The Black Death Plague

In the wake of the fourteenth century, Europe and the world experienced one of its biggest pandemics. Over the preceding centuries, Europe had undergone significant agricultural, economic and religious developments. However, the 400 years between 1000 and 1400 saw a rapid increment in population and the onset of war as people scrambled for scarce resources from 75 to close to 210 million. Also, it was accompanied by religious scandals. It led to widespread unsustainability, causing pollution, plague-like diseases and turmoil in the affected regions. The image below shows the areas that were affected.

The Black Death, a horrible pandemic plague that spread through all of Europe, taking 25,000,000 people along with it. In 1347, a mysterious pandemic appeared in the city-states of Italy just as Europe was recovering from famine. The Epidemic did not end until 1351 partly due to the belief of the people that this plague was spread through the air and was gods way of punishing them for their sins. Although this plague killed many people, its effects led life to the way it is today. The three most important effects of the Black Death on Western Europe were the changing relationships between people and the church, the People beginning to express their faith and

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,

The Black Death also known as the Bubonic plague was a deadly disease that swept through Europe in the late 1340s to the early 1350s, wiping out over twenty five to forty million people. It is called the Black Death because when victims got sick, they developed massive bulges on their bodies that turned purple and black. The bubonic plague originated in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1343. From there, it was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that would often get on merchant ships. In around 1347, the bubonic plague entered Europe through the cities of Constantinople, Genoa, and most famously the island of Sicily. Infected people came on ships and infected others in the city, the fleas from rats moved on to other animals, like horses and dogs that were often found living alongside humans, spreading that disease even more. And people leaving those cities, carried the disease with them to other cities in northern Europe through trading routes. By 1349, the plague had reached England and Norway. The plague scared people making them believe it was the end of humanity. The Black Death was a turning point in history because it killed one-third of the western European population, making it one of the most deadly diseases in the world.

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 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

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.

Sickness times a thousand equals the Black Death. In our world, many disasters have occurred, causing terrible damage emotionally, physically, and mentally. However, I believe that the Black Death is the worst disaster to have occurred throughout our world’s history. It all started in 1348, when trading ships from different countries around Europe settled at the port of Messina, Sicily. Once the ship dropped their anchor many of their sailors were found dead, and the few surviving carried with them the deadly disease so dangerous that it would quickly lead to death. Scientists researched and concluded that the disease started from Central Asia (Mongolia), when fleas on rats boarded the many ships from Europe. The fleas got on the sailors’ skin and started killing them instantly. However, many thought that the disease had originated from the Far East and was spread along many major trade routes. When the people of Sicily finally started finding out what was causing the death, they closed their port and trading system with other countries. (Wikipedia) The ships were forced to anchor somewhere else in other countries, which allowed the disease to spread even more quickly. I believe that the Black Plague was a disastrous event that affected all aspects and the future of European and Central Asian society, their political and economic environment, and their future advancement to medicine.

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.

Causes…. Bad air. Some people believed that the Black Death was spread by in-hailing bad fumes. Intimacy. A lot of peasants had big families, they all hugged and kissed one another not knowing if they or the other person had the desiease. Wickedness, people believed that god was punishing them so to stop the irony, they whipped themselves. This way the died painfully yet quickly, whereas with the Black Death, you dies painfully yet slowly!

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 Middle Ages were a dark time, education became unimportant and people were forced to live in houses close together and, consequently, hygiene was atrocious and it made the perfect place for Yersinia Pestis to thrive. Yersinia Pestis is the virus responsible for the Black Death, a deadly disease that rapidly powered through Europe, killing nearly all of the people in its way. The Black Death had a lot of gruesome and scary symptoms that made bystanders sick just watching. Certain people were more likely to acquire the Black Death than others. Since peasants had worse living conditions than the nobility, they were far more likely to catch the Plague. The history of the Plague and its track is surprising to a lot of people and when they realize just how many people the Plague actually killed, they will fully understand how scary it was for the people who didn 't have the disease that there was a chance they could become sick too. Its symptoms, who is most likely to acquire the Black Death, and it 's history are just a few of the reasons that make the Black Death a scary disease.

25-50 million people. That is the amount of casualties caused by the Black Death, it was brought to Europe in the 1340’s by ships returning from the eastern side of the world. However, most of the men on the ships were already dead or nearly dead, sick with the terrible virus. Although the Black Death is very lethal and difficult to survive, they have now found ways to prevent the virus from infecting anyone else.

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.

The plague of the black death was a panic and disaster in Western Europe because it leads the death of ⅓ of the population. It quickly spread all over the continent, destroying full towns and cities. Moreover, the plague reached its peak of destructions in 1349, which was a “wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain.” Life before the black death arrived for the serfs it was unpleasant and short. Nevertheless, Europe before the black death arrived was successful and the trade at the time was strong. The spread of the plagues was traumatic and unexpected because it spread so quickly.