The Impact of the Black Death

The Black Death adversely affected Europe's population and led to the downfall of its economy. This paper discusses the various aspects of European civilization that were affected including economy, demography, religion, social and cultural aspects.

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Black Death
Jiabao Wen
Baker College

BLACK DEATH
The Impact of the Black Death
Introduction
Black Death adversely affected Europe’s population and led to the downfall of its
economy. As result of the emergence of this deadly plague, continuous changes in the size of
the European civilization brought about extensive changes in trade patterns, religion, music,
art, population, education, and other social civilization aspects. Fleas that were infected with
the bubonic flea infected traveling people from rats, causing death to millions of people as its
infestation wreaking havoc across Europe and global dimension. The negative impacts of the
Black Death (1347-1667) on European society included the collapse of the Feudal system
that had initially dominated Europe as a result of the shock to available labor caused by the
plague. The working condition s deteriorated thus radically impacting all the aspects of
European society civilization to a great extent. The Black Death can be considered to a death
kneel to European civilization, and this paper discusses some of the various aspects of
European civilization that were affected including economy, demography, and religion, social
and cultural aspects. Over the years, the Black Death has been considered to be one of the
most significant death tolls of European civilization. The plagues flea that emerged after
Black Death changed the history of European civilization.
Body Paragraph
The Black Death slaughtered off an enormous bit of Europe's populace. According to
(Benedictow 2005) the Black Death led to the death of 50million individuals in the entire 14th
century. Maladies spread more remote when they influence debilitated individuals. The poor
methods of cultivation used by Maladies resulted in the land being unfertile, and the
presentation of more sheep diminished the land accessible for corn. Rats and fleas
contaminated with the Bubonic Plague would hop from rodents to explorers, slaughtering
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millions and overrunning the landmass with earth-shaking dread. Typical individuals were
tormented by the danger of death, making them change their perspectives on relaxation,
work, and craftsmanship. Indeed, even youngsters endured. As the plague spread across
Europe, many people became poor as there were little income and farms were affected by the
epidemic. The culture was diminished as people struggled to survive to do everything they
could.
Regardless of how brief period the poor had for entertainment, or what number of
assets the affluent needed to remove themselves from the detestations of the plague, the
Black Death worked its way into relaxation time. Enormous death and memorial service
parades turned into the subject of jokes (Aberth, 2013). In the long run, passing was
overlooked through and through. Stoning somebody seen as a witch mitigated fatigue and
turned into an outlet for their feelings (Aberth, 2013).
The pandemic's harm to art was critical. With the plague destroying religious
communities and houses of worship, spiritual ways were nearly lost, and chapels were being
destroyed. Casket covers delineated pictures of cadavers, ordinarily appearing complimenting
resemblance of the perished inside wearing his or her best garments. A few coffins were
discovered in churchyards across London dated around 1400 bore pictures of bodies with
destroyed articles of clothing and about a portion of their tissue. A couple of figures
portrayed worms and snails chomping on the body (Findlay, & Lundahl, 2017). This
illustrated the nature of the extent of destruction caused by Black Death.
The plague additionally influenced the painting culture. Various sketches were
containing individuals associating with skeletons known as "move grotesque," were charged
by incredible benefactors. Artisans deserted previous traditions of painting Church themes.
Profoundly discouraged by the demise that encompassed them, they started to paint pictures
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of miserable and dead individuals. An example of the painting is the mural painting,
commonly referred to as “The Procession of Saint Gregory” (Byrne, 2012).
Not long after the last ejection of the Black Death, civilization on children and
parenting changed. In spite of the fact that carrying on the family name was still viewed as
critical, the birth rate dropped. Kids were considered "not worth the inconvenience" to raise
(Oliver, & Shapiro, 2013). This was due to the association of skin color and the number of
deaths witnessed. In such a time, raising a child was difficult amidst all the fighting and
deaths from the Black Death.
As the death knell of European civilization, the Black Death changed European
agriculture. Just before the plague happened, the vast population existing made wages to be
continually rising. However, after the epidemic, many peasants left for other areas to find
work. They started asking for more wages and better working conditions.as many lords
agreed to these demands; they soon realized that they have no control over the workers (Bos
et al., 2011). A lot of employees were required to carry out growing and harvesting in the
fields; thus some lords started rearing sheep and other animals as it needs fewer workers and
had a lot of prospective clients for both meat and wool. Production of farm produces thus
decreased rapidly. But as their wages were raised, they were able to buy a lot of vegetables
and fruits. This brought about agricultural changes and standards of living (Bos et al., 2011).
The Black Death affected the industrial civilization of Europe. Rulers resisted
workers' demands for higher wages. The Black Death had adverse negative impacts on the
active relationship between the owners of the vast tracks of land in Europe and those peasants
who carried out work for the lords. As this plague led to continuous death of individuals, it
became quite difficult for people to plow the land, harvest crop produces and manufactures
other goods and service delivery. As a result, the existing peasants started demanding higher
salaries and wages (Aberth, 2013). For example, peasants in some parts of middle Europe
