History
The bubonic plague was one of the worst in the history of mankind. Reason for this was that it wiped out millions of people throughout the world. In Europe alone, it killed more than a third of the entire population. The bubonic plague, commonly referred to as the Black Death originated in China in the early 1330s. The main way that the plague spread from one way to the other was through rodents like rats but its effects were spread even faster since even smaller insects like fleas could carry the disease also (Bentley and Ziegler, 256). Aside from rodents and parasites like fleas, the main way that the disease was carried from one way to the other was from human to human contact. Once a person was infected with the Black Death, he or she could infect others with amazing ease. With the limited medical facilities that were being used in the 14th century, once the first person was infected with the disease in China, the rest of the world’s population quickly followed following movement of people from one place to the other (Bentley and Ziegler, 276).
The origin of the name the bubonic plague is from its name. Two of the major symptoms that a person signifies once infected is running a high fever and painful swelling of the lymph nodes called bubons, hence the name. Another symptom of the disease is that when a person is infected, they get red sores on the skin that eventually turn black when they are close to death and after death, hence the other name, the black death.
The reason that the disease spread so fast was that China was one of the busiest commercial hubs in the world. Since it was trading with countries in west Asia and Europe, the disease spread to these countries as fast as the trading ships did. The exact time that the disease got to Europe was 1347. This was by merchant ships that came from China through the Black Sea. The merchant ships docked in Sicily, Italy and those that were within were already dying from the Black Death (Bentley and Ziegler, 292). Once the disease got to the shores of Europe there was no stopping it.
Spreading of the Plague
Thousands of people were dying on a daily basis in Europe. There were two main reasons that the disease spread so fast in Europe; the first reason was that there was no medical know how of how to handle the disease. The other reason was that during the 1300s, Europe was becoming a busy economic hub. This meant that the human interaction was at a maximum, and so was the spread of the Black Death. Since the merchant ships came with the disease to Europe (Italy), the abundance of rats and rat-fleas that were in the port carried it from there to the homes. From the homes, the infected people spread it to those that did not have it leading to thousands of infections and approximately the same number of deaths per day in Europe
Another reason that the disease spread so fast was the result of how they responded to the first cases of the disease. Since no one had a clue about anything concerning the disease, they blamed anything that made sense to them. Some of their responses were detrimental to the efforts being made. While some of them barred the doors to prevent spreading of the disease, the others decided to riot. Rioting increased the amount of human to human contact and also caused other carriers like rats spread further into the mainland. This caused the disease to spread further than it might have.
Effects of the Plague
The effects of the plague were devastating, over 25 million people died in Europe and the Northern African region. Almost a third of European adults died in the 1300s due to the black plague (Bentley and Ziegler, 300). The first effect was alienation of minority groups like the Jews. In Europe, the Jews were the group that was most unlike the rest, their cultures and tradition gave them the platform to do things differently from other people in Europe, as a result, a majority of the people blamed them for the disease that they did not understand.
Another consequence of the disease was a sharp economic downturn. Farm produce was a major economic product in Europe and Africa. After the Black Death had hit Europe, and the northern part of Africa, farmers abandoned their farms in fear of the Black Death. The lack of food for trading made the little food in the markets shoot up in price (Bentley and Ziegler, 306). Since the price of the food was so high, and there was no money in the economy, people could not buy food. This led to a massive number of deaths not due to the plague but due to starvation.
Finally, there was a chaos in the towns in Europe that were hit by the Black Plague. The main reason behind this was the fact that due to the massive amounts of death that had occurred, a number of public officials that maintained law and order died. There was, therefore, no structural leadership in the towns which resulted in an everybody-for-himself state of mind. This inadvertently led to chaos and civil unrest in the towns.
Effect of Black Death on the Demography
The plague had an effect on every faucet of life. One area that was worst affected was the demographic of Europe and Africa. The duration of the disease saw the death of almost as third of the people. The smaller cities were desiccated by death, and some of the smaller communities moved to join bigger ones so as to escape the effects of the disease and get the little help the doctors could offer. The cities were the ones that were hit the hardest. Towns such as London had thousands die within the few years that The Black Death was at its climax (Bentley and Ziegler, 310). Since the disease was spread most rapidly by the infected people, smaller countries in Europe such as Lithuania were isolated since the disease spread so slowly to have as much impact like it had in the bigger towns. Strangely enough, there are some countries or parts of countries that did not get infected. For example, part of Hungary in what is today known as Belgium did not get hit by the scourge. Nobody knows the reason for this but some people speculate that the people in this area were resistant to the disease. This theory was later dissuaded by the fact that these areas were later affected by the scourge in one of the numerous resurgences of the disease after the first wave.
