Transcript The Black Death

For over 100 years scientists have believed that the
Medieval Black Death was the same disease as the
modern Bubonic Plague. We're told it was spread by
fleas on rats and is now easily controlled with
antibiotics. Today, though, there are those who doubt
the two diseases are the same and how ready we are to
deal with this ancient disease if it surfaces again. Your
task is to fill in your “Investigation Journal” as you
explore the exhibits.
• Believed to have moved from rodent
population of the Gobi desert to
humans around the 1320s
• Spread along trade routes of the
Mongol Empire through China,
India, Russia, North Africa into the
great trading cities of Asia Minor (ca
1330s -1340s)
– From there spread into Europe (13481351)
• Mongols (Genghis Kahn) Empire:
– Eastern Europe, through Mesopotamia, across
central Europe to China.
– Silk road re-opened and other routes through
steppes opened.
• Genoese (Genoa) opened the Straits of
Gibraltar to Christian shipping in 1291.
– Mediterranean was connected by ship to
northern Europe.
• Also called the Black Death
• Caused by a bacteria named Yersinia pestis
• People usually contract the disease by being
bitten by a rodent flea carrying the bacteria.
– Middle Ages – most homes and places of work
were inhabited by flea-infested rats
– Today – antibiotics are effective, but without
treatment death can occur
Flea drinks rat blood that
carries the bacteria
Bacteria multiply in flea’s
gut
Human is infected
Flea bites human,
regurgitate blood into
open wound
Gut clogged with bacteria
1. Bubonic Plague - painful lymph
node swellings, buboes
2. Pneumonic Plague - attacked the
respiratory system
3. Septicemic Plague - also called
“blood poisoning”, attacked the
blood system
• Painful lymph
node swelling,
called buboes
– In groins and
armpits
• Oozing pus and
blood
• Kills 90-95% of people infected
• Symptoms develop within 1-3
days
• Occurs when bacteria infects the
lungs, causing pneumonia
• Contagious—when infected
individual coughs, he releases
bacteria in respiratory droplets
which can be inhaled and infect
another person
• More virulent strain—nearly always
fatal
• Occurs when bacteria reproduces in
blood stream instead of lymph nodes
• Symptoms present themselves on the
same day as infection and include
fever, chills, internal bleeding
• Septicemic plague difficult to spread
• Clotting and bleeding beneath
the skin
– Dark blotches = Acral necrosis 
Black Death!
• Florence lost 60% of its population
• Avignon lost 50% of its population
• At the height of the plague Venice was losing
500-600 people a day
• Europe lost between 1/3 and 1/2 of its total
population
• Europe’s population did not recover until
the 17th century
• Decreased population
– Labor shortage- higher wages paid,
property prices drop
– Standard of living improved for those who
survived the plague
– Higher wages, paid on the basis of supply
and demand
• Led to the beginnings of capitalism
• Persecution of marginal groups in society
– Jewish people accused of poisoning wells,
causing Black Death
– Led to increasing persecution, burning of Jews,
confiscation of Jewish property and eventually
expelling them from towns and cities
Representation
of a massacre of
the Jews in
1349
• Preoccupation with death
– Leads some people to
abandon their faith and live in
the moment
– Leads some to embrace faith
and become repentant for
world’s sins (flagellants)
• Flagellants: practitioners of an
extreme form of mortification of their
own flesh by whipping it with various
instruments.
• Preoccupation with
death presents itself in
art and literature
– Boccaccio’s Decameron:
• Novella containing 100
tales told by a group of
seven young women and
three young men
sheltering in a secluded
villa just outside Florence
to escape the Black Death
• Preoccupation with
death presents itself in
art and literature
– Dance of Death (Danse
Macabre)
• Plays that consist of the
dead or personified
Death summoning
representatives from all
walks of life to dance
along to the grave
– Legend of the Three Living and Three Dead
• 15th-century English poem
• In the poem, an unnamed narrator describes seeing a boar hunt.
Three kings are following the hunt; they lose their way in mist
and are separated from their retainers. Suddenly, out of the
woods comes three walking corpses, described in graphically
hideous terms. The kings are terrified, but show a range of
reactions to the three Dead, ranging from a desire to flee to a
resolve to face them. The three corpses, in response, state that
they are not demons, but the three kings' forefathers, and
criticize their heirs for neglecting their memory and not saying
masses for their souls:
• Once, the three Dead were materialistic and pleasure-loving, and
they now suffer for it. Eventually, the Dead leave, the red daylight
comes, and the kings ride home.
• The final message of the Dead is that the living should always be
mindful of them.
• Preoccupation with death presents itself in
art and literature
– Transi Tombs or Cadaver Tombs
• Latin for "reminder of death“
• A church monument or tomb featuring an effigy
in the macabre form of a decomposing corpse.
• Intended as a didactic example of how transient
earthly glory is, since it depicts what we all
finally become.
• Technological development
– Fewer people meant people had to work more
efficiently
– Led to the development of machines that allowed work
to be done more quickly
• Example: the Gutenberg Press and moveable type printing
press
• Medical inquiry
– Re-evaluation of ancient theories of medicine, turning to
more modern conceptions of the body
• Broke traditional ways of thinking
– Destroyed the dominant mode of thinking about
humanity’s relationship with the world
– New modes of more secular thought were
allowed to break through the dominant
narrative of Christian teaching– helps lead to
Renaissance/Reformation
• Ring a-round the rosy = rosary beads give you
God’s help
• Pocket full of posies = used to stop the odor of
rotting bodies through to cause the plague
• Ashes, ashes! = the church burned the dead when
burying became too laborious
• We all fall down! = dead
• Children suffered
mentally and physically
• Children were not
thought worth the
trouble to raise
"The nose half a foot long, shaped
like a beak, filled with perfume with
only two holes, one on each side near
the nostrils, but that can suffice to
breathe and to carry along with the
air one breathes the impression of
the drugs enclosed further along in
the beak. Under the coat we wear
boots made in Moroccan leather
(goat leather) from the front of the
breeches in smooth skin that are
attached to said boots and a shortsleeved blouse in smooth skin, the
bottom of which is tucked into the
breeches. The hat and gloves are also
made of the same skin… with
spectacles over the eyes.”