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Black Death swept across Europe like a horde of raging wild beasts, consuming everything in its path. Everywhere, the unsuspected disease with the horrible symptoms gave rise to fear. People tried to isolate themselves and avoid contact with others. But it was to little avail. When the infection left humanity alone some years later, about 50 million people, or around 60 percent of the population, had lost their lives. According to William L. Langer, the Black Death was undoubtedly the worst disaster that has ever befallen mankind.
The disease was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that circulates among wild rodents where they live in great numbers and density. The plague among humans arises when rodents in human habitation, normally black rats, become infected. Of course the deaths of millions were horrible for the people of Europe, but in addition, the disease caused many laborers to die, which was hard on the landowners who relied on them as tenant farmers. In this essay, I am going to try to explain why the death rate was so high as opposed to other well-known diseases.
The biggest contribution to the death rate is so high is the fact that the disease spread so quickly. Historians have speculated that the fleas on rats are responsible for the estimated 25 million plague deaths between 1347 and 1351. The fleas on the rats were so small that their immune system was so weak that it was impossible for them to contract the black plague. There was no shortage of rats either because the number of rats in Europe during the 13th century was very high. They didn’t have the same type of cleanliness that we have now as a society. We can time the number of rats by 1000 to give the reader a reference to exactly how many fleas that had the plague were in Europe. Most historians in the world believe this to be true because there is virtually no other way it could’ve gone down.
Some historians think that it wasn’t the rats, it was actually humans. The study explains that it would be unlikely for it to spread as fast as it did if it was transmitted by rats. It would have to go through this extra loop of the rats, rather than being spread from person to person. But there are reasons for this to be proven false. There is little historical and archaeological support for such a claim. For example, if rats really were the main cause of the plague, there would be more archaeological evidence of dead rats. Historians on both sides will agree that the pneumonic plague is more virulent or damaging and is an advanced form characterized by a severe lung infection. The infection can be transmitted from person to person via airborne droplets — coughing or sneezing. Of course, there is still going to be that airborne spread, just like there would be with a common cold or a stomach bug.
The plague spreading so quickly had effects on the social and economic structure of Europe which furthermore had an effect on why the death rate was high. The Black Death spurred monarchies and city-states across much of Western Europe to formulate new wage and price legislation. ( After the Black Death: Labour Legislation and Attitudes Towards Labour in Late-Medieval Western Europe) European agriculture was on a heavy decline when the workers of the farms started dying. The peasants began to demand higher wages. Lords began to realize they had less control over workers and began to change what they produced. Many workers were needed to grow and harvest grain, so some lords began to raise sheep instead. After the plague, workers asked for higher wages and better working conditions. Many lords agreed to these demands, and those who didn’t soon found that other lords would. So no matter what, peasants that were alive always had work, because there were not a lot of other people who could do it.
The major social effect had to do with Religion. Religion was an important aspect of daily life for European Christians. When the Black Death struck Europe in 1347, the Church struggled to cope with the plague’s damaging consequences, and its reputation suffered as a result. The majority of Europe at the time were Catholics, so lots of people thought that this was gods doing. Some felt that they should obey the maxim that was created by the people, ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.’ (Garrett, Laurie. The Black Death) Faith in religion decreased after the plague, both because of the death of so many of the clergy and because of the failure of prayer to prevent sickness and death.
The social effect of this plague affected almost all of Europe and its towns. English towns experienced differing fortunes in the decades before 1348 and by that year some had already contracted, for a variety of both local and more general reasons. The Black Death spurred monarchies and city-states across much of Western Europe to formulate new wage and price legislation. These legislative acts splintered in a multitude of directions that to date defy any obvious patterns of economic or political rationality. (The Black Death in English Towns) A comparison of labor laws in England, France, Provence, Aragon, Castile, the Low Countries, and the city-states of Italy shows that these laws did not flow logically from new post-plague demographics and economics-the realities of the supply and demand for labor.
The doctors at the time had no idea what to do about this plague. They were trying anything and everything they could think of. They would rub onions, herbs, or chopped up snakes on the boils or cut up a pigeon and rub it over an infected body. They would also resort to drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury, or even ten-year-old treacle. Because this was so long ago, doctors only dealt with things that they could handle like a fever or a cough, but nothing like that.
14th-century doctors were at a loss to explain the cause of the Black Death, many Europeans ascribed supernatural forces, earthquakes, and malicious conspiracies, among other things, as possible reasons for the plague’s emergence. No one in the 14th century considered rat control a way to ward off the plague, and people began to believe only God’s anger could produce such horrific displays of suffering and death.
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