Black Death Essay

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, claiming the lives of an estimated 75 to 200 million people during its peak in Europe from 1347 to 1351. While it is not certain how this deadly disease spread so quickly across Europe, historians have suggested that fleas and rats carried by ships returning from Asia may have been responsible for the rapid transmission. 

This essay will discuss some of the impacts that The Black Death had on European society, including a decrease in population numbers, changes to religious attitudes, and new developments in medicine and public health practices. It will also explore how these effects reverberated through later generations and shaped today’s world.

Let’s begin by considering an essay about the black death at hand.

As a result of the Black Death and the development of medicine that followed, the authority of the churches decreased. It is fascinating to see the public opinion shift and to analyze the effects of the pandemic. This pandemic had profound repercussions on the lives of people, and it initiated numerous modifications. 

The purpose of this paper is to examine both the good and the bad consequences of the Black Death, as well as the medical developments it led to. The purpose of this essay is to explore some of the changes brought about by the Black Death in order to comprehend that it brought death as well as change.

European society was affected both positively and negatively by the Black Death. On the one hand, standards of living were improved, and technology and medicine advanced. To assess whether the changes brought about by the plague were mainly short- or long-term, I will examine the lasting impacts, such as better living conditions, improved trading, and increased educational opportunities, all of which had negative consequences in the long term.

However, it is also believed to have brought about positive developments for the future of Europe. Studying the effects of the Black Death will be the focus of my research. To gain a better understanding of the situation, I plan to read and analyze both primary and secondary sources, such as books, a 1314 chronicle, and accounts from different authors. I will examine the separation of religion and state, the enhanced medical technologies which arose from a lack of trust in churches, and whether the Black Death was ultimately responsible.

The commencement of the devastating Black death is marked as a major historical event.

A fleet of ships from the Black Sea is believed to have brought the Black Death to Europe in 1348 from Messina harbor on Sicily’s coast. It soon became known as the Bubonic Plague, causing the death of 20 million people in Europe. 

Historian William H. McNeal states that the Black Death spread over several years and shifted with the seasons. Before it even arrived in Europe, rumors of a “Great Pestilence” had begun to circulate, but no one could have predicted how devastating it would be. It is still unknown exactly how it spread so quickly, but it is believed to have been due to black rats carrying fleas with the disease. Many believed that the contagion came from humans at the time.

People who believed they had committed a sin by suffering such devastation saw the Black Death as God’s wrath. People were frustrated because they wanted their priests to have a solution, but the priests were just as confused as the people. They desperately wanted answers as to why so many of their own were dying around them. As despair and destruction swept across the world, faith remained unwavering.

The high anxiety levels were due to the fact that one could be in apparently good health one day and then succumb to the plague the following. It was assumed that the plague was spread through the breath of others or perhaps something in the atmosphere. Because it was unclear how people were infected, they were afraid of death. 

The plague was taking its toll on humans rapidly; Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar, documented in his fourteenth-century French chronicle that people “would be ill for a little longer than a couple of days before perishing suddenly.” Bubonic Plague symptoms included fever and headaches.