The Black Death

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The Black Death
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Key questions

• There are 3 questions that will be asked during
  the course of the lesson
• 1. What is the Black Death?
• 2. What caused the Black Death?
• 3. What were the consequences?

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The plague arrives

• 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!

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Where did the Black Death come from?
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What were the symptoms of the plague?
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What caused the plague?

• The question that you are probably thinking is
  this
• Q Who or what caused the Black Death?
• A This is your answer!

The Oriental Rat Flea!
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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.

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Two Types

• The Pneumonic Plague, became a killer when the
  infection reached the lungs.
• Because it destroyed the breathing system, this
  plague could be caught if someone breathed on you.

• Bubonic Plague did not affect the victims lungs,
  but caused large swellings as the body fought the
  disease.
• To catch this type of plague you had to be bitten
  by a flea that had already bitten a black rat.

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The Pneumonic Plague

• Second most commonly seen form of the Black Death

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Cures?

• Medieval people did not know about germs causing
  disease. They did not understand that plague was
  spread by rats and fleas. They thought that
  peoples bodies were poisoned.
• If the swellings burst and the poison came out
  people sometimes survived. It seemed sensible to
  draw out the poison.

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Medieval cure number 1

• The swellings should be softened with figs and
  cooked onions. The onions should be mixed with
  yeast and butter. Then open the swellings with a
  knife.

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Medieval cure number 2

• Take a live frog and put its belly on the plague
  sore. The frog will swell up and burst. Keep
  doing this with further frogs until they stop
  bursting. Some people say that a dried toad will
  do the job better.

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Other Medieval Cures

• Rub the body with melted butter.
• Tie a small bag of garlic around your neck. The
  smell would keep the plague away.
• Go to church and ask for forgiveness.
• Avoid breathing in the same air as a plague
  victim.
• Sit next to a blazing hot fire.
• Brick or board up houses with the sick inside.

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Question

• How useful do you think these medieval cures
  actually were? Did they help at all or were they
  more harmful?

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Consequences for Population

• Urban populations recovered quickly
• Rural populations recovered slowly
• Friars took a couple of generations to recover
• Pre-plague population reached in the 1500s or
  1600s
• Later period of Middle Ages was characterized by
  chronically reduced population

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Consequences for Population

• 1348
• Gaza 10.000 dead
• Aleppo 500 dead per day
• Damascus 1000 dead per day
• Syria total of 400.000 dead
• Lower mortality rate in the Middle East of less
  than one third of population

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Economic Consequences

• Shortage of laborers? rising wages for peasants
  and artisans
• Valuable artisan skills disappeared
• Oversupply of goods ? prices dropped
• For the living, standard of living rose!
• Landlords stopped freeing their serfs? serfs
  revolting and leaving the land
• The oppressed demanded fairer treatment

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Economic Consequences

• The great equalizer
• Lack of sufficient law enforcement personnel
• Promoted lawlessness
• People tried their luck

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Religious Consequences

• Persecutions of the Jews scapegoats
• Massacres and burnings
• By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish
  communities had been exterminated
• Lepers were also targeted
• Jews expelled, moved to Poland Lithuania

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Religious Consequences

• Church lost prestige, spiritual authority,
  leadership
• Promised cures, treatment, and explanations
• No answers to the people
• Revolt against the church
• Severe shortage of clergy functioned as nurses
  and consequently died.
• The church targeted the Jews for persecution
  had killed Jesus and brought sin to the world

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Music and Art

• Culture turned morbid
• Sense of death impending inevitable
• Death is a game, like chess!
• Dance of death death is random
• Everyone suffered
• Despair

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Music and Art

• Danse Macabre the dance of death skeletons
  mingling with the living (here Hans Holbein the
  Younger)
• Shocking juxtapositions
• Written language almost lost
• Coffins had pictures of corpses on the lid
• New creativity in motives

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The Children

• Ring a-round the rosy rosary beads give you
  Gods help
• Pocket full of posies used to stop the odor of
  rotting bodies through to cause the plague
• Ashes, ashes! the church burned the dead when
  burying became too laborious
• We all fall down! dead
• Children suffered mentally and physically
• Children were not thought worth the trouble to
  raise!

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And Now?

• The bubonic Plague still exists
• Quite common among rodent populations
• A cure is known today but the disease moves
  very quickly
• The Plague is still with us
• Hythe Ossuary, remains of victims of the Black
  Death