1. The Black Death

2. Origin of the plague

3. 1347: Plague Reaches Europe!

4. The Culprits

5. The Disease Cycle Human is infected!
Flea drinks rat blood that carries the bacteria.
Bacteria
multiply in
flea’s gut.
Human is infected!
Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into human wound.
Flea’s gut clogged with bacteria.

6. The Famine of
By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the land they could cultivate.
A population crisis developed.
Climate changes in Europe produced three years of crop failures between because of excessive rain.
As many as 15% of the peasants in some English villages died.
One consequence of starvation & poverty was susceptibility to disease.

7. Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.
The Symptoms 1
Bulbous
Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.

8. Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.
The Symptoms 2
Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.

9. Medieval Art & the Plague

10. Medieval Art & the Plague

11. Medieval Art & the Plague An obsession with death.

12. Boccaccio in The Decameron
The victims ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors.

13. Death Triumphant : A Major Artistic Theme

14. Attempts to Stop the Plague
“Leeching”
A Doctor’s Robe

15. Lancing a bubo

16. Attempts to Stop the Plague
Flagellanti: Self-inflicted penance for their sins!

17. Attempts to Stop the Plague
Pogroms against the Jews
“Golden Circle” obligatory badge
“Jew” hat

18. The Mortality Rate
30% - 35%
25,000,000 dead !!!

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

20. The consequences of this violent catastrophe were many:
a cessation of wars
a sudden slump in trade
the drastic reduction of the amount of land under cultivation
the ruin of many landowners
the shortage of labour compelled the substitution of wages or money rents in place of labour services in an effort to keep their tenants.
there was also a general rise in wages
these changes brought a new social fluidity

21. A rough estimate is that 25 million people died from plague during the Black Death. The population of western Europe did not reach again its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th century.