1. Black Death

2. Aim: How did the Black Death impact Medieval Europe?

3. Black Death Simulation
Everyone stand up!
Flip over your post-it note!
If it is blank, on let out a sigh of relief because…
You survived the Black Death!
If you have an “X” on the back of your post-it, take a seat…
You have been killed by the Black Death!
Take a moment to look at how many people have died as a result of the Black Death

4. Discuss! How did you feel during the activity?
What problems would arise if 1/3 of our city’s populations died suddenly?
Think political, social, economic, and cultural

6. What is the Black Death anyways?
the name given to the strain of the plague that was spread specifically in the Late Middle Ages

8. Bubonic: Fatigue, appearance of buboes and blisters, vomiting, high fever, headaches, muscle spasms, black colored skin (Spread by fleas)
Pneumonic: caused severe breathing problems, victims would cough up blood; people died more quickly (Spread by coughing)
Septicaemic: similar symptoms as other strains, but way more fatal; often a person dies before any of these symptoms actually appear
Approximately what fraction of Europe’s population died?

9. Mankind the Story of All of Us
14:30-21:50
How did the Black Death spread to Europe?
How did the Black Death impact warfare?

10. Causes
What are some of the symptoms of plague?

13. Activity!
Divide up the documents in your groups and read your document independently.
Share out your document and then answer the question collectively in your groups.
What conclusions can we make about how Medieval Europe understood the spread and treatment of the Black Death?

14. Medieval Explanations
Medical
Physicians and medical faculties were at a loss- they had no idea how this disease was spreading, what caused it, or how to prevent it
Blamed the “heavens” and the alignment of three planets in 1345
“Bad air” and contamination of water were also suggested
Religious
God’s punishment for the sins of humanity
Demons and the Devil

15. How did the Black Death affect Medieval Europe?

16. Homework Discussion!
According to Boccacio’s Decameron, how did the Black Death affect the social and cultural values of Medieval Europe?

17. Activity!
Divide up the documents in your groups and read your document independently.
Share out your document and then answer the question collectively in your groups.
How did the Black Death affect the economy and social structure of Medieval Europe? Use at least three pieces of specific evidence from the document to support your answer.

19. Hypothesize and discuss!
How might the Black Death affect Christianity?
Consider how the massive loss of life affect the authority and credibility of the Church and the daily religious beliefs of everyday people?

20. The burial of the victims of the plague in Tournai. Detail of a miniature from “The Chronicles of Gilles Li Muisis” ( ), abbot of the monastery of St. Martin of the Righteous. Bibliothèque royale de Belgique

21. Flagellants

22. How did the Black Death impact the relationship between Christians and Jews in Medieval Europe?
The Cremation of Strasbourg Jewry St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1349, Holy Roman Empire In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells-that is what they were accused of-and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany…they tortured a number of Jews in [Switzerland] who then admitted that they had put poison into many wells…Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews.

23. Summary Question