The Impact Of The Black Death During The Dark Ages?

The Black Death had a massive impact on the economy as states were unable to collect taxes from the peasants as the population was more scatter after the Black Death. Additionally there was no produce to sell many as ports were closed to trade. The mass death of the labourers and peasants led to a shift in power as there was a depleted labour pool. Labourers and peasants were able demanded higher wages and better living conditions. In contrast the economic impact of the Black death was felt by the Noblemen as they were forced to raise the wages to encourage people to stay on their land. Not only did the Noblemen need their tax; peasant were also a

"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

The black death affected Europe because it killed over a third of its population. In all, the black death killed twenty million people in Europe. People fled their homes, families, and friends because they did not want to get infected with the plague. The Plague reduced the population of the world from 450 million to 375 million. Seven thousand people died per day in Cairo. Three Fourths of Florence’s residents were buried in makeshift graveyards. The disease even spread to the isolated outposts Greenland and Iceland. However, the Black Death set the scene for modern medicine. Growing increasingly frustrated about diagnoses with the Black Plague, educators began to place a greater emphasis on medicine.

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.

The Black Death was a plague that overwhelmed Europe at the beginning of the 1350's. During the time of the plague, nearly half of Europe's population was killed by the Black Death. Many people believe that it was brought to Europe via the trade routes to and from Asia. As soon as it arrived, the Bubonic Plague spread vigorously, claiming the lives of all ages. The insufficient knowledge of the plague, the lack of help from people, and the extinguished hope people felt during the period helped lead to the devastation of European society.

One of the many Economic benefits the Black Plague brought, was a new power for peasants. This meant they were granted higher pay, better working conditions and sometimes more land out in the fields. Prior to the initial outbreak of the Black Death, the people of Europe followed a social hierarchy system called the ‘feudal system’. Under its reign, there were only two main social categories; the rich, wealthy nobles and the poor, powerless peasants. Most of these peasants earned very little, if any pay, for their hard work. Following the Black Death, there were two ways these peasants could become prosperous, either by gaining more vacant land, or demanding higher wages. The Black Death is thought to have wiped out around one-third of Europe’s population of the time, and therefore many blocks of land were left unattended. It didn’t take long

Another reason the Black Plague affected the economy was how so many people died. The continent had enjoyed some 200 years of prosperity, and then 70 of cold. Result: too little food for too many people. By 1350 one-third of them, especially in the swollen cities, would be dead. In Europe in three or four years, 50 million people died. The population was reduced from some 80 million to

When the plague was consuming most of the European population, priests, monks, and nuns cared for any who had the plague. They also took the responsibility to bury the dead. This caused the population of the clergy to suffer, showing that all of society was affected by the plague, whether it was caring for others, or suffering themselves. The economy was also affected. Before the plague started to spread, most of Europe was experiencing the affect of overpopulation. With overpopulation came the need for food, land, and anything else needed for survival. When the plague hit Europe, the population naturally decreased meaning labor did as well. This caused the price of most all foods went up, yet also caused wages to go up as well, bringing in

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.

As insensitive as it sounds, not all the effects of the black death were negative. Because of the mass amount of people dying, a lot of positions were left open in both the church and the workforce so people could now to rise or fall in social class. Also, because of mass depopulation it became harder for landowners to find workers, this allowed peasants to demand higher wages. The depopulation, as a result of the black death, led to an oversupply of goods and products, so prices dropped. For example, in England because of the mass of amount people dying, the population decreased and as a result there was a “severe shortage of labour and a surplus of agricultural land which resulted in a rise of wages for the landless class and a decline in rent for Rural tenants.[...] and women filled vacancies in the job market.”(Dobson, 22)

(Source 4) Matteo Villani, an Italian historian at the time, had recorded some of his observations on the impact of the Black Death. Matteo’s work shows that the Black Death had major effect on the shares of the kingdom, such as, ‘for most [luxury] commodities were more costly, by twice or more, than before the plague. And the price of labour, and the work of all trades and crafts, rose in disorderly fashion beyond the double.’ As quoted from the source, which meant that peasants were richer, the goods costed more and the king was poorer, which upset the dictatorship. This meant that peasants had more power in society. (Source 5) Henry Knighten, an Augustinian canon at the abbey of St Mary of the Meadows, Leicester, England, and an ecclesiastical historian, recorded some observation for the book he was writing about the history of England. During the aftermath of the Black Death, the peasants became aware of their true worth and started to refuse doing the tripled amount of work that was needed to survive which ended up inspiring change in medieval Europe. To finish this paragraph, The Black Death caused major impact on medieval Europe, which is evident because of the fact that few of peasant Europe had thought they were too valuable to do two times as much

in 1350. In the face of imminent social upheaval, the parliament tried to maintain the old order by coming up with legislation to check increased wages and the movement of labour. However, such measures were limited in effectiveness and led to resentment from the serfs. The landlords also tried to reduced their need for workers by fencing off their land and reared sheep instead. The series of events eventually resulted in the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.

Black Death The black death had many effects on the middle ages in a political, economic, social, and religious aspect. It was believed to have been spread by rats and fleas. It was also spread airborne through the lungs.

Sometimes, like most explanations back then, it was the work of God and punishment afflicted upon Europe for whatever reasons of the time. For these people, the only cure was to be somehow forgiven by God. This was usually done by people carving or painting the symbol of the cross on the front doors of their house with the words “Lord have mercy on us” either near it or on it. Another great contributor to the destruction of the Black Death was the Great Fire of London which helped eradicate most of the rats that carried the disease and wiping out most of the people with the disease. The plague actually repeatedly continued to remain in Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the centuries. The major occurences of the plague happened around the year 1346 and 1671. The Second Pandemic Black Death was pretty active in the years 1360 and 1667. All of Europe was ravaged and it impacted Europe so devastatingly that it took 150 years for the population of Europe to be fully recovered. Quarantining people was another way of combating the plague in ancient times. Taking anti-bio tics was advised was advised in case you came into contact with a victim of the disease. In early 2011 it was discovered that the bacteria Yersinia Pestis was actually the culprit for one of the most devastating pandemics ever to surface in the world. While

Digging a little deeper, it is seen that the peasants’ revolts were in fact influenced by the Black Death. In “A History of Western Society” it is made clear that people were weak and sickly even before the Black Death infected them. “People were already weakened by famine, standards of personal hygiene remained frightfully low, and the urban populace was crowded together. Fleas and body lice were universal affections.” (History, 326). When people are dying from starvation, sickness and the Black Death they tend to fight to remain alive. It is known that a number of peasants’ revolts took place and one of these is recorded by an unknown monk in 1381. The source document called “The Anonimalle Chronicle: The English Peasants’ Revolt”. It delves into the issues around labor shortage because of