The areas that were hit first were reduced by half in. Areas such as Florence in Italy reduced from over 120, 000 people to just under 50, 000 in a matter of four years. Even after the plague was over the demography of the affected countries was affected negatively. For example, the birth rates in Europe and affected African countries like Egypt reduced drastically. Years after the disease had come and gone the number of people in Europe alone was almost half of what it was before the Black Death. It took Europe several generations to recover its former glory, population wise.
Social and Economic Changes
The first change that occurred in economically in both Europe and northern Africa in countries like Egypt was the fact that with so much death, there was the shortage of labor. About a third of the population was wiped out in Europe alone. This meant that people from all walks of life had been affected. This means that the economic picture had to shift (Bentley and Ziegler, 269). There was a shortage of laborers that meant that fewer commodities were in supply.
For example in the food markets, the process of food sky rocketed. The farmers in Europe fled and abandoned their farms in a bid to escape the disease and the death that quickly followed. This translated to less food in the market for the demand that was ever growing. The price of food made those that had the produce rich and those that did not even poorer. Some even starved from lack of food instead of the disease.
One of the social changes that accompanied the economic dynamism was that the social stratification became less strict. At the height of the Black Death when so many people had died and others were facing the same fate from the disease or starvation, people opted for labor services instead of food (Bentley and Ziegler, 276). This meant that even those that had money but no farming land or food to trade had to work with the poorest. This effectively dissolved the social class barriers.
Simple supply and demand laws applied in the parts of the world that the plague had struck. The whole of Europe was now under attack, the death of so many laborers meant that the few that were left were very expensive since those that had farms scrambled for them. The abandoning of the farm lands made the value of the land decrease drastically. This economic change caused warranted a social one. The more the wealthy needed the poor, the more the poor had bargaining power. In some ironical way, the Black Death translated into more interaction between social classes.
During the four years that the Black Death devoured Europe and Africa, people turned to the church for divine intervention. Since the church could not offer any, and their prayers did not seem to yield any fruit, the faith of the people diminished considerably. This eventually led to the break of the Catholic Church in Europe.
The scourge deepened the economic strain that both the European and northern African countries were in. This is because in the 1300s, the European countries were invested heavily in rehabilitating their land from the swamps; the European frontiers were reaching their limits fast. With the financial challenges that the Black Death involved, most of the European countries were on the brink of depression after the four years the bubonic plague wrecked the world.
Another economic effect of the bubonic plague was in the fact that it seemed to add to the financial difficulties that the countries were in trying to reclaim the holy land. The holy land was lost the century before and trying to reclaim it was proving to be an expensive venture. The spreading took further financial toll on the country.
Another social problem that occurred was alienation of a minority group (Bentley and Ziegler, 243). It is clear that the Jews were a race that did things differently from the rest of the people. The result of this was that the other racial groups blamed the Jews for the very existence of the bubonic plague. Consequently, the Jews were shunned for this and were considered social outcasts.
Political and Psychological Effects of Black Death
There were not long lasting political effects of the Black Death. However, during the height of the scourge, the governments faced the biggest challenge. The disease did not discriminate; everyone including the politicians was dying, almost dying, fled or barricaded in their housed. This ensured that there was no solid political structure. The lords that governed the lands also fled opening up national boundaries (Bentley and Ziegler, 293). This marked the end of feudalism. During the plague, when the rulers of the lands ran away or died, it gave the most powerful kings a platform on which they could expand their boundaries. This king made powerful governments that led Europe after the plague during the renaissance.
Psychologically, the disease affected work the most. People were afraid of dying and this reflected the work that they did. Renaissance art after the scourge of the Black Death portrays the darkness that the world was put into.
Reactions to the Black Death by Religious Groups
Christian and Muslims were the main religious groups in Europe and North Africa respectively. The death toll on both of these areas was about 31 percent. One of the reasons it was so scary was that nobody had an explanation about what was going on. The people then turned to religion for an explanation of what was happening from a higher power (Bentley and Ziegler, 332).
In Europe, the people reacted in a chaotic way. They saw the Black Death as the end of the world and as such did whatever they wanted since they had lost all sense of morality after lacking answers from above. The reaction of the Muslims was the direct opposite of the Christians’. The Muslims in Egypt and the affected areas of the Middle East saw the plague was a blessing from God. Some said that praying for the disease to end was abhorrent (Bentley and Ziegler, 332).
The similarities between the two groups were that they both believed in the same cause of the disease and that they believed that the cure of the plague was a derivative of the Armenian clay. The differences were in their reactions. While the Christians separated with the spread of the disease to avoid infection, the Muslims drew together in an attempt to strengthen their faith (Bentley and Ziegler, 332)
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The two groups ascribed a different meaning to God after the plague. The Christians saw the Black Death as God’s way of bringing about the apocalypse. On the contrary, the Muslims saw this as God’s gift to man (Bentley and Ziegler, 333)
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Works Cited
J. Bentley and H. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past.
Vol. 1, 5.th ed. New York. McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print.
