Aim: How much did the Black Death change Medieval Europe?

Do Now: Who is brave enough to play ring around the Rosy?

Ring around the rosyA pocketful of posies

"Ashes, Ashes"We all fall down!

NY State Standards 2, 3RS 7, 8, WS 2

I What was the Black Death?A) The Black Death was a painful, deadly plague in the middle ages. It began in East Asia and spread across Western Europe, killing 1/3 of the population.B) The Black Death of medieval Europe was NOT the first major plague! The first well-documented pandemic was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 541 CE.

II Causes of the Black DeathA) The Bubonic Plague “Black Death” was spread by fleas on rats. B) It was first reported in Asia in the 13th century. In 1331, an outbreak erupted in the Yuan Empire; it may have hastened the end of Mongol rule over China. It then traveled across the Silk Road and by ships to Africa and Europe.

“[The Mongols] ordered corpses to be placed in catapults and lobbed

into the city in hopes that the intolerable stench would kill

everyone inside.“ – Gabrielle de Mussis, 14th century

Due to a reduction in temperature (known as the Little Ice Age 14-15th centuries), more people were staying indoors. Combined with poor hygiene and streets full of garbage, the Black Death spread rapidly in Europe.

III Symptoms of the Black DeathA) There were two main forms of the disease.

1. Blood infection: Spread by physical contact.2. Pneumonic: spread by coughing, sneezing,

breathing.B) Symptoms: Black swellings size of an egg that oozed blood and pus. Pain. Foul smell.C) Death usually occurred 1-3 days after catching the disease.

IV Treating the Black DeathA) Most doctors in Western Europe during the Middle Ages had very little training, and were unaware of hygiene or germs. The most common “treatment” was to bleed you by cutting your skin or by applying leeches.

Since Ancient Greece, doctors believes that we all have 4 humours (liquids) in

our bodies; yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. Illness occurs due

to an imbalance, which is why you would be bled to restore balance to your body. Why might this not be a

good idea?

Treating the Black Death Continued…B) Doctors wore masks filled with dried flowers & herbs to protect themselves.C) Priests and monks offered prayers to God.

“We, the Members of the College of Physicians of Paris… [suggest] the diet should be simple. … Cold, moist, watery food is in general prejudicial. Going out at night, and even until three o’clock in the morning, is dangerous, on account of the dew. Rainwater must not be employed in cooking, and everyone should guard against exposure to wet weather … injurious are fasting and … anxiety of mind, anger, and immoderate drinking. … Bathing is injurious. Men must preserve chastity as they value their lives…” George Deaux, The Black Death: 1347 (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1969), 52-3.

Treating the Black Death Continued…D) Flagellants would travel from town to town, whipping themselves. They believed the Black Death was due to people’s sins. If they punished themselves, God would end the plague.

"In… 1349, over six hundred men came to London from Flanders... Sometimes at St Paul's and sometimes at other points in the city they made two daily public appearances wearing cloths from the thighs to the ankles, but otherwise stripped bare. Each wore a cap marked with a red cross in front and behind.Each had in his right hand a scourge with three tails. Each tail had a knot and through the middle of it there were sometimes sharp nails fixed. They marched naked in a file one behind the other and whipped themselves with these scourges on their naked and bleeding bodies...” Sir Robert of Avesbury

IV Disposal of the BodiesA) Many towns had to dig mass graves due to the vast amount of bodies. *Exposure to the bodies often led to more people getting the Black DeathB) Due to increasing numbers of the dead, the Church began to burn the bodies.

Mass Grave of Black Death Victims, Czech Republic

Boccaccio's The DecameronGiovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron takes place in 1348 Florence, when theBlack Death struck the city. It is a book of stories in which seven young women and three young men of Florence leave the city for the hills.

“…such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs… The plight of the lower class and, perhaps, a large part of the middle class, was … pathetic: most of them stayed in their homes or neighborhoods either because of their poverty or their hopes for remaining safe, and every day they fell sick by the thousands; and not having servants or attendants of any kind, they almost always died. Many ended their lives in the public streets, during the day or at night, while many others who died in their homes were discovered dead by their neighbors only by the smell of the decomposing bodies. The city was full of corpses…”

V Consequences of the Black DeathA) Jews were accused of poisoning wells and tortured until they confessed. 16,000 Jews were massacred in the town of Strasbourg alone. [Anti-Semitism was often due to economic reasons; as Christians believed that money lending was sinful, Jews had been pushed into the banking business.] “…they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their

cemetery. There were about two thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared. [Some say that about a thousand accepted baptism.] Many small children were taken out of the fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and mothers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled, and the Jews had to surrender all pledges and notes that they had taken for debts. The council, however, took the cash that the Jews possessed and divided it among the working-men proportionately…” Qtd. in Jacob R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-179 (New York: Atheneum,1981), 45-6.

Consequences of the Black Death Continued…

B) 1/3 of Europe died. C) As of 1200, China had a total population of more than 120 million, but a 1393 census found only 65 million Chinese surviving. Some of that missing population was killed by famine and upheaval in the transition from Yuan to Ming rule, but many millions died of bubonic plague.D) Approximately 75 million people died worldwide.E) Due to a labor shortage, many lords switched from farming crops to raising sheep (requires less human labor). As a result, many serfs were able to leave the manor.

VI The Black Death Still Exists TodayThe Black Death still exists in various parts of the world. In 2003, more than 2,100 human cases and 180 deaths were recorded, nearly all of them in Africa. The last reported serious outbreak was in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa, when at least 50 people died. The United States, China, India, Vietnam, and Mongolia are among the other countries that have confirmed human plague cases in recent years. Most people survive if they're given the correct antibiotics in time. Good sanitation and pest control help prevent plague outbreaks since they need crowded, dirty, rat-infested conditions to really get going. There are fears that plague bacteria possibly could be used for a bioterror attack if released in aerosol form. – natgeo.com

Paul Gaylord, Oregon, recovering from the Black Death, 2012

Do NOT hug this prairie dog!

Focus Questions1. What was the cause of the black death?2. How was the black death treated? Were the treatments logical?3. What were the consequences of the black death? Were any of

the consequences positive?4. Write a reaction to the excerpt from Boccaccio's The

Decameron.

Key Vocabulary 4 Humours Black Death Bubonic Plague Flagellants Plague of Justinian

Pneumonic