The Black Death reached europe by sea between the years of 1347–51, it was one of the most terrifying diseases to reach the european continent. The black death was transmitted by fleas, and victims of the disease develops black boils in the groin and armpits regions and suffered from high fevers, diarrhea and violent coughs, It caused the death of about almost half of the population of Europe.
The black death had a significant effect upon the european society, it also reveals some religious as well as social ideas and beliefs at the time. The black death is significant in history and constructed europe as the way it is today, there were many short and long term effects on the society and people due to the black death.The black death kills without discrimination, it terminated many people of different social groups in the 14th century, the black death swept through cities and towns, and it killed approximately over 20 million people in europe (“Black Death.” ) This caused a huge scandal in the society, because it created a gap inside the society itself therefore destroying its structure in its short term. The major short-term effect of the black death was fear and depression, people would lose their family, and neighbor and friends, this would create a atmosphere of grief and hopelessness. Many people would close off to the outside and stay in their homes. Others chose to enjoy their time before they left the face of earth and would party on the street and in the bars all day long. During the plague healthy people would avoid going to visit the sick, medical care teams refused to see patients, the shops would all close.
Many people tried to escape into other countries, however that did not resolve the problem ( Documentary in class) The disease affected farm animals just as humans. In fact, During the black death period so many sheep died that europe experienced shortage of wool for a short period. (“Black Death.” ) Many people, worried about their own well-being,abandoned their friends and family whom were infected with the disease. Those who passed away due to the black death had to be thrown into a massive hole and buried by the number of thousands because many of the grave diggers were also infected. Some other short term effects are that people began going against the authority of the church and the pope and instead tried to communicate with god directly through their own actions. There were a group of people who called themselves the ‘Flagellants’, they seeked forgiveness from the god by punishing themselves in public going from town to town, they would beat themselves with letherstaps with a sharp piece of object strapped on it.
Soon many villagers and upper classed men joined the flagellants seeking forgiveness from god, this gave many townspeople comfort. However what this led to is the infection of more people because some flagellant members already have the black death disease and they would infect the townspeople through the shedding of their blood. (“Black Death.
” ) We could infer from this event that people were extremely religious back then, and due to the fact that the pope was surprised by the uprise of the flagellants, we could infer that no one before the Black death crisis has ever gone against the church.The long term effects of the black death could be seen as a blessing for the peasants and a chance for their uprise, the massive death tolls resulted in a shortage of manual labor for land owners, and many of the peasants’ lifestyle changed through getting a higher wage for their labor. The economic change brought a new society in which the peasants could receive more food and nutrients, and even better education if they would pay for it. These survivors then became middle class in the next era, when the land lords decided to establish the original wages upon the people, a protest began so that the wages stayed the same.Another long term effect of the black death was that the Jewish population was massacred in europe and targeted as scapegoats, and they were accused of poisoning the wells, even though this is a excuse given by jeloused european people because they realized that the Jews were getting a lot of money off of them, and used this disease as a chance of revenge, many people believed in this theory back then.
The massacre happen mostly in the central european regions however it wasn’t as bad as in countries such as Britain, this caused many jews to migrate towards the eastern countries such as Poland and russia, where they remained at in large numbers until 20th century. (Whipps) we could infer from this action that jews were discriminated against even in 14th century, and that Nazis were not the first to commit massacre to jewish populationToday, the experience people had with the black death seems terrifying to us, however it is somewhat comprehensible. We got a taste of the fear when Ebola killed about 11,000 people, (“Ebola: Mapping the Outbreak.”) the horrifying truth lies in the fact that the black death has a percentage of 60-70 when it comes to death, however ebola has a rate up to 90 percent (Lu), nowadays we have better medical treatment and medications, it helped us turn what would have been a disaster into a tamed beast, compared to the black death, Ebola killed a minimal amount of people. However something we could understand is the infectiousness of the disease, the stories of black death helped us understand how some of the people in the countries affected by Ebola felt, such as the fact that some couldn’t see their family, and they had to be segregated and the hopelessness they felt, because the Ebola used to be a disease that caused certain death.
Something we learned from both these diseases would be that it will be very hard to wipe mankind from the world, and that with better technology there will be less casualties even if the illness is stronger.In conclusion, we could conclude that black death had huge impacts on the medieval society, it caused the death of millions, and its spread throughout europe was caused both by natural and man made factors, the people lacked knowledge of sicknesses compared to recent years, and it corrected our ignorance towards education and knowledge. The black death was definitely a significant historic milestone, there were many long and short term effects of the black death, some of which still affects the world today.
