The Origin Of The Black Plague

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.

All throughout history nations all over the world have dealt with deadly diseases, but one in particular brought out the fear in the nations of Europe, the bubonic plague or as others call it, the black death. During the thirteenth century, medicine was not as developed as it is now, causing England to suffer more than others. According to Cantor (2002) the European nations encountered the bubonic plague in its most brutal state during 1348 to 1349, taking out about a third of Europe’s population (pp. 6-7). He continues on by claiming that one big question to this event was whether or not the plague was the full cause to the loss of lives or if there was another cause along with it (p. 11). Cantor (2002) also explained that the reason the black plague stopped in Europe around the eighteenth century could possibly have been from an introduction to a new species of rats, the gray rat (p. 13). Even though there is controversy based around the plague being spread by rats and how it was stopped by isolation, it may have taught countries useful strategies and ways to grow stronger.

The Black Death was the second major plague outbreak in history, the first being the Justinian Plague in 541. The Black Death is believed to have been started in Central Asia. It was then spread to Europe with trade and attacks from Mongol armies. Most notable of these attacks was an attack on the major trade city of Caffa. Many believe that during the Siege of Caffa in 1346 Mongols catapulted infected bodies into the city, as an early form of biological warfare, but the exact method of the outbreaks entrance into Europe is unknown, as research on the Siege of Caffa has shown:

Assuming that the Jewish people caused the Black Plague, there are actually variety of possible reasons that are not related to people. Something that really was a major issue was, bacteria and viruses we're largely unknown to medical workers. Rather than Jewish people causing the plague, historians assume that the Black Plague was caused by bacterial strains. Fleas are also to blame because they carried the illness and they jumped to the black rats, when the rats would die the fleas would cling on to any living thing. The plague was easily spread among the trade routes. The plague had started in Asia and it was slowly spread to Europe. Reasons why the plague was spread so quickly among Europe was because the entire population of Europe lived

The black death is believed to have began in central Asia in the mid-thirteen hundreds, and killed millions. After it spread across Asia it was then carried down the Silk Road reaching Crimea by 1343. Scientists believe that the plague was carried by fleas on rodents, such as rats, being normal passengers traveling on merchant ships across the Mediterranean. The fleas were believed to have bacteria called Yersinia pestis, which is commonly present in the flea population on ground rodents in certain areas such as Central Asia, Kurdistan, Western Asia, Northern India, and Uganda. Scientists believe that all three outbreaks of the epidemic began in China. The disease was devastating to the economy of Europe and Asia, making it hard for people to find employees, and forcing them to pay higher wages. The plague was supposedly

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 actually first appeared in the Himalayan region around 1250 AD. There are several theories as to how the disease made its way to

When it comes to the Middle Ages all people think about are knights, kings, queens, and castles. But something happened during that period of time that changed Europe completely. The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Plague or the Black Death, was one of the most deadly outbreaks in Europe. In total it killed about 75-200 million people in Europe and some parts of Asia. The plague spread quickly and if you got it, there was no cure. The Black Plague affected Europe with trade from the East, because of all the deaths it brought, because it caused political chaos, because it caused the people to question their faith, and because it led up to the regrowth of Europe.

The Black Death, also known as The Black Plague, is one of the most tragic and deadly pandemics to have occurred throughout all human history. It was introduced to Europe in 1347, when a series of trade ships docked at a Sicilian port after voyaging across the Black Sea from the city of Genoa, Italy. Over the next several years, the disease spread throughout all of Europe, killing countless men, women, and children in its path. While many at the time believed The Black Death to be a punishment from God for all their past sins, the disease was actually caused by bacteria known as Yersinia pestis. This bacterium is typically transmitted by “being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague.” When people encountered this bacterium, symptoms of illness began to show very quickly. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian author, lived through the plague and experienced its effects on the city of Florence, Italy firsthand. In his detailed account of the event, Boccaccio described some symptoms of the illness, saying “it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumors.” These tumors, among other repulsive and painful symptoms, were a clear sign of upcoming demise to the people of Europe, and nearly all citizens who caught the illness died within days of contracting the disease. Over twenty

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 Black Plague, which was in Europe in 1346-1353 it killed many people. That the Black Plague spread all through Europe, it was made by rats that spread the disease. That the Black Plague killed 2/3 of Europe’s population and people were just dying instantly it started to spread very fast. That they did not find a cure until 1353, but still there were more people that died than lived. So the Black Plague was a disease the killed people very fast and it started in 1346 and ended in 1353, that it killed 2/3 of Europe.

The origins of the Black Death can be traced back to the Gobi desert in the 1320’s. No one really knows the sudden eruption of the plague, however from the desert it spread in all directions. One direction of great importance was going east towards China. China had started to suffer the Black Death during the 1330’s, this time is significant because amidst the High middle ages, trade expansion was going great, strengthening trade with Europe and Asia. With trade, ships were a key factor in spreading the disease between the continents. The rats carrying the disease known as bacterium Yersinia Pestis on the ships. These “death ships” arrived in 1347 in the Sicilian port of Messina, after a protracted amount of time sailing the Black Sea, when the people came to greet them, all

The Black Death is thought to have started in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1343. From there, it

The Black Death is known to have originated in Kaffa in the Crimea by 1343. The plague spread from the surrounding lands of the Golden Horde then southwards into the Caucasus, heading west into the Crimea. Upon entering the Crimea, it traveled southwards along the coast of the Black Sea to the Circassians, the Abkhazians and the Armenians where it spread into the Asia Minor, the Middle East and Persia (Benedictow 2004, 35-50).

The Black Death came to be in the Gobi Desert in the 1320s. The illness was said to have originate from the divine gods. Around 1339 in northwestern Europe, the population was starting to exceed the food supply and a serious financial emergency started to happen. The winters were icy cold and the summers were dry. Due to this extreme weather, very low crops yielded and those that grew were dying. Inflation turned into a typical event and as starvation broke out, individuals started to stress. The time period of approximately 1339 to 1346 is now known as the famine before the plague. These seven awful years of climate and starvation lead to the best torment of all times. In 1347, the Black Death started spreading all through Western Europe.