The Cause And Effects Of The Black Death : The Black Plague

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 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.

“The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350” presents an entirely different kind of trial than the one provided by Einhard and Notker. Where Charlemagne’s struggle was often glorious combat with his fellow man, the battle against the plague had none of the nobility and prestige of conquest, and while Charles strove for power, humanity during the plague fought only for survival. The world was well familiarized with violent ambitions of powerful men, but a disease that ended roughly half of the lives in Europe (Aberth, 269) was a trial in unfamiliar terrain. A chronicler, Agnolo di Tura recounted that “So many have died that everyone believes it is the end of the World” (Aberth, 278). The now clichéd phrase of the “enemy of my enemy

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 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

As was we all know that The Black Death is one of the tragic events in world history and it has effected many civilizations in early 1300s. This has made many devastating trends within Europe’s borders and raged with many diseases, and other infections. Not only this pandemic event has effected many people, but it has transform Europe’ political, religious, and cultural practices. The Black Death became an outbreak and painful change to western civilization in which it marked history

The Black Death was one of the most devastating worldwide diseases in human history. The plague originated in central Asia and was brought to China by traders and Mongols from 1334-1347. Mongol protection of the trade may have caused the disease to spread along the “Silk Road” to Crimea. During a Mongol siege against Caffa in 1347, the Mongolian army began to die. The Mongols catapulted the dead bodies into the city where the fleas on the corpses were released into Caffa. In the year 1347, October, Genoese traders escaped from the city and sailed to Messina, an Italian port, unaware that they were infected by the disease. Eventually, everyone on the ship died and a “ghost ship” made it to port. Seeing no activity on board, the ship was

Diseases have always been a threat to humans, all throughout history. One of the most destructive disease outbreaks in history was the plague outbreak which peaked in 1346 to 1353, in Europe, commonly known as the Black Death. This plague outbreak was extremely deadly and killed 30-60% of the European population at the time of the outbreak. The outbreak is commonly believed to have been caused by the bubonic plague, but modern evidence suggests that the Black Death was caused by pneumonic plague, a much more contagious and deadly infection.

The Black death was able to drastically change many countries and regions. The black death was able to topple political regimes and religious regimes that had been in power for many years. The populations of countries shrunk due to the Black Death. The epidemic left a third of Europe’s population dead. In China the population went from 120 million to 80 million over the course of a century because of the death. Farmers were affected which led to famine because of the inability to produce food. Without food it led to rising prices, work stoppages and unrest. Because of the issues that the Black Death was causing countries needed to be able to make drastic changes in order to revive their nations. In China, the families that were ruling started to claim that their power was coming from the divine calling. Many other countries tried similar things to attempt to regain confidence in their country. In Europe, the struggles that the death was causing gave rise to new models and new forms of governance that attempted to turn around the country. Some of the changes that were caused because of the death were able to help the countries. The Black Death was able to bring radical political change to many countries while forcing governments to asses all of their policies and make sure that they are the right ones for their country. Therefore, the Black Death could be seen as having a mixed legacy as it did kill an unbelievable amount of people but it also forced countries to reexamine

During the mid-thirteenth century to the fourteenth century, an outbreak of a disease called the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, occurred. It was a very deadly disease that killed approximately one-third of the population of both Europe and the Middle East based on the Student Guide Sheet. It was spread by black rats to fleas then to humans. The infected fleas from the rats would land on the humans, causing them to get the disease. It was spread across the world from China to Europe based on Document One. When the disease struck, it questioned followers of both Christianity and Islam. How would their followers deal with this deadly disease? Each religion looked at the disease differently. This paper will inform you of how differently the Christians

The black death was a silent, but deadly disease that was killing off people, with no cure. Research shows that the horrific black plague was caught and spread by rats. The plague doctors thought is was spread by smell, which was why they wore haunting masks. Instead, it was spread by rats because when the people drove out the rats from the sewers the disease spread rapidly. In other words, when there were more rats closer to people the plague was caught and spread faster. The plague was stronger than ever and nobody knew how it spread Additionally, when they killed of the rats the spread of the plague began to die off. This proves that once there were less rats to spread the horrible disease, it died off. Therefore, the plague was spread

In Italy, spring of 1348 there was a deadly disease, “The black death” known as the plague, is a bacteria that was founded in rats or infected fleas. This bacteria was originated from China but traveled to England. The diseases travels from person to person, through the air, rats, or through a bite from a flea.

The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October 1347. It was carried by 12 trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after they traveled through the Black Sea. When the ships docked, the people waiting at the docks were met with horror when they saw that most of the sailors were either dead or gravely ill. They were all covered with insane black boils that oozed blood and pus. This is what gave the illness the name “The Black Death.” The Sicilian Authorities ordered that the “Death Ships” were removed from the harbor, but it was too late. Little did they know, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe. “Plague Boils” began to appear in the groin and armpit areas. They oozed with pus and blood. These people

The Black Death killed more than one-third of the population in Europe, which was perhaps the most deadly human cataclysm in history. The plague is believed to have entered Europe through many ways. One cannot be certain where the plague originated. The plague came in on ships and through trading routes. By the 14th century, trade was active between Europe and points east, so there were too many possible ports of entry for the plague to be stopped. The Black Death is also known as the black plague that is spread by a type of bacillus called yersina pestis. The transmission of this disease was transmitted in two ways; one with direct contact with a flea, while the pneumonic plague was transmitted through airborne droplets of saliva. This bacillus can be spread person to person, airborne, and by infected fleas and rats. This is how the deadly plague reached from port to port throughout Europe. The plague ended the Middle Ages by ending feudalism. The reason this affected feudalism was more than fifty percent of the population was killed. (The Black Death. Ole J. Benedictow, Pg.383). After the plague passed there wasn’t many doctors that survived and not enough surfs to labor the land. It can be said that the disease alone was responsible for the changes in the feudal system. My goal in this paper is to show how The Black Death impacted all of Europe’s population, society, and the fall of feudal system.

Within the High Middle Ages (1050-1300 CE), Europe experienced a “remarkable period of expansion” (Damen) through economic and territorial development, urban growth, and the emergence of national identity (Herlihy). This expansion came to a halt during the late thirteenth century, when Europe began a course of decline caused by the overworking of lands and the changing of global weather patterns, later coined as the “Little Ice Age.” Consequently, this ice age resulted in a drop of temperature, which proved to be detrimental to the agricultural side of Europe, causing a “widespread failure of crops” (Damen) that would lead to the Famine of 1315-1317, a disaster that marked a decrease in the population of Europe (Damen). With despair eminent within the people of Europe and the population decreasing by the day, the Black Death swept through Europe, furthering the destruction caused by the Little Ice Age and the Great Famine. The Black Death, described as the “single most significant disease in Western civilization” (Damen) altered European culture through medicinal, economic, and artistic reformations.