black death summary essay

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Black Death

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: September 17, 2010

The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of the harbor, but it was too late: Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill more than 20 million people in Europe—almost one-third of the continent’s population.

How Did the Black Plague Start?

Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a “Great Pestilence” that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the Near and Far East. Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt.

The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread by trading ships , though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C.

Symptoms of the Black Plague

Europeans were scarcely equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. “In men and women alike,” the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, “at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.”

Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms—fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains—and then, in short order, death.

The Bubonic Plague attacks the lymphatic system, causing swelling in the lymph nodes. If untreated, the infection can spread to the blood or lungs.

How Did the Black Death Spread?

The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious: “the mere touching of the clothes,” wrote Boccaccio, “appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient. People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Did you know? Many scholars think that the nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosy” was written about the symptoms of the Black Death.

Understanding the Black Death

Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia  pestis . (The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century.)

They know that the bacillus travels from person to person through the air , as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Both of these pests could be found almost everywhere in medieval Europe, but they were particularly at home aboard ships of all kinds—which is how the deadly plague made its way through one European port city after another.

Not long after it struck Messina, the Black Death spread to the port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the Black Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London.

Today, this grim sequence of events is terrifying but comprehensible. In the middle of the 14th century, however, there seemed to be no rational explanation for it.

No one knew exactly how the Black Death was transmitted from one patient to another, and no one knew how to prevent or treat it. According to one doctor, for example, “instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick.”

How Do You Treat the Black Death?

Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

Meanwhile, in a panic, healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; and shopkeepers closed their stores. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but even there they could not escape the disease: It affected cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens as well as people.

In fact, so many sheep died that one of the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. And many people, desperate to save themselves, even abandoned their sick and dying loved ones. “Thus doing,” Boccaccio wrote, “each thought to secure immunity for himself.”

The Black Death: A Timeline of the Gruesome Pandemic

Track how the Black Death ravaged humanity through history.

How the Black Death Spread Along the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a vital trading route connecting East and West—but it also became a conduit for one of history's deadliest pandemics.

Pandemics That Changed History

In the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario. When an epidemic spreads beyond a country’s borders, that’s when the disease officially becomes a pandemic. Communicable diseases existed during humankind’s hunter‑gatherer days, but the shift to agrarian life 10,000 years ago created communities that made epidemics more possible. Malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, […]

Black Plague: God’s Punishment?

Because they did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment—retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness.

By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers—so, for example, many thousands of Jews were massacred in 1348 and 1349. (Thousands more fled to the sparsely populated regions of Eastern Europe, where they could be relatively safe from the rampaging mobs in the cities.)

Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty of the Black Death epidemic by lashing out at their neighbors; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their own souls.

Flagellants

Some upper-class men joined processions of flagellants that traveled from town to town and engaged in public displays of penance and punishment: They would beat themselves and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople looked on. For 33 1/2 days, the flagellants repeated this ritual three times a day. Then they would move on to the next town and begin the process over again.

Though the flagellant movement did provide some comfort to people who felt powerless in the face of inexplicable tragedy, it soon began to worry the Pope, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. In the face of this papal resistance, the movement disintegrated.

Social Distancing and Quarantine Were Used in Medieval Times to Fight the Black Death

In the 14th century, health officials didn't understand bacteria or viruses, but they understood the importance of keeping a distance and disinfecting.

How One 17th‑Century Italian City Fended Off the Plague

The town of Ferrara managed to avoid even a single death from the widespread contagion. How did they do it?

5 Hard‑Earned Lessons from Pandemics of the Past

How do populations survive a pandemic? History offers some strategies.

How Did the Black Death End?

The plague never really ended and it returned with a vengeance years later. But officials in the port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease—creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease.

The sailors were initially held on their ships for 30 days (a trentino ), a period that was later increased to 40 days, or a quarantine — the origin of the term “quarantine” and a practice still used today. 

Does the Black Plague Still Exist?

The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it. While antibiotics are available to treat the Black Death, according to The World Health Organization, there are still 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year.

Gallery: Pandemics That Changed History

HISTORY Vault

Stream thousands of hours of acclaimed series, probing documentaries and captivating specials commercial-free in HISTORY Vault

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Home — Essay Samples — History — Black Death — Essay On The Black Death

Essay on The Black Death

• Categories: Black Death

About this sample

Words: 600 |

Published: Mar 14, 2024

Words: 600 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

• Expert in: History

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1150 words

3 pages / 1476 words

7 pages / 3409 words

3 pages / 1543 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Black Death

Becker, C. (2016). The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin's.Cohn, S. K. (2019). The Black Death and the History of Plagues, 1345-1730. Cambridge University [...]

The Black Death, which ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, is often described as one of the most catastrophic pandemics in human history. Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the Black Death resulted in profound [...]

The Black Death, or Bubonic Plague, was one of the most deadly pandemics ever. It hit Europe hard in the 14th century, killing millions and changing history forever. In this essay, let's dive into what happened because of the [...]

