1. The Black Death

2. Introduction – The Plague
In the mid 1300’s a devastating disease entered into Europe. It killed approximately 50% of the population. This plague came to be known as “The Great Mortality”, “The Great Plague”, or the “Black Death”. According to some estimates it killed nearly 75 million people between the years

3. The Set-Up: Europe Before the Plague
In the early 1300’s Europe went through what historians call the “little Ice Age”. It was a period of very cold weather that caused crops to fail and led to famine, starvation and malnutrition for many peasants.
One big consequence of malnutrition is susceptibility to disease.

4. The Beginning
Most historians believe that the plague started in central Asia where fleas fed on small rodents that carried the disease.
The rodents and fleas came into contact with traders along east-west routes of the Silk Road.

5. The Culprits: y-pestis, fleas, rats

6. How The Plague Spreads to Humans
Human is infected!

7. How it spread
As the traders made their way west, they brought the plague with them. Eventually a ship from Genoa arrived in Sicily in 1347 and the crew were all dead or dying from the disease – this started the spread through Europe.

8. 1348
By 1348 the plague was sweeping through European towns and killing almost everyone in its path.
Bodies were piled up in the streets like stacks of wood.

9. Symptoms
The plague would enter the towns, and then cause swelling in either the armpit or groin. These egg-sized or apple-sized bumps were the first sign that you would probably be dead within a week.

11. Was it Just Bubonic Plague?
Ebola Virus?
Anthrax Bacteria?
While most historians believe bubonic plague was the main culprit for the Black Death, others think it might have been a combination of other diseases as well. Some have even suggested it was a strain of Ebola…

12. Attempts to stop the plague.
Plague Doctors
Leeching…
by barbers?

13. Death
Eventually, after fever, chills, vomiting and bleeding internally for a week, you would die.
It is likely that the disease would be caught by any person who stayed by you to take care of you.

14. Response to the plague
Many people fled towns trying to avoid the plague, including nobles, many priests and church officials. However, many brave souls stayed to care for the sick as well.

15. Examples of Courage
The sisters of the Hotel Dieu, “not fearing to die, nursed the sick in all sweetness and humility, with no thought of honor.”
– Jean De Venette
The nuns at a place called the Hotel Dieu in France stayed to help those who were dying. Almost everyone of these nuns died from the plague themselves.

16. What is their reward?

17. John Clyn, an Irish friar, wrote down the events of the plague in his town so that someone would know what happened if everyone died. He died while writing in his journal.

18. Final Journal entry:
“So that notable deeds should not perish with time, and be lost from the memory of future generations…I, waiting among the dead for death to come, have committed to writing what I have truly heard and examined; and so that the writing does not perish with the writer, or the work fail with the workman, I leave parchment for continuing the work, in case anyone should still be alive in the future and any son of Adam can escape this pestilence and continue the work thus begun.”
– John Clyn

19. Agnolo di Tura was an Italian chronicler in the city of Siena
Agnolo di Tura was an Italian chronicler in the city of Siena. He was a husband and father. He wrote about the way the dead were left barely buried and the way wild dogs would drag the bodies out of their shallow graves. He also wrote about his own experiences.
“It is not possible to describe this horrible thing with human speech…father abandoned child, wife her husband, and one brother the other…and I Agnolo di Tura, called the fat, buried my wife and 5 children with my own hands.”
- Agnolo di Tura 1348

20. Effects of the plague
Some people responded by becoming more devoted to God – they felt the world was being punished for its sins, so to avoid the plague they should be more holy.
Some people responded by becoming less interested in God and religion. They saw that the holy were just as likely to die as the wicked – so they decided to have as much fun as they could for as long as they could.
More religious
“Live in the now”

21. Effects continued
Many groups were blamed for the plague – including the Jews, lepers, and “godless”, which leads to more mistreatment of these groups.

22. Danza Macabra

23. The Dance of Death…
Death is the great equalizer – whether you are rich or poor, man or woman, young or old, eventually death asks everyone to dance. This idea starts showing up in paintings and books of the period.

24. What were the political, economic, and social effects of the Black Death??