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Before the Black Death hit Europe they had a little ice age. The weather was all out of pattern casing most of the harvest to be destroyed and a large food shortage. Since there was a food shortage this caused famine. Famine was one of the leading factors of why people in Europe were so susceptible to disease. The Black Death reached Europe in October 1347. It was the most devastating disease in all of Europes history because it was the first major epidemic disease since the seventh century. The plague started in Central Asia and was spread by two leading factors. The Mongols spread across Asia causing an ecological change and making the rats, that carried a deadly bacteria called Yersinia Pestis, move westward. From 1347 to 1351 the plague hit southern Italy, southern France, Spain, France, Germany, England, northern and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. The plague killed anywhere from an entire village to 30%-60% of their population. The plague made people act strange and not trust others.1 Many of the social aspects had to deal with how people dealt with the plague. Flagellant movements became popular because many people thought that God was trying to punish all the sinners in the world. They thought by going around beating people they would gain Gods forgiveness back. Others thought it was sent by the devil to harm them. The flagellant groups would kill anyone who would try to stop what they were doing. When the flagellant groups were all destroyed an outbreak of virulent anti-Semitism followed. Many people would blame the Jews for causing the plague. The people of Europe thought they had poisoned the water, and forced them to move to Eastern Europe. More violence occurred after the plague, and the people who lived through the plague, acted differently when it was over. 2 Many people would stay away from the sick because they did not want to catch the plague. People would shelter themselves from their everyday life and family because it wasnt only spread by touching them or talking to them, but by touching anything they had touched or wore. Also, any animals belonging to a sick

1 2

Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: A brief History (Boston: West, 1999), 237-238. Spielvogel., 238-241.

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person would be killed, but in a shorter amount of time. 3 For the next two hundred years, almost every generation saw the Black Death in one form or another. The recurrence of the plague made new initiatives to raise the public sanitation and affected the general understanding of the public health. The plague effected people differently depending on all different factors of their lives.4 Many of the political aspects came from the people of the land and the way they treated the land. Most of the officers of law did not enforce the laws because they were scared of catching the disease, which made it so people were free to do as they pleased. Many of the cities tried to keep from filth so the plague wouldnt spread, making people follow the health rules that each city made.5 The price of labor went up drastically because of the shortage of people. Many of the people had to lower their standards of living because the income dropped more than 20% while the Plague was around. Many of the noble landlords were deteriorating making it so fewer and fewer crops were being harvested.6 After the plague was over with, they had many problems between shortage of people, money, and food supply. Anyone that worked was required to pay a tax, and if they decided not to pay the tax they went to jail. Also, since there was a shortage of people in the lands they were not able to leave their jobs without a good reason. If they did leave their job without a good reason, they would be put in prison. The shortage of people affected the land in many aspects another being economically. 7 As a consequence, the ruling class of virtually every European country, which lived primarily off Agricultural profits, found its economic well-being severely jeopardized (George Duby, 358). Many of the Economic aspects were because the plague lasted so long. The last recurrence of the plague was not until the beginning of the 18th century. In two years about one3

Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Black Death in Florence, 1348, in Medieval Europe: A Short Sourcebook, ed. C. Warren Hollister (McGraw Hill, Boston, 2002), 356-357. 4 Plague and Public Health in Renaissance Europe, http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osteim/intro.html (28 October 1994) 5 Baccaccio, Giovanni, 357. 6 Jackson, J. Spielvogel, 241. 7 George Duby, Wage and Price Laws after the Plague, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, Vol.2 (1902) 358-359

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third of Europes population was destroyed and did not start to recover until the end of the 15th century.8 Many different animals such as dogs, cats, chickens, oxen, donkeys, and sheep were killed from coming in contact with a sick person. Since all these animals died, it made it much harder for people to work on their land and harvest the crops they needed to survive. This is another factor that leads to shortage of food. The doctors that did survive made it hard for people to be seen. They wouldnt go into anybodys house unless they got a large sum of money before entering, and when they did enter the house they did things at such a distance it most likely was not done correctly. At the churches they dug huge holes for all the bodies. To try and keep the disease form spreading they would throw all the dead bodies in the huge hole during the night time. They did not really care about the bodies, they just wanted to get rid of them all so they threw the bodies, then some dirt, then more bodies, then more dirt until they got to the top just like layers of lasagna.9 In the city of Pistoia, they made a certain different rules, one of the rules was that after someone had died of the disease no one was able to move their body unless it was securely placed in a wooden casket nailed shut and it had to be covered with something heavy, so that no infection would get out to hurt another person. If the people in this town did not follow the rule they would have to pay money to the city and they would get in a lot of trouble.10 Over 96,000 people died between March and October in one year causing over population of dead bodies and no where to put them. Since there were so many dead bodies it wasnt very sanitary and it lead to disease spreading.11 Since there were so many dead people and people with disease every where, many of the people wanted to escape from the horror. So, they left their villages and houses making them deserted and empty and many of the

8 9

Spielvogel, Jackson J., 238-239. Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle, Rubric 643: Concerning A Mortality In the city of Florence in Which Many People Died, late 1370s, http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osteim/into.html (28 October 1994). 10 Pistoia, Ordinances for Sanitation in a time of Mortality, http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osteim/into.html (28 October 1994). 11 How Many of the Dead Died because of the Mortality of the Year of Christ 1348, http://www.iath.virginia.edu/osteim/into.html (28 October 1994).

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houses fell into ruins every where, some more places then others.12 Throughout all of these times, it caused emotional problems throughout the counties. A lot of people had to live though the suffering, or watch someone else live thorough the suffering which caused emotional problems. Many people died after only three days of seeing the first symptom. The symptoms were the following: a bubo in the groin, where the thigh meets the trunk; or a small swelling under the armpit; sudden fever; spitting blood and saliva (and no one who spit blood survived it) (Marchione di Coppo Stefani, 1). It was such a scary thing that people fled there houses once they saw any kind of symptom because most likely anyone in the house died if they stayed. Many people would leave their children, wifes, or husbands because they did not want to end up dead. Many people that did not die of the plague (who had it), died of hunger because once the other people in the house found out they had the plague they pretended to leave for the doctors and never came back. The sick could not take care of themselves so they starved to death because they were the only ones left in the house.
13

After the plague, the men and women that were left married each other, and had children. The

world after the plague changed for the worse, people would fight and dispute a lot easier over dumb things because they did not trust others the way they had before.14 If a plague like this hit the world today, I honestly think that everyone, not immune to the disease, would die. I think this because everyone comes in contact with everyone in one way or another weather it is through friends, family, the work place, school, or a store. If you think about it you see hundreds of people a day and if just one of those people has a disease and you happen to brush against them, then you will be affected and everyone you come into contact would be affected. I know that if I had not been infected and someone close to me was I would not leave their side weather I was going to die or not. I have too much respect for the people in
12

Jean de Venette, The Chronicle of Jean de Venette, ed. Richard A. Newhall and trans. Jean Birdsau (New York: Columbia University Press,1953) 48-51, In Jean de Venette on the Progress of the Black Death. (http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/plague.html) (13 May 2004). 13 Stefani, Marchione di Coppo, 1. 14 Venette, Jean de, 51.

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my life, and they could have a chance of living. If I did leave them and they died of something other than disease I would feel responsible for their death. I think that if a plague happened in todays society we would not die of starvation because a lot of our crops come from other countries so unless they got the plague too, we would have a food supply. A plague like the Black Death could change the world today for better or worse, I dont know which one it would be.