The Beginning of the End
Europe was rich in signs that danger was coming. In 1347, the island of Cyprus suffered an earthquake and tidal wave. In France, the musician Louis Heyligen stated ‘showers of frogs and snakes, hailstones big enough to kill a man, and then fire falling from the sky’. People in Austria, started to worry when rainstorms ruined vineyard and cornfield, swarms of grasshoppers invaded the crops and the sun and moon were both colourless.
The Black Death arrived in Italy in 1347 and spread all over the rest of Western Europe in two years. The deaths were caused by bacterial disease from Yersinia pestis, by rats and mainly the fleas they carried. All medieval towns were crowded and contaminated with rats, increasing the risk of infection. There were plenty of droughts which destroyed crops, sunk ships and encouraged grasshoppers. People and animals moved around more, trying to survive in a confusing world. The Black Death has mostly been described as the Bubonic plague because of the lumps or buboes that were caused, however there was possibly two other forms of the Black Death – pneumonic (disease in the lungs) and septicaemic (Bacteria poisoning the bloodstream).
The death rate for those who were infected was very high and uneven. The Black Death returned in 1360 and again in 1371 with lower death rates, until the last return of the plague for Europe in 1664.
Symptoms
The symptoms of the Black Death were terrible and included; painful swellings which appeared in the armpits, legs, neck or private parts, very high fevers, vomiting, muscular pains, internal bleeding and mental disorders. The victim would continuously have a desire to sleep, which ended with a quick death – usually between 2 -4 days.
Treatments
Instead of finding a cure for this horrible disease, people trusted in God to save them. The church relied more on praying for cures and caring for ill than on encouraging doctors to study the causes of the Black Death. Astrology played a role in treatments as well as ideas about the causes. A victim’s star sign acted as a guide to what treatments were not suited for them. Nobody knew about germs, cleanliness and sanitation so they couldn’t prevent the spread of disease.
The end of the beginning
The earth was at the centre of the medieval universe. God had placed it there at the beginning of time and as everybody knows, his heaven, hell, beasts and crawling things are all his creations. Then came Copernicus and Galileo with new ideas and slowly but shockingly for those who were still alive, everything changed. Some researchers believe that the Black Death wasn’t caused by waves of the bubonic plague, and was sometimes another plague called Anthrax. Some think rats weren’t the carriers of the germs and that it was from space. Diseases are unpredictable and the stories of our past are uncertain.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century, a plague swept the world like no other. It struck in a series of waves that continued into the eighteenth century. The first wave was estimated to have killed twenty-five million people, about a third of the Western Europe population at that time. Throughout the different outbreaks, the plague, also known as the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death, caused people to react in several ways. Some people believed the plague was a medical problem that can be treated, some found themselves concerned only with their own greed, still others believed there was nothing they could do and reacted in fear, and most people believed it was a form of divine punishment from God.…
- 1119 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Around 1339 in northwestern Europe, the population was beginning to outgrow the food supply and a severe economic crisis began to take place. The winters were extremely cold and the summers were dry. Due to this extreme weather, very low crops yielded and those that grew were dying. Inflation became a common occurrence and as famine broke out, people began to worry. The time period of approximately 1339 to 1346 is now known as the famine before the plague (history). These seven bad years of weather and famine lead to the greatest plague of all times. In 1347, endemic to Asia, The Black Death began spreading throughout Western Europe. Over the time of three years, the plague killed one third of the population in Europe with roughly twenty five million people dead (bbc.co). The Black Death killed more Europeans than any other endemic or war up to that time, greatly impacting the Church, family life, and the economy. These three social pillars were changed forever.…
- 1720 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The black plague: The black plague also known as the black death started in the years 1346-1353 leading in the deaths of 75 to 200 million deaths, almost a third of the population. The black plague is also known as the black death because, of the dark patches on the skin caused by subcutaneous bleeding. The black plague was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. A deadly epidemic known as the Sixth-Century Plague or Justinian's plague struck Constantinople and parts of southern Europe 800 years earlier. The Black Death returned several times throughout the rest of the century. (mid 14 century)…
- 267 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The plague can be contracted by insect bites such as the fleas or airborne, such as the cough of an infected individual. In both cases, victims rarely lasted more than three to four days between the beginning of the infection and death. Some of the first symptoms of the Bubonic Plague were vomiting, dizziness, headaches, shivering, tongue turns white, and intolerance to light. Some of the later symptoms are pains in the joints, breaking blood vessels, internal bleeding, and your skin turns black as a result of dried blood from internal bleeding. This is what gave the plague its nickname "The Black Death." One-third to one-half of the entire European population succumbed to this ghastly death. While the Bubonic Plague left intense devastation on Europe it also had profound influences on Europe and its people, both negative and…
- 1263 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
Tuchman meticulously details the muck and filth [people seldom bathed] in which the diseases’ symptoms affected the body. Symptoms such as: black markings on the skin indicated internal bleeding; swellings oozing blood and pus were common among the infected ones (548). Tuchman writes “As the disease spread, other symptoms of continuous fever and spitting of blood appeared instead of swellings or buboes” (549). The plague had two forms in which it manifested. One spread by contact and the other was spread by air (549). If both forms of the plague attacked the body at once, the result was a speedy death, sometimes within hours.…