The Black Death, a devastating pandemic that swept through Europe in the 14th century, and COVID-19, the ongoing global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, have left indelible marks on history. This essay seeks to analyze [...]

In the Medieval Era the Black Plague was more than just a thorn in a lion's side. During the time, few people ever reached what is now our national life expectancy. The Black Plague's success rate for fatality still haunts us to [...]

The history of medicine has come a long way, from the art of bleeding to surgeries so incomprehensibly fine that only the most trained professionals could think of conducting. The art of medicine arguably begins with the [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Impact of the Black Death Essay

Introduction, social impacts of the black death, economic impacts of the black death, political impacts of the black death, reference list.

The Black Death was, no doubt, the greatest population disaster that has ever occurred in the history of Europe. The name is given to the bubonic plaque that occurred in the fourteenth century in Europe killing millions of people. The plaque began in the year 1348, and by the year 1359, it had killed an approximate 1.5 million people, out of an estimated total population of about 4 million people.

So terrifying was the Black Death that peasants were blaming themselves for its occurrence, and thus some of them resulted to punishing themselves as a way of seeking God’s forgiveness. The bubonic plaque was caused by fleas that were hosted by rats, a common phenomenon in the cities and towns. The presence of rats in the cities and towns was due to the fact that the towns were littered, and they were poorly managed.

The worst part of it is the fact that the medieval peasants did not know that the plaque was caused by the pleas hosted by the rats. They actually believed that the plague was caused by the rats themselves. As more and more people died from the Black Death, the impacts of the plague became more profound.

The plague affected the demographic composition of the society, and thus it had far-reaching effects on the social, economic, political and even cultural realms of the medieval society. To this day, the Black Death is remembered as the worst demographic disaster to be ever experienced in European history (Robin, 2011). This paper is an in-depth analysis of the impacts of the Black Death.

The Black Death had far reaching social impacts on the people who lived during the fourteenth century. An obvious social impact of the plague is the fact that the Black Death led to a significant reduction in the human population of the affected areas. This had extensive effects on all aspects of life, including the social and political structure of the affected areas.

Before the plague, feudalism, the European social structure in medieval times, had created a society in which inequality was rife, with many poor peasants, and rich lords. This fuelled overpopulation, which was a catalyst for the mortality of the plaque. After the plaque, a large number of the overpopulated peasants became victims of the plaque, and thus the lords lacked labourers in their farms. This also led to a significant reduction in the population (Bryrne, 2011).

The people who were spared by the plague lived full lives. They regarded themselves as the next victims of the bubonic plague. This led to immoral behaviour that saw societal codes like the sexual codes broken. People did not care about having virtues anymore because they knew that death was approaching fast. As people lost their partners to the plague, the marriage market grew, fuelling more sexual immorality (Carol, 1996).

Also among the immediate social impacts is the fact that at one point, the number of people who were dying from the bubonic plague was seemingly more than the number of the living. This made it virtually impossible for the living to take care of the ailing, or even for the living to bury the deceased. This was a social crisis that has remained in the books of history as a remarkable impact of the bubonic plague.

Immediately after the occurrence of the Black Death, all economic activities were paralysed. The first economic activity to suffer substantially from the plaque was trade. Although people were not aware that it was the infectiousness of the plaque that was making it to kill more people, they were afraid to travel to plagued areas for fear of coming into contact with rats, which they believed was the source of the disease. This substantially affected trade ties between villages and communities in the medieval European society.

After the occurrence of the Black Death, other impacts of the plague started affecting the community. The population of the European parts affected by the plaque reduced drastically, leading to a severe shortage of labour for the farms. The demand of peasant farmers increased, with the lords competing for them by relocating them from their villages to the farms of the latter. This made the peasants have a competitive economic edge, as they were able to negotiate for better salaries.

As the Black Death claimed more lives, farms were left unattended because the peasants who were responsible for ploughing had fallen victims of the plague. Where the lords were lucky to have had some harvest, it was challenging to bring it home due to a serious shortage of manpower.

Some harvest got destroyed in the field as there were no men to bring it home. Some animals got lost because the people who used to look after them had also fallen victims of the plague. These problems led to a number of other impacts in the medieval society of the fourteenth century (Bridbury, 1973).

As farms went unploughed and some harvest remained in the fields, people in the villages starved for food. Cities and towns also faced severe shortages of food since the farming villages around the towns did not have sufficient foodstuffs. Lords had to strategize economically in order to survive, and thus most of them resulted to keeping sheep since it was easier without the manpower.

Economic activities that required the presence of large numbers of peasants like the farming of grains lost their popularity. This, in turn, led to serious shortage of basic commodities like bread. This, coupled with the fact that the production of all kinds of foodstuffs had decreases, led to inflationary prices on commodities (“The Black Death And Its Effects”, 1935). The poor were left thriving in an environment full of hardships as the prices of foods skyrocketed.

