Black death
symptoms
Blue/black blotches
foul/stinking breath
Buboes: large swelling-pop produce rancid smelling pus
spit blood
seizures
vomit
Cause
Medieval beliefs
Jews in Christian populations poisoned their wells—accusation led to Jewish mass killing in Germany &France
Punishment sent down by God who was angered by greed&sin on earth
Poisonous air (miasma)
actual causes
Spread by fleas living on black rats
which lived on merchant ships and ran to shore through rigging ropes from the ship to harbour)
Bacteria
Medieval beliefs on cure
Drinking vinegar
Taking medicine (made out of anything – crushed jewels to insects)
Bleeding(letting blood out)
Doctors: place frogs/severed pigeon head on buboes(to absorb poison)
Sweating the plague out(sat between 2 fires/ wrapped themselves in fur)
Bursting buboes (very skilled at it with small lance – allow pus to seep out)
Avoid moist food
consequences
social impact
dead
hard to find enough peasants to work cuz too many ded
Peasants knew their services in high demand so they ask for higher wages
Yeomen:(peasant with >100 acres of land)new class of land owners--Enterprising peasant with extra money bought land& empty houses from plague victims at rock bottom prices.
They threatened the feudal hierarchy and status of traditional landlords
Survivors turned against Catholic Church cuz powerless to explain/prevent black death
it killed 1/3 – ½ of England’s population—estimate kill around 2 mil people
Country side littered with corpses
Communities became ghost towns almost overnight
Large towns and cities really bad –corpses thrown into mass graves(small ditch thin layer of earth covering)
3 archbishops of Canterbury quickly died
Extras
Varients
Flagellants
Think: if they punish themselves God dont need to punish them
but exposed wounds and travel country= contribute to spread of plague
religious sect who travelled England in processions whipping themselves for theirs sin
Condemned by pope clement VI in 1349
Pneumonic plague
Bubonic plague
attack lungs
Spread through breath
fever
choke to death with bloody froth bubbling at mouth
Main variant
Introduction
Over by 1351
Medieval name: pestilence, great mortality
Hit trading/port towns first(Europe) In 1347– first death June 1348 –Melcombe Regis in Dorset
Symptom below
