his writing it stood out that the lower class was affected the most as the conditions they lived in were worse

The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that spread throughout Medieval England during the years 1348-1350. The Black Death is believed to have killed between 30-45% of people in England alone. There were numerous ideas if what the cause of the disease was, however was a bacteria-born disease from the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which was carried in the fleas off infected black rats and spread to Europe by Genoese trading ships from Asia. Consequently, due to the severity of the Black Death, it could be considered a “turning point” in England which this paper will be assessing, in respect to the Black Death’s influence socially, assessing standards of living and social unrest and economically, assessing production levels and wages. It will also be important to consider the political role the Church and government played during the period, as well as other factors that may have influenced a change at the period in question.

In the middle ages one of the biggest impact on society was the black plague. The black plague was huge, and went on for a long time. It had a lot of BACKGROUND and symptoms it, it effected the middle ages a ton, and the people came up with many weird was of trying to find a cure for it. The plague killed about 25 million people, about 1/3 of the population! Hope you learn a lot from this.

The Bubonic Plague, more commonly referred to as the "Black Death," ravaged Europe between the years 1347 and 1350 (Herzog, 2000). During this short period, according to Herzog (2000), 25 million people (which were about one third of Europe's population at the time) were killed. In another article, Herlihy (1997), however, claimed that two thirds of Europe’s population were killed. Nevertheless, it is ascertained that thousands of people died each week and dead bodies littered the streets. Once a family member had contracted the disease, the entire household was doomed to die. Parents abandoned their children, and parent-less children roamed the streets in search for food. Victims, delirious with

During the period in Europe commonly known as The Middle Ages, economic reforms took place, as well as social, political, and religious changes. One common theme throughout The Middle Ages was the relationship between the Church and the State. The Catholic church during this era held a prominent role in society, and it had an abundant amount of power and authority. The Catholic Church exercised its authority in many different stages, and the people responded to the way that the Church exercised her power. Bernard Guenee in The Lives of Four French Prelates In the Late Middle Ages reflects on this controversy between church and state power throughout the Middle Ages by focusing on the lives of four distinguished French church authorities: Bernard Gui (1261-1331), Gilles Le Muisit (1272-1353), Pierre D 'Ailly (1351-1420), and Thomas Basin (1412-1490), all of whom rose from modest circumstances to the dignity of office. Guenee argues that the ambition these men displayed may be considered honorable to some, but he sees their advancement in the Church and their participation in the state as counteractive. He fails to distinguish between the good and immoral sides of ambition as a virtue and claims the cause of the separation between the church and the state comes down to an inevitable fight for the acquisition of higher power. His position only deals with the practicalities of the situation, and is