The Black Death had a number of political impacts. First of all, the feudal social system of the fourteen-century European population demanded that peasants could not relocate from their villages at will. For a peasant to relocate from his/her village, he/she had to seek the permission of his/her lord.

After the Black Death, it became increasingly difficult for lords to get the number of peasants they required to provide them with the labour for their farms. This made lords to disregard the law, and relocate peasants to their villages so that they could work in their farms. Most of the times, the lords even declined to return the latter to their rightful villages in a bid to get maximum benefit from their labour.

Another political impact of the Black Death also stems from the reduced population of the affected areas. This is because after the number of peasants reduced, and they were able to negotiate salaries and even relocate from their villages, contrary to feudal law, the government imposed stricter rules to regulate the way peasants offer their manpower to the lords.

This was done by the introduction of the 1351 “statute for labourers” (Bridbury, 1973). The statute provided that payments to peasants were to be made with reference to the payments that were made in 1346. This meant that peasants would receive payments using the terms that were prevailing before the plague occurred.

The statute was structures such that both the lord and the peasant could be accused of breaking the law by either the peasant receiving a higher payment, or the lord giving the same. The effect of this statute was that a good number of peasants disobeyed it, leading to, arguably inhumane punishment. This fuelled revolt among the peasants who sought to fight for their rights in the 1381 Peasants Revolt (Bentley et al., 2008).

After oppressive statutes like the statute for labourers came into force, peasants started to be resistant. They therefore organized a number of revolts in a bid to attract the attention of legislators to their plea of fairness. The most serious of these revolts was the aforementioned 1381 peasant revolt. The peasants had gathered in huge numbers and marched to London. They killed senior officials of the King and took control over the tower of London.

Among their main grievances was the fact that, thirty-five years after the occurrence of the Black Death, the population had reasonably grown and the pre-existent demand for labour had substantially reduced. The lords were therefore threatening to withdraw the privileges they had given to peasants since their demand was no more. This led to the revolt as the peasants sought to fight for their privileges.

From the discussion above, it is evident that the Black Death had a lot of impacts on the European medieval society. It changed the demographic set-up of the community and thus it substantially affected the social activities of the peasants. This can be evidenced by the aforementioned increase in cases of sexual immorality as people had lost their partners in the plague.

The Black Death also had a number of economic impacts which resulted from the drastic decrease in the population of peasants. This can be evidenced by the aforementioned change by lords from grain farming to sheep farming. Lastly, the Black Death had a number of political impacts which can be exemplified by the development of the aforementioned statute for labourers.

Studies of the impacts of the bubonic plague are still ongoing. This is despite the fact that most of the impacts were realized immediately after the plague and their effects on the society analyzed. Political activists during the time, who were mostly lords, had observed the effects of the plague and made societal changes that were bound to benefit them.

However, scientists still believe that the European society still suffers significant effects of the bubonic plague. For instance, it has been established that England, where the greatest effects of the bubonic plague were perhaps felt, has significantly lower genetic diversity than it is suspected to have had in the eleventh century. Geneticists explain this by the argument that the deaths that resulted from the Black Deaths were the cause of the low genetic variation in Europe.

Bentley, Jerry H., Ziegler, Herbert F., Streets, Heather E. (2008) Traditions and

Encounters: A Brief Global History, ch9,15,19, McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Bridbury, A. (1973). The Black Death. The Economic History Review, 26: 577 – 592.

Bryrne, J. (2011). Black Death. World Book Advanced. Web.

Carol, B. (1996). Bubonic Plague in the nineteenth-century China.

Robin, N. (2011). Apocalypse Then: A History of Plague. Special Report. World Book Advanced. Web.

The Black Death And Its Effects. (1935). Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England. Boston: Ginn.

• The Development of Feudalism and Manorialism in the Middle Ages
• The Term Crusade: The Period Between the Eleventh Century and the Thirteenth Century
• The Black Death in Europe: Spread and Causes
• Stress and Strains in the Renaissance Society
• The Black Death Disease' History
• What Factors Contributed to the Dissolution of the Roman Empire?
• Chivalry in the First Crusade
• The Knights Templar: The Warrior Monks
• The Catholic Church and the Black Death in the 14th Century
• The Year 1000’ by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, August 22). Impact of the Black Death. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impact-of-the-black-death/

"Impact of the Black Death." IvyPanda , 22 Aug. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/impact-of-the-black-death/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Impact of the Black Death'. 22 August.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Impact of the Black Death." August 22, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impact-of-the-black-death/.

1. IvyPanda . "Impact of the Black Death." August 22, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impact-of-the-black-death/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Impact of the Black Death." August 22, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/impact-of-the-black-death/.

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

IvyPanda uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your experience, enabling functionalities such as:

• Basic site functions
• Ensuring secure, safe transactions
• Secure account login
• Remembering account, browser, and regional preferences
• Remembering privacy and security settings
• Analyzing site traffic and usage
• Personalized search, content, and recommendations
• Displaying relevant, targeted ads on and off IvyPanda

Please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy for detailed information.