- 511 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the mid-fourteenth century of Europe, a deathly plague struck killing about 25 million people from a single fleabite. Once infected, a person would experience very high fevers, buboes, and die within a few days and it was an airborne disease making it an even more contagious disease. Depopulation, trading seized, and many people relocated are just some results of the plague. Many Europeans had numerous different beliefs and concerns about the plague such as fear, greed, or turning to faith for help.…
- 488 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The Black Death also known as the Bubonic Plague and many other names, devastated European society by affecting its economy, social structure, government, and church in a series of outbreaks taking place years apart for over 300 years. When the Black Death began to surface for the first time people panicked and believed in supernatural reasons that had caused the plague but during the course of time different groups of people such as the state or government, the middle class, and the church either began to have a different attitude towards the plague like a rational or selfish point of view or they kept believing in supernatural beings that caused the plague.…
- 3206 Words
- 13 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The plague was brought to Europe by cargo from China. In this cargo there were rats that had flea’s on them that carried this plague, and this little flea’s caused one of the most devastating epidemics in the history of the world. The people of Europe were already in bad times before the plague due to economic depression and agricultural expansion had reached its limits. Then in 1347 the plague struck, once infected by the plague a person would develop enormous swelling in there groin or armpits, black spots would appear on there legs, then diarrhea would occur and the victim would die between the third and fifth day. The plague was not only transmitted by the flea’s, the plague was also transmitted by air and if a person was infected that way he would cough up blood and then die within 3 days. By the end of the plague around two-thirds of Europe’s population was dead, and the people that did survive had a very hard time living in the conditions that Europe was in.…
- 610 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Black Death was one of the deadliest and most impactful events that the world has ever witnessed. It is believed that the plague originated in Asia and it began to spread to other parts of the world around 1345 to 1346 when the plague struck water for the first time. Supposedly, this happened when Yanibeg, a khan of the Golden Horde, which was a part of the Mongol Empire, began catapulting the bodies of plague victims over its walls into the Black Sea. Once the plague hit the Black Sea, there was no hope of stopping it from its inevitable onslaught. The Genoese and Mediterranean coastline now laid open to an attack from the disease. The Black Death began to spread all over the world, but it did most of its damage throughout Europe. By the end of the fourteenth century, Europe had lost nearly half of its total population that it contained prior to the plague. However, the plague brought more consequences than just widespread death. The economy and social structure of Europe would…
- 1328 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
The Black Death, which started in 1348 and spread all over Europe, especially the cities of Manchester and London in England. Many issues arose in these societies over time. The bad health conditions, decrease in population, and the opening of job opportunities, all due to the plague, were both negative and positive issues that led to the industrialization and modernization of these cities.…
- 742 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Black Death, which swept across Europe between 1347 and 1351, had significance in all areas of life and culture: economic, social, psychological, and even religious. It ushered in a new age for all of Europe, in many ways speeding up the change from the medieval to modern era. In under a five year time span, one-third of Europe’s population died. There is some speculation that the toll was actually more than one-third, and could have reached as much as one-half. Entire towns and cities were completely decimated by the illness in extremely brief periods of time. The arrival of the plague, and the speed with which it spread, struck panic across the continent as a whole. It would be safe to say there was not any single individual who did not meet the Black Death in one form or another. The consequences of the plague, and the calamity it brought, were far-reaching.…
- 1906 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
During mid-fourteen century, a terrible plague hit Europe and wiped out a third of the population, 25,000,000 people of Western Europe. This plague was named the Black Plague since when people got the disease they got bumps that oozed black liquid and different body parts would turn black. The plague was spread by infected fleas on rats that bit humans. Since the Europeans lacked medical knowledge, the Plague caused hysteria and hopelessness to spread across Europe. Therefore the Europeans turned to the one stable unit in their lives, the Church.…
- 1195 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The Black Death greatly impacted life in medieval Europe. It degraded the authority of the wealthy and of the Church, possibly destroyed the practice of Feudalism, and killed a great percentage of the population. The deadly disease, though still around in some rare cases today, faded out in the mid-1350s, after completely changing life in…
- 647 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Black Death was a horrible plague that hit Europe in the 1200 to 1600 time frame, wiping out about a third of its population. The disease was very contagious, for example, if a mother who carried the disease sneezed on her child her child would catch it a week later and die. Europe’s population fell tremendously making it hard for survivors to find labor, unfortunately a lot of the peasants…
- 1297 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
The Black Death started in 1347 and raged on for some years, wiping most of Europe as it spread. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) wrote of the plague’s symptoms: swellings or tumors in the armpits and groin, which led to blackness on different parts of the body. There’s no doubt that the Europeans had their own opinion on the cause of the plague and how to contain it. The Black Death was a plague that very unfamiliar to the victims.…
- 446 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays