The Tragedy of the Black Death

The Tragedy of the Black Death

Imagine yourself alone on a street corner, coughing up bloody mucous each time you exhale. You are gasping for a full breath of air, but realizing that is not possible, you give up your fight to stay alive. You're thinking, why is this happening to me? That is how the victims of the Black Death felt. The Black Death had many different effects on the people of the Middle Ages. To understand the severity of this tragic epidemic you must realize a few things about the plague. You should know what the Black Death is, the cause of the plague, the symptoms, the different effects it had on the people, and the preventions and cures for the plague. The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague or the Bubonic Plague, which struck in 1349, and again in 1361-62, ravaged all of Europe to the extent of bringing gruesome death to many people of the Middle Ages. The Black Death struck in 1349, and again in 1361-62, but was restricted just to Europe (Rowse 29). It was a combination of bubonic, septicemia, and pneumonic plague strains (Gottfried xiii) that started in the east and worked its way west, but never left its native home. One of the things that made the plague one of the worst was that there were outbreaks almost every ten years (Rowse 29), but still restricted to Europe. It is thought that one-third to one-half could have possibly died by the plague (Strayer and Munro 462), with some towns of a death rate of up to 30 or 40 percent (Strayer and Munro 462). Very few who were infected with the plague actually survived more than one month after receiving the disease (Strayer and Munro 462). The Black Death was an incredible event that affected everyone on either a physicalor emotional level, or both. The Black Death was more terrible, and killed more people than any war in history (Strayer and Munro 462). The plague was so horrible and terrifying that people said it made all other disasters in the Middle Ages seems mild when comparing it to the Black Death (Gies 191). There have been many disputes over what caused the Black Death, but only one is supported with the most evidence. It is thought that on October of 1347, a Genoese fleet made its way into a harbor in northeast Sicily with a crew that had sickness clinging to their very bones (Gottfried xiii). The sickness this crew had was not brought by men, but the rats and fleas aboard the ship. The harbor tried to control the sickness by attempting to quarantine the fleet, but it was too late (Gottfried xiii). Within six months of the docking of that very fleet, half of the region had either fled the country, or died. That fleet, along with many other fleets along the Mediterranean Sea brought the greatest natural disaster to the world (Gottfried xiii). The infested rat, called the black ship rat, was carried in the baggage of merchants on board the ships traveling all over the Mediterranean (Norwich 30). They didn't know it, but it was the people that actually spread the disease across the land. The plague spread in a great arc across Europe, starting in the east in the Mediterranean Sea, and ending up in northwest Germany (Strayer and Munro 462). It is incredible that the plague hit Europe several times, but still no one understood neither the causes nor the treatments of the epidemic (Strayer and Munro 462). There was another cause that some people strongly believed brought the disease into their world. Doctors at the University of Paris claimed that on March 20, 1345, at one o'clock in the afternoon, a conjunction of three higher planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars caused a corruption of the surrounding air, which made the air become poisonous or toxic (Gottfried 110). This is a highly unlikely theory unless you are coming from a basis of Astrology. Another explanation of the plague that scientists gave was environmental factors. These scientists thought that there were many earthquakes that caused toxic fumes to come from the center of the earth (Gottfried 110), which, again, brought contaminated air for the people. Certain historians have wondered if the plague could have been caused by overpopulation of the continent, but they are not completely convinced (Hoyt and Chodorow 632). Some people, possibly out of desperation, turned their violence on the Jews and blamed them for the cause of the plague (Strayer and Munro 463). Whatever the cause was, you could tell from looking in a persons eyes that, above every person hung the terror of the Black Death (Strayer and Munro 476). Although the Black Death was one of the largest epidemics ever recorded, it did not have many visible symptoms. The actual symptoms varied in different parts of the continent. The most ordinary symptoms were black tumors or boils on your neck, and the coughing up of blood (Zenger). One thing about coughing up blood that made the plague even worse, was that when you coughed up blood, everyone in the room was susceptible to the disease (Zenger). This is because when the person coughed up the blood, the bacteria went airborne and infected the person of the closest proximity (Zenger). This allowed the plague to spread more quickly and easily. The Black Death had more than just physical effects, but more extensive effects over the course of 25 years. Such as physical effects, social and religious effects, economic effects, agricultural and commercial effects, effects on architecture, and effects on the future. For two generations after the plague, there was almost no increase in the population of Europe (Strayer and Munro 462), while the rest of the world increased in population. After the plague had passed, Europe seemed to suffer from a case of collective shell-shock (Strayer and Munro 463), this made it look like all of Europe was hit by a deadly stun gun, but the stun never wore off. What scared the people was that the Black Death killed more people than a hostile army and gave its victims no chance to fight back (Strayer and Munro 462). The Black Death had many different social and religious effects on the common people of Europe. Some people dreaded the time when the plague would come, and some people just sat back, ate, drank, and were merry just as though they had never heard of the plague (Strayer and Munro463). Although all the people suffered, the peasants suffered the most. This is because they lived in such unsanitary conditions and had the least care. In many places whole villages of peasants were wiped out completely (Hartman235), and in less than one month. The Black Death, along with seven other plagues and diseases of the Middle Ages, was considered contagious (Durant1002). Because they were contagious, a victim of any plague or disease was forbidden to enter a city unless under separation (Durant 1002). Many people actually thought that the Black Death was a punishment to society because they were wicked (Hoyt and Chodorow 596), and because they did not

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