Certain technologies we use are essential for critical functions such as security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and ensuring the site operates correctly for browsing and transactions.

Cookies and similar technologies are used to enhance your experience by:

• Remembering general and regional preferences
• Personalizing content, search, recommendations, and offers

Some functions, such as personalized recommendations, account preferences, or localization, may not work correctly without these technologies. For more details, please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy .

To enable personalized advertising (such as interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. These partners may have their own information collected about you. Turning off the personalized advertising setting won't stop you from seeing IvyPanda ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.

Personalized advertising may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of the information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have the right to opt out. Turning off personalized advertising allows you to exercise your right to opt out. Learn more in IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy .

The Black Death: The Plague, 1331-1770

Introduction.

Medieval people called the catastrophe of the 14th century either the "Great Pestilence"' or the "Great Plague." Writers contemporary to the plague referred to the event as the "Great Mortality." Swedish and Danish chronicles of the 16th century described the events as "black" for the first time, likely to refer to black as glum or dreadful denoting the terror of the events. The German physician Justus Hecker suggested that a mistranslation of the Latin atra mors (terrible, or black, death) had occurred in Scandinavia when he described "The Black Death in the 14th century." Black Death became more widely used in the German- and English-speaking worlds.

The Death Toll

In October 1347, a ship came from the Crimea and Asia and docked in Messina, Sicily. Aboard the ship were not only sailors but rats. The rats brought with them the Black Death, the bubonic plague. Reports that came to Europe about the disease indicated that 20 million people had died in Asia. Knowing what happened in Europe, this was probably an underestimate, because there were more people in Asia than Europe. Best estimates now are that at least 25 million people died in Europe from 1347 to 1352. This was almost 40% of the population (some estimates indicate 60%). Half of Paris's population of 100,000 people died. In Italy, Florence's population was reduced from 120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351. The plague was a disaster practically unequalled in the annals of recorded history and it took 150 years for Europe’s population to recover.

The Plague Doctor Costume

The plague doctor costume consisted of an ankle length overcoat, a bird-like beak mask filled with sweet or strong smelling substances, along with gloves and boots. The mask had glass openings for the eyes. Straps held the beak in front of the doctor's nose which had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator. The beak could hold dried flowers (e.g roses or carnations), herbs (e.g. mint), spices, camphor or a vinegar sponge. The purpose of the mask was to remove bad smells, thought to be the principal cause of the disease. Doctors believed the herbs would counter the "evil" smells of the plague and prevent them from becoming infected. The costume included a wide brimmed leather hat to indicate their profession. They used wooden canes to point out areas needing attention and to examine patients without touching them. The canes were also used to keep people away and to remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them.

Three Forms of the Plague

• Bubonic plague refers to the painful lymph node swellings called buboes, primarily found around the base of the neck, in the armpits and groin which oozed pus and bled. Victims underwent damage to the skin and underlying tissue until they were covered in dark blotches. Most victims died within four to seven days after infection. When the plague reached Europe, it first struck port cities and then followed the trade routes, both by sea and land. The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form during the Black Death, with a mortality rate of 30-75% and symptoms including fever of 38 - 41 °C (101-105 °F), headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise. Of those who contracted the bubonic plague, 4 out of 5 died within eight days.
• The pneumonic plague is an airborne plague that attacks the lungs before the rest of the body. Pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form during the Black Death with a mortality rate of ninety to ninety-five percent.
• The septicaemic plague is a form of deadly blood poisoning. The disease is contracted primarily through the bite of an infected insect. Septicemic plague can cause disseminated intravascular coagulation, and is almost always fatal; the mortality rate in medieval times was 99-100 percent. Septicemic plague is the rarest of the three plague varieties.

The bubonic plague mechanism was dependent on two populations of rodents: one resistant to the disease, which acts as hosts, keeping the disease endemic; and a second that lacks resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human epidemic. The original carrier for the plague-infected fleas thought to be responsible for the Black Death was the black rat. The bacterium responsible for the Black Death, Yersinia pestis, was commonly endemic in only a few rodent species and is usually transmitted zoonotically by the rat flea. Brown rats may suffer from plague, as can many non-rodent species, including dogs, cats, and humans.

The Nuremberg Chronicle

The burning of Jews in the 14th century during the black death (bubonic plague). Jews were perceived as being less susceptible to the plague than their neighbours (likely the result of Jewish ritual regarding personal hygiene) and they were accused of poisoning Christian wells: thought to be the source of the plague.

"The miserable wretched Jews, in A.D. 1337, at Deckendorf, on the Danube, in Bavaria, in scorn and ignominy of the divine majesty and high veneration paid to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the holy Christian religion, stabbed the Holy Sacrament many times. They then threw it into a hot oven, and as it remained unconsumed, they finally placed it on an anvil and struck it with hammers. When this became known, the Jews were seized by Hartmann von Degenberg, the caretaker, and the citizens; and when the truth was established, they were deservedly condemned to death. And this same Host, being present at the Holy Sepulchre, is venerated for its many miracles.

