1. 2/3 Aim: How did the Plague affect Western Europe?

2. What was the Black Death?
Deadly plague which swept
across Europe in 1347:
Caused by bubonic plague
Killed 25 million people:
between 1/3 and ½
of the population

5. Why couldn’t people stop the black death?
Didn’t know the cause; blamed the stars, God’s anger,
the Jews
Living in cities cause its rapid spread – unsanitary

6. When doctors would treat people with the plague, many wore clothes that they mistakenly believed would protect them from the disease. If you were a patient, what would you think if you saw a doctor come through your door dressed in the clothes above?

7. Flagellants
Some believed that the repentance for sins would end the plague. One group, the Flagellants, whipped themselves publicly with iron spikes to earn God’s forgiveness. Many Flagellants and their followers massacred Jews because they believed Jews had poisoned wells in order to spread the disease. Obviously, none of these actions succeeded in stemming the tide of death.

8. How did the black death spread throughout Europe?
Carried by fleas on
Rats which traveled
along trade routes
from China

9. How did the black death spread throughout Europe?
Mongolians may have
used
infected bodies as a
Form of “germ warfare”
by catapulting them
Into Eastern European
cities.

10. How did the Black Death change life in Europe?
Population decline resulted in a labor shortage which allowed serfs to demand higher wages (low supply and high demand)
The economic system of manorialism was weakened as serfs moved to the cities in search of paid wages (a money based economy develops). Some became landowners.
Surpluses of food resulted in expansion of diet.
New technology to perform tasks once done by people such as the printing press.
Renewed interest in science and medicine.

11. How did the Black Death change life in Europe?
“Ring around the rosy Rosary beads give you God's help Pocket full of posies Used to stop the odor of rotting bodies which was at one point thought to cause the plague, it was also used widely by doctors to protect them from the infected plague patients.
Ashes, ashes The church burned the dead when burying them became too laborious.
We all fall down” DEAD
 Not only were the children affected physically, but also mentally. Exposure to abundant death and suffering caused young children to be exposed to the harsh realities of life much too soon. The death of family members left the children facing sorrow and pain at an early age. Parents even abandoned their children, leaving them to the streets instead of risking the babies giving them the dreaded "pestilence". Children were especially unlucky if they were female. Baby girls would be left to die because parents would favor male children that could carry on the family name.
How did the Black Death change life in Europe?
The Effect on Children

12. Close: Imagine the Black Death had
never hit Western Europe In 1347.
How would the history of Western
Europe be different?