The Black Death

1
The Black Death
2
Bubonic Plague in history

• 3 great pandemics of bubonic plague in history
• The first was Justinian's Plague that began in
  542 and lasted until 662.
• The second was the Black Death that began in 1347
  and lasted until 1665. 38-39 million people died
  between 1347-1351.
• The third began in Yunnan, China in 1892 and
  spread to India by 1896, killing approximately 6
  million people in India alone.

3
Where did the Black Death come from?
4
The plague arrives in English Isles last

• Historians think that the plague arrived in
  England during the summer of 1348. During the
  following autumn it spread quickly through the
  south west. Few villages escaped. Churchyards
  were full with bodies.
• The plague spread quickly during the winter of
  1348-1349 to the north of England. By 1350,
  nearly the whole of Britain was infected with the
  plague.
• At the end of 1350 nearly two and a half million
  people were dead!

5
How many people died?

• Italy had the largest of deaths where over
  50-60 of the people died
• In Europe it is estimated that 1/3 of the
  population died
• The number of people estimated to have died in
  Europe is over 25 million people
• Worldwide estimates are 38 million people

6
What caused the plague?

• Carried the virus Yersinia pestis

The Oriental Rat Flea!
7
How was the plague transmitted?

• We now know that the most common form of the
  Black Death was the BUBONIC PLAGUE! This disease
  was spread by fleas which lived on the black rat.
  The fleas sucked the rats blood which contained
  the plague germs. When the rat died the fleas
  jumped on to humans and passed on the deadly
  disease.

8
types of black death

• There are three related diseases that make up the
  Black Death.
• Bubonic plague is the most common, and, without
  antibiotics, is fatal 50-60 of the time.
• Pneumonic plague is less common, is extremely
  contagious, and is fatal 95 of the time.
• Septicemia plague, which is fortunately very
  rare, attacks the bloodstream and is always fatal.

9
Effects

• Value of noble estates declined
• Aristocratic incomes dropped
• Increase in royal power
• Towns prospered
• Depiction of death in art
• Cheapening of human life
• Persecution of Jews
• Marriage no longer delayed
• Limited employment opportunities for women

10
Trade increased, new services developed

• Economic consequences
• Trade declined
• Industries suffered
• Shortage of workers caused a rise in price of
  labor also food supplies were greater because of
  decline in population both resulting in lower
  food prices many lords had to sell off their
  land
• The shortage of workers made it possible for the
  serfs to force the lords into agreements for
  freedom in order for them to stay and work
• Many of these workers left the land and moved to
  the cities changing their way of life
• Cities lost population at first because everyone
  went to isolate themselves in the countryside but
  eventually after the threat of the plague
  declined the cities grew as more serfs left the
  land

11
Governments changed

• The people in the city had to learn how to govern
  themselves
• They created new types of positions called
  burgesses (Germanic Burg) or mayors.
• They went around the lords in the country
• They needed protection from the Kings and the
  power of individual kings grew
• Soon there were only a few kings in Europe

12
Religious Consequences

• Outbreak of anti-Semitism
• Jews were scape goated or blamed for the plague
• Large ghettos were destroyed
• Jews further isolated themselves from others
• People lost faith in the church
• Many of those who died were priests and church
  officials
• New educational avenues were created to learn
  about the disease
• Colleges were opened and instead of learning
  happening in the language of the church it
  happened in the language of the local culture or
  in the vernacular
• More secular in Western and Central Europe

13
New philosophies

• Scholasticism
• An attempt to reconcile faith with reason
• Thomas Aquinas
• In Praise of Folly
• Later Rejected
• Associated with the rising University systems

14

• For those living in the years directly after the
  plague, however, the nightmare was over, but
  getting on with the business of life in a new
  world remained painful and difficult. No longer
  were the mysteries of life easily explained, and
  the reality of death was all too plain.
• As one Black Death epitaph put it
• We are a spectacle to the world. Let the great
  and humble, by our example, see well to what
  state they shall be inexorably reduced, whatever
  their condition, age or sex. Why, then, miserable
  person, are you puffed with pride? Dust you are
  and unto dust you shall return, rotten corpse,
  morsel and mean for worms.