Thereafter, in the year A.D. 1348, all the Jews in Germany were burned, having been accused of poisoning the wells, as many of them confessed.

At this time locusts and vermin passed through the sky from east to west like a thick cloud, devastating all vegetation and fruits; and after they were dispersed the stench caused a horrible pestilence.

A pitiful and lamentable pestilence began in the year 1348 and endured for three years throughout the world. It resulted from the aforesaid locusts or vermin. It started in India and spread as far as England, ravaging Italy and France, and finally Germany and Hungary. The mortality was so rapid and great that barely ten persons out of every thousand survived. In some regions only about one third of the population escaped. Many cities, towns, marts and villages died out entirely and remained void. Some said that the Jews increased this calamity by poisoning the wells."

• Plague is a scourge from God for your evil deeds—by scourging yourself with a whip like a flagellant, then God has no reason for scourging you with plague.
• Apply a mixture of tree resin, roots of white lilies and human excrements.
• Bathing should not be avoided, and be done with vinegar and rosewater—alternatively in your own urine.
• Drink the pus of lanced buboes.
• Quarantine people for 40 days (quarantine comes from latin for 40)—first done in Venice in 1348.
• Place a live hen close to the swellings to draw out the pestilence then drink a glass of your own urine twice a day.
• Grind up an emerald and drink it in wine.
• Injest snakeskin, bone from the heart of a stag, Armenian clay, precious metals, aloe, myrrh and saffron.
• Roast the shells of newly laid eggs, and grind them to a powder—add Marigold flowers and treacle—drink in warm beer every morning and night.

©2017 John Martin Rare Book Room, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, 600 Newton Road, Iowa City, IA 52242-1098 Image: Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death (detail), c. 1562, oil on panel, 117 x 162 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid   Acknowledgements to Alice M. Phillips for her work editing the original exhibit material and subsequent web design.

• The Black Death: A Personal History Summary

by John Hatcher

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

In the historical docudrama “ The Black Death: A Personal History ”, the author John Hatcher paints a story about a priest living in an English village during the most lethal and mortal plague in medieval Europe. Master John is a Parish priest and it is through his eyes the story unfolds. The book is a mix between historical accuracy and a fictional element that is the personal story and account of the Parish priest.

Master John lives in Walsham in England during the black death and hopes that his village will not be affected by the disease. Walsham was a village were the black death plague did not reach until later after the worst waves already had occurred in Europe. Therefore, the book is not only about the dread and the fear for the plague, but also about how preparations were made.

The book shows the black death plague in a unique way through Master John and other people's eyes. In the beginning of every chapter, there is an account that is historically accurate and serves as a background to the events that unfolds throughout the book. We also learn how Master John and the other priest struggle to find the meaning of the dreadful plague and why God would allow it or cause it.

Update this section!

You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section.

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.

The Black Death: A Personal History Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Black Death: A Personal History is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The Black Death: A Personal History

The Black Death: A Personal History study guide contains a biography of John Hatcher, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Black Death: A Personal History
• Character List

Essays for The Black Death: A Personal History

The Black Death: A Personal History essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Black Death: A Personal History by John Hatcher.

• The Black Death and the Modernization of Europe: A Critique of Hatcher's Account

Black Death - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

There is probably no person who has not heard of the most devastating pandemics in history. This tragic epidemic is known as the Bubonic Plague. It ravaged Europe during the 14th century, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake. Exploring this topic allows people to gain insight into the profound impact of this disease on society, culture, and medicine. If this theme is close to you, you can choose it among many other essay topics. As a sample paper, you can take someone’s research paper about the Black Death. There you can find valuable information about the origins of the bacteria that caused the plague. Alternatively, explore free essays about the Black Plague.

It is known that the infection of this disease spreads extremely quickly. It caused the death of 30% to 60% of infected people. Presenting such statistics in your text is an example that can be used for good hooks. A crucial element here is also the thesis statement for the Bubonic Plague. For instance, it could highlight the profound societal and economic upheaval caused by this deadliest pandemic. An essay on the Black Death is an opportunity to explore the social structure of the time, changes in medicine, and hygiene practices. Since a lot of literature has been written about this pandemic, you can easily find many examples to create a meaningful outline. Remember that the essay introduction and conclusion should reflect your thoughts and views on the topic.

