The Black Death

TimeLine
 Timeline of the black death
Autumn of 1346 CE: The army of Jeni Beg brought the disease to Kaffa
May 1347 CE: Ships from Kaffa brought the disease to constantinople
October 1347 CE: The disease reached the port of Messina, Sicilia (Italy)
March 1348 CE: The disease reached the French port of Marseilles
April 1348 CE: The disease reached the Spanish port of Coruna
April 1348 CE: Persecution of the Jews began (Pogrom)
Late April 1348 CE: The disease reached Normandy in northern France
June 1348 CE: The disease reached Weymouth and Bristol in England
August 1348 CE: The disease reaches London
Autumn of 1348 CE: The disease reached Oslo, Norway
1349 CE: The group of people called “Flagellants” travelled around Europe
May 1349 CE: The disease reaches Scotland, Wales and Ireland
1349 CE: Scandinavia was affected
1350 CE: Uncharted Europe is affected
Origin
 Where did it begin

▣ The plague originated in China

▣ It spread to Kaffa by the army of Jani Beg
▣ In 1347 CE, disease reached Constantinople, which is
when the disease spread throughout Europe.
 Why did it hit Europe so badly?

❏ Famine
❏ Drain resources
❏ etc.
 Causes

▣ No one knew of the true cause of the black death at

the time. This lead to many terrible ideas.
▣ The disease was spread through fleas from rats.
Cycle of the Plague
Effects
Economy
 Economy

Europe at the time was experiencing a rapid population

growth. When the plague hit, the population decreased
drastically. This created labour shortage.
Because of this, workers demanding higher pay.
Less population...which means more resources….prices
go down
 Economy

The plague at first levels out the land to labor level and
kind of decrease the economic inequalities. The labors
also got a pay rise because of the lack of workers = The
workers had to do more work.
 Economy

And then there was a great shortage of workers, and when

parliament passed laws to stop wages rising, poor people
became very angry, some say that this was a factor causing the
Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
 Peasant revolt

Three hundred years after the Norman Conquest,peasants

were still villeins who belonged to their lords with few if any
freedoms for themselves.There was a shortage of workers and
wages went up because of the black death. Parliament passed
the Statute of Labourers (1351), which set a maximum wage.
People had high expectations for their wages, but they were
controlled by the lord so they revolt.
Religion
 Religion

- People stop believing in Religion like christianity

because they cannot stop the plague or explain what
is going on with the world when the plague spread so
they then got back to the old ideas such as greek this
also explain why later on the pope started to lose his
influence on the people and rulers
- Beginning of the nation-state
 Effects on the jew

- The jew were dealing with an ongoing massacre by

the christian before the plague spread. The christian
the use the plague as an excuse to massacre the jew
because the jew are rarely infect by plague. This
cause the jew to later become a scapegoat and got
blame on for almost everything bad that happen.
Social Structure
 Social Structure
The black death effects the social structure greatly, as it
destroyed the feudal system. The great decrease in population
create a higher demand for labour. This in turn increases the pay
of tenants. These tenants no longer have to rely on their lords. so
now everybody can move up the social structure and now
everybody can now can own land (now that the knight and the
lord is dead like everybody else) and as they are still doing their
job while they were in the risk of dying they have the justification
of getting higher pay so it destroyed the entire purpose of the
feudal system of social immobility and a select few people
owning land..sakdina
 Feudal system

During the middle ages in many parts of europe uses the

feudal system as it form of government the feudal system
is at its heart a system about loyalty and land owning the
king is at the top of it and then he shares parts of his
land to the lords in exchange of their resources and
loyalty which in return the lords give parts of their land
to the knight in exchange for resources and loyalty which
then again fragment their land to the peasant to work on
in exchange for parts of the resource they produce and
money
 Social structure before the black death

Land and
power Land and Land to live and
power work on and
protection
kings lord knight peasant

resources resources Resources

and loyalty and loyalty service loyalty
 Social structure after the black death happen

There is also less

Dependence on the
Middle higher class and any
Lower body can now own
Upper class
class land which led to
class
the feudal system
collapse

Kings Peasant
Merchants
Noble Labourer
Priest
Church official Servents
Bankers
Wealth families Slaves
Craftsmen
The
shopkeepers
unemploy
Government
 Government

The government did not receive a lot of impact from the

plague. But they have the stop by plague so they come up
with an idea of quarantine. They also have to deal with
economy and social structure problem.
 Quarantine

Quarantine was originally called “trentino” first use in

Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa(present
Dubrovnik, Croatia). During that period, a law was
established in order to prevent the spread of the plague.
The law was said to isolate trade ship for 30-40 days and
if the person get near the ship then they will get isolated
for 30-40 days as well.
Capitalism
 Capitalism

Black death increase the need for workers. They then

request the worker to work more with the same salary.
With the worker in demands, they then negotiate for
higher salary and insurance from the government but
they also need to pay taxes like other worker. The system
can be seen in a part of modern day job contact.
CITIES
 Caffa

- A port-city set in Crimea

- A city which started the outbreak of Black Death
into Europe
- During 1346 the bubonic plague infected the golden
horde army of Jani peg while they were attacking
Caffa.
 Constantinople

- Constantinople is a port-city
- Infected ships from Caffa fled to
Constantinople causing Inhabitants there
to suffers from the plague by early July.
1347 CE
- connect Europe and Asia together due to
economical route.
- Thousands of people died in the disaster
- Those who were alive fled in different
direction taking the plague with them
 Genoa

- Plague hit Genoa in 1348

- One of the ships from Caffa had reached
Genoa and had been refused entry.
- In a few month the disease spread
throughout Italy and half of France and
Spain.
 London

- Plague hit London in November 1st 1348 CE

- the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe in Dorset
- Attempts to relieve the sanitation problem were not helped
- Britain’s population had reduced by between 30% and 40%. (30,000 out of 70,000)
- London was hit by a combined attack of pneumonic and bubonic plague.
- by December 1349 conditions starts to get better.
- It had taken around 500 days for the disease to spread throughout the entire

country.
Trivia
 Pogrom

- The jew were blamed for the black death because the
plague barely have an affected on them. The
massacre of jew by the christian is then accepted
because of the ongoing plague. The jew was forced to
wear a badge to identify themself. Later ,during the
world war II hitler adopt this method by forced the
jew to put a yellow star badge.
- The first massacres related to the plague occurs in
April 1348 in Toulon, France, forty Jews were
murdered in their homes.
 art
The art during this time is mostly non existence (mostly
because people are dying) but the existing art is mostly
dark and depressing common subject included death,
salvation,heaven,hell,life,skeleton. Tombstone during
this period mostly feature a happy or peaceful face or a
angry face these types of art is called a macabre
Danse macabre is a type of art that mostly focus on
a group of people from different social class dancing with
a skeleton to signify that no matter how good you do in
life death awaits all
 End

The plague end due to cold weather in the winter. The

plague also cannot spread efficiently due to low
population. Quarantine also help clean the city which
contribute to get rid of the plague. People also adopt the
Jew habits of caring about hygiene and greek medicine.