Black Death

Monica Bryan

Western Civilization I

Mrs. O’Neal

Essay 11

What impact did the Black Death have on the society of Europe?

The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century was the most devastating natural disaster in European history, ravaging Europe’s population and causing economic, social, political, and cultural upheaval. In October 1347, the plague had reached Europe when Genoese merchants brought it from Caffa to the island of Sicily off the coast of Italy. The plague spread very quickly. Mortality figures for the Black Death were incredibly high. It has been estimated that the European population declined by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351 and the plague did not end in 1351. The population collapse of the fourteenth century had drastic economic and social consequences.

Well into the thirteenth century, Europe had experienced good harvests and an expanding population. However, by the end of the century a period of disastrous changes had begun. When the bubonic plague came to Europe, people were horrified by an evil force they could not understand and by the subsequent breakdown of all normal human relations. People left their family and friends, parents abandoned their children trying to escape this deadly disease. Knowing they could be dead in a matter of days, people began to live for the moment. The attempt to explain the Black Death and mitigate its harshness led to extreme sorts of behavior. People were saying the plague had either been sent by God as punishment for humans’ sins or been caused by the devil. Some resorted to extreme asceticism to cleanse themselves of sin and gain God’s forgiveness. Jews were accused of causing the plague by poisoning town wells thus causing a massacre against the Jews. The Black Death affected the way people perceived life so for some survivors they came to treat life as something cheap and transient. Violence and violet death became more prominent after the plague than before.

Economic dislocation...