Black Death DBQ

The Black Death happened in the context of immense trade network. It originated in China, in about 1346, but due to the many trade routes, it was able to spread to many parts of Europe and Asia in just 4 years. Large trade networks such as the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean trade have lots of people, from different backgrounds, travelling back and forth. The plague was composed of three parts; bubonic, pneumonic, septicemic, no matter what they had, […]

Famine and the Black Death

The famine set the stage in the Black Death, by infecting a lot of Europe's people into hunger and starvation. The famine made people more aware of what is happening around them and in European in the 1300's. Furthermore, in the 1347's, there was a horrible turning point that occurred in Europe called the Black Death. The plague began in a hot, dry summer, which caused a multitude of fleas and rats to come out from other places. The rats […]

Transition to a Better Life, a Better World

Viewing the world as is was from medieval to modern, there are various factors that conditioned the transition. The first part of knowing the factors of transition is the knowledge of when the transition took the first steps. The Renaissance, which is the improvement of economics and politics between the two time periods. This time came after Rome had fallen and the Black Death had swept the European region. The increase for wealth, land, and importance of political power, shaped […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

The Black Death and its Effect on the Change in Medicine 

Historians have argued if the Black Death in the 13th century advanced science and medicine or if it was just a terrible plague that wiped out most of the European population. The Black Death did in fact bring many discoveries to most of Europe. The aftermath of the plague led to advancements of medications and swayed everyone from their hardcore beliefs. Medical practices went from being theoretical, based on their theories of the human body, to being more based on […]

The Black Death and the Effects on Society

Introduction The focus of my essay is on the Bubonic Plague also known as the Black Death that struck Europe in 1348, and its many effects on the daily lives of the people. Specifically understanding how the churches came to lose their influence over the European people due to the epidemic and the medical advances that came from this. It is interesting to see how drastically the people's beliefs changed from something that they so deeply believed in, and to […]

West out of the Dark Ages and Modern Western Society

There was a chain of events that brought the West out of the Dark Ages and into Modern Western Society. The term “the Dark Ages” is affiliated to the time period taking place in the European Middle Ages from 5th to 15th century AD. Firstly, the Dark ages started with the fall of the Roman Empire which was then followed by the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery with a few major events in between. All these events led the […]

The Spread of the Black Death

The Black Death was a catastrophic event that caused many people to die, because of 3 different strains of plague. The plague was so strong it killed almost 60 percent of Europe's population, around 25 million people. The most common plague people would get was the Bubonic plague. The Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection that is transmitted by fleas or rodents, causing inflammation in the victim's lymph node. It presented swollen lymph nodes that grew as large as a […]

The Black Death the Importance to World History

The Black Death was a monumental epidemic that took millions of lives and spread its devastation throughout Europe and Afro-Eurasia countries. This devastating event began in the 1330s and didn't end up dying out until the mid-1350s. It was an infectious disease that affected a large part of Afro-Eurasia in the mid-fourteenth century with millions of people dying from the Black Death. This brought about a great change in many ways from culture to the general way of life in […]

Columbus Day as a National Holiday

Its Columbus Day. Let's talk about history. Columbus day is actually on October 12th every year because that's the anniversary of when he reached America. But the reason we're celebrating Columbus day 4 days early this year is because congress changed the official date to the Second Monday of October in 1971. Incidentally, October 8th is the absolute earliest that Columbus Day can take place. The day didn't start off as Columbus Day. Initially it began in 1792 as the […]

Plague: the Black Death in Europe

The Black Death began in Europe in 1347 and had an estimated death toll if 75 to 200 million people. The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague was carried by fleas living on the back of rats, which were normally found on the merchant ships. The plague reached Sicily in October 1347. People gathered on the docks were met with sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were gravely ill, and covered in black boils […]

About the Black Death in History

Plague is one of the three epidemic diseases that is still a problem to the International Health Regulations and is reported by the World Health Organization. The bacteria Yersinia Pestis is said to be the agent that causes this disease. This type of bacteria is a zoonotic bacteria that is embedded in small animals and fleas (Plague, 2017).Yersenia Pestis bacteria is recognized by humans as being able of causing a pathogenic disease (Stenseth, et al., 2008). The plague has led […]

Muslims and Christians during the Black Death

As the Richter Scale measures earthquakes, the so-called ‘Foster Scale’ tries to quantify disasters. Conceived by Canadian geographer Harold D. Foster, it ranks calamities by tallying death tolls, physical damage, and emotional stress. According to Foster’s calculations, World War II (somewhat expectedly) tops the list of human disasters, but is closely followed by the Black Death, a plague epidemic of cataclysmic proportions, which repeatedly struck Europe in the second half of the fourteenth century. The disease wreaked such havoc that […]

Black Death in the Late Roman Empire

IN OCTOBER 1348, GENOESE TRADING SHIPS dropped anchor at the port of Messina, Sicily. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Kaffa, now called Feodosiya. On board were goods from Central Asia, which was then controlled by the Mongol Empire. The sailors were afflicted with strange black swellings (buboes) the size of eggs that oozed blood and pus. These swellings followed by fevers, boils, and black blotches on the skin caused by internal bleeding, After four or […]

The Black Death and Ebola

In the 1300's a mysterious disease struck Europe, this disease was unknown to the people of Europe which left many people terrified. This mysterious disease spread throughout Europe like a wildfire and between 1347-1375 it infected European cities numerous times and virtually wiped out the European population (Fiero). Similar to this tragic ailment, a mysterious disease erupted in West Africa. In 2014 when this mysterious disease began to spread like the mystic disease in the 1300's it left many people […]

The Far-Reaching Effects of the Black Death on Medieval Europe

The Black Death, also referred to as the Bubonic Plague, stands as one of the most catastrophic pandemics in human history, indelibly altering the tapestry of medieval Europe. This calamitous event, peaking between 1347 and 1351, obliterated approximately one-third of Europe's populace, reshaping the continent's social, economic, and cultural paradigms. The ramifications of the Black Death were profound and multifaceted, influencing labor markets, religious practices, and artistic expressions. The immediate aftermath of the Black Death was a demographic catastrophe. Entire […]

Additional Example Essays

• A Research Paper on Alzheimer's Disease
• Tuberculosis research
• Benefits of Swimming
• Alzheimer's Disease Still Alice
• Childhood obesity parents are the blame
• Compare And Contrast In WW1 And WW2
• Death Penalty Should be Abolished
• The Mental Health Stigma
• Logical Fallacies in Letter From Birmingham Jail
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
• What Caused the Fall of the Western Roman Empire
• Who Is to Blame for Romeo and Juliets Death?

Essay About Black Death Have you ever been so sick that it hurt just to move and technology did not provide a cure? The black death did that to people every day of the dark ages and it killed over one-third of the population. It was during the Renaissance Era so there were not many medicines for much of anything back then. Most people were using home remedies to try and cure their loved ones while getting infected with the same terrifying virus. They fought against the disease for their family instead of protecting themselves, and sadly for a lot of them, it cost them their lives. The Black Death killed many people and was a ruthless virus that stopped at nothing to kill everything in its path. The Black Death first came around in the early Renaissance period and wreaked havoc on the people of Europe and all over the eastern side of the world. It was transferred by fleas that came off of mice that came in on the ships that supplied towns. The fleas carried bacteria that resulted in an infection that later turned into the plague. The mice were the breeding ground for the fleas which spread the disease from person to person. ¨The Black Death is widely believed to have been the result of plague, caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis¨ (“Black Death”). (¨Pandemic in Medieval¨). It was believed to have been transferred from China and Asia destroying everything in its past as it rolled across the Earth. Having originated in China and Inner Asia, the Black Death decimated the army of the Kipchak Khan Jani Beg while he was besieging the Genoese Trading port of Kaffa (now Feodosiya) in Crimea (1347). With his forces disintegrating, Jani Beg catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town in an effort to infect his enemies (¨Pandemic in Medieval¨). The Chinese people used the plague to their advantage in battles with a village that had walls. They would catapult the bodies over the walls so that the people inside would be infected. It was a war tactic that worked really well, except for the flaw that the army that threw the bodies over was already infected. The armies or even civilians would also get sick by taking the clothes of the deceased, not knowing it would infect them because of the passengers on the fabric. This was another fatal mistake that helped in spreading the disease. The Black Death was not the only disease killing people during the renaissance period, but it was the most well-known. ¨Most infamous of all diseases of the time was the Black Death, a medieval pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people¨ (“Plague”). (National Geographic). The Bubonic Plague was relentless and the most common caused bubonic boils around the lymph nodes. ¨Bubonic plague, the disease's most common form, refers to telltale buboes—painfully swollen lymph nodes—that appear around the groin, armpit, or neck. Septicemic plague, which spreads in the bloodstream, comes either via fleas or from contact with plague-infected body matter¨ (National Geographic). The Plague does different things to different individuals, mostly because there are three types, but also because everyone's body works differently to protect itself. The third type of Plague is known as Pneumonic Plague and it is the most significant form of the disease. This form is the only form that can be transferred from person to person through air droplets. ¨Yersinia pestis is extraordinarily virulent, even when compared with closely related bacteria. This is because it is it's a mutant variety, handicapped both by not being able to survive outside the animals it infects and by an inability to penetrate and hide in its host's body cells¨ (National Geographic). The Bubonic Plague automatically makes everyone think of the Dark Ages whenever it is mentioned by anyone. ¨The very idea of the bubonic plague is something we associate with the Dark Ages when tens of millions were killed in the wake of the 'Black Death' which consumed Asia, Africa, and Europe in the 14th century¨ (Kugler). When the disease woke up, it did not intend to go back to sleep without causing too much hurt during the century. The disease is still around today but back then technology was not advanced enough to cure it as well as the recent medical technologies can. The reason it was such a deadly disease is that it traveled through the infected person´s lymphatic system. ¨When a human is infected with Y. pestis, the bacteria travel through the lymphatic system and end up in the lymph nodes where it causes painful, boil-like enlargements called buboes¨ (Kugler). These buboes were probably the most painful part of dying from this disease, and they would cause pain every time the person coughed, sneezed, or even moved.¨Without treatment, the bubonic plague will result in death in 60 percent to 90 percent of cases, usually within 10 days¨ (Kugler). In reality, the Bubonic Plague, or the Black Death as it is widely known, was an incredibly ruthless pathogen that spread across the European continent. It caused a lot of pain and suffering that could have been prevented with the current medicines we have today. Today’s technology has discovered that the Black Death could have could've been cured so easily if the right medicines existed back then. The world population at the time was severely threatened and a lot of the human species was decimated. All hope was lost and some people even thought that it was the end of times, but luckily, after years in turmoil, the disease lifted its hold on the human race.

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

The Black Death

28 pages • 56 minutes read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-17

Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Living with Death

The author notes throughout the text the pervasive nature of medieval people’s contact with death even before the Black Death—something that is hard for modern readers in the developed world to imagine. We take for granted the idea that medicine is a scientific endeavor that understands pathways of disease, researches the functioning of the human body, and uses evidence-based approaches to find new means of curing disease and alleviating pain and suffering. Nursing homes, hospice care, and funeral home services remove evidence of death from daily life.

In the Middle Ages, however, death was highly visible. Dying mostly occurred at home, barring an accidental or untimely demise. Medicine was not a science, but more a combination of naturopathy, superstition, and anecdote , relying on incorrect theories of disease transmission and poorly developed comprehension of how the human body works. Poor standards of living kept populations in low states of health, allowing illness to have worse outcomes. All of this meant that even before the plague, “Death had always been a preoccupation of medieval man”; with the onslaught of the Black Death , “it became an obsession” (102). Death was ubiquitous, unpredictable, cruel, and unavoidable, leaving a devastated Europe in its wake.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

• 8,450+ In-Depth Study Guides
• 4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
• Downloadable PDFs

The plague took the lives of a third of Europe’s population. Those left behind had to deal with the trauma of this unimaginable loss of parents, children, friends, and neighbors. “Though, as everywhere, the poor suffered most, there were quite enough deaths among the rich and powerful to show that nobody was immune” (124). As Ziegler demonstrates, the dramatic effect of this generational ruin reached far into the next few centuries, bringing social upheaval, religious transformation, and, eventually, a scientific revolution.

The Influence of the Church

The Catholic Church had an all-pervading influence on medieval society, especially in Europe. This institution was a cornerstone of the economy, one of the seats of political power through its massive land holdings, the arbiter of society’s moral framework through its spiritual teachings, and the leader in almost every scientific and humanitarian endeavor through its role in founding universities and hospitals. When the Black Death swept across Europe, then, it is no surprise that Europe’s population looked to the Church for guidance and succor.

The plague was quickly seen as divine wrath, which meant any response depended on the Church’s ability to purify whatever moral degradation had led to God’s punishment. In response, Church policy generally was to offer special prayers, masses, and other religious ceremonies to pray for mercy and deliverance. However, the reaction of Church’s officials varied by locality. As Ziegler points out, the unfortunate reality became that the “best of the clergy died, the worst survived” (212): Priests willing to endanger themselves for the sake of the faith and their flocks by staying at the bedside of the dying were at much higher risk of infection and death than those who avoided contact with their flock, and shirked their duties.

As a result, the Church survived the Black Death, but it lost some of its monopoly on faith in Europe. Lay-led ministries and itinerant sects and cults found popularity and influence with those who now saw the Catholic Church as a weak and ineffective force. This new interest in a less mediated relationship with the divine would eventually help usher in the Reformation.

Medicine in the Middle Ages

The medical practice of the Middle Ages, however, was an entirely different matter. The efforts of doctors in the face of a plague as deadly as the Black Death were “as futile as their approach was fatalistic” (51). The doctors and medical practitioners of the 14th century were entirely unable to staunch the bleeding of a community once the plague had arrived; the only thing that could be done once the community had been infected was to isolate everyone as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and simply wait for it to take its course, for better and for worse.

Medieval medicine still used the model of the four humors adopted by the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (3rd century BC) and his later colleague Galen (2nd century AD). While these intellectuals influenced the ethics and goals of medicine in many positive ways—modern doctors still take the Hippocratic Oath after graduating from medical school—their theories were guesswork at best. Operating under the idea that health depended on the balance of four humors, medieval doctors could not determine the cause of the plague, or how to avoided, mitigate, or cure it. “Given such handicaps it would have been miraculous if the medical profession had met the Black Death with anything much more useful than awe-struck despair” (51), and indeed, this was often all that physicians could offer.

Plus, gain access to 8,450+ more expert-written Study Guides.

Including features:

Featured Collections

9th-12th Grade Historical Fiction

View Collection

European History

Health & Medicine

Medieval Literature / Middle Ages

Nation & Nationalism

Order & Chaos

Politics & Government

Religion & Spirituality

Required Reading Lists

Safety & Danger

Science & Nature