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refused to work for low wages. It also affected the political structure of civilization in
Europe. English rulers enacted Statute of Laborers Act that forced the workers to work and
accept whatever wage that they were offered. According to the statute, it stated that each
healthy unemployed worker should work for any lord who employed him. Failure to obey
this rule were punished and fined. Some who demanded pay increase were sent to prison and
branded fugitives.
Where government experts were concerned, most rulers enacted policies that
restricted exportation of foodstuffs, censured bootleg market examiners, set value controls on
grain, and limited fishing on a large scale. This affected popliteal and government civilization
to a considerable extent as they interfered with human rights. Best case scenario, they
generally demonstrated unenforceable. Even from a pessimistic standpoint, they added to
already existing negative economic impacts (Büntgen et al., 2011). The hardest hit lands, like
England, were unfit to purchase grain abroad from France as a (Byrne, 2012). Malnutrition
aspects, high poverty levels, illness and hunger, combined with war, increased inflation and
other adverse economic impacts contributed to the death knell of European civilization to a
large extent (Conley, 2010).
As the death toll of European civilization, the Black Death plague caused a lot of
widespread social changes. Some of them were quite positive; however, most were adverse to
a great extent. Just before the occurrence of the event, many peasant serfs were limited to
their lord's estate and usually received little or no wages for work done. The existing
overpopulation and inadequate resources brought about malnutrition and great poverty for
many active peasants. After the plague, serfs acquired the freedom to move to other social
estates and obtained better living conditions and pay from work done (Contreras & Meadows,
2014). The lords who became desperate for the peasant's labor usually offered free tools,
housing, seeds, and farming land. This saved their rent hence improving their social
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standards of living. Workers became more civilized as they could have time to learn and
develop their skills. Moreover, they could be able to live in decent houses (Contreras &
Meadows, 2014).
The plague made individuals leave their friends; family fled towns and shut
themselves entirely from society. The overall society felt a sharpened social distinction
(DeWitte & Hughes-Morey, 2012). The available fashions of the nobility started to be much
extravagant so to emphasize the social standing of the individuals wearing the clothing
(DeWitte & Hughes-Morey, 2012). The society peasants began being more socially
empowered and often revolted when the aristocracy tried to offer resistance to change
resulting from the Black Death. This led to constant riots, for instance, peasants of north
France rioted and revolted in 1358 (Haensch et al., 2010).
The plague had negative impacts on the social classes existing. The lower class level
that lived actively together in an unhealthy environment was the most affected. For instance,
there existed a law where well-off commoners were only constrained from wearing a
lambskin whereas the laborers were only permitted to wear cat and rabbit skin (Findlay &
Lundahl, 2017). Sable could also be worn only by Europe's high class to differentiate the
high class and low class people in the society as workers were more affected by the plague.
Societal civilization uprisings such as La Jacqueline in France in 1358 a peasants
revolt in England in 1381 resulted as a result of the plague. Several historians argue that the
social impacts of the plague were the fundamental cause for the downfall of feudalism and
the increase of the mercantile class. This can be attributed to the fact that peasants were
mistreated and had low levels of civilization (Haensch et al., 2010).
To a smaller extent, the plague brought about changes in terms of the introduction of
modern medicine civilization to replace the traditional one in public health and management.
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Educators began emphasizing on clinical medicine and physical science to end the plague
diagnosis through astrological and superstition ways (NA, 2016).
The peasants actively participated in wild debauchery to celebrate being alive. They
held greedy feasts, drank, wore luxurious attire and bet contributing to the death knell of
European civilization. (Oliver & Shapiro, 2013). The danse macabre, or move of death, is a
metaphorical idea that was communicated in show, verse, music and visual craftsmanship.
The danse macabre for the most part demonstrates a parade or move between the living and
the dead.
The Black Death plague affected cultural civilization of day to day life. There was
less number of physicians who treated the sick or clergymen who usually carried out the
dead's last rites and comforting the patients. Those people who died had very few lawyers to
ensure their will is followed. This is because many individuals believed that the Black Death
was caused by poisonous fumes arising from the dead people (Slack, 2012). This prompted a
high shortage of gravediggers (Slack, 2012). This superstitious belief brought about cultural
differences. Some of the following aspects of culture were affected by the Black Death
plague; Painting, Literature, and Religion.
Religion was another part of the civilization that was influenced by the Black Death in
different ways and to various degrees in Europe. This is because people started to believe in a
higher power above human understanding.
The dominant Christian population blamed the Jews for the spread of the dangerous
disease which was a minority group in Europe (Peters et al., 2013). They profoundly believed
that Jews were focused on dominating the world hence decide to poison the well occupied by
Christian towns and cities. As stated by Patterson (2018) other individual started to firmly
believe that the Black Death was as a result of direct punishment from God. The flagellant
movement tried to repel Black Death by whipping themselves publicly as a way of paying for
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their sins. Thus, it was a general belief that individuals held the perspective that various
supernatural powers were in control and they were the ones responsible for the spread of the
plague affecting western civilization to a great extent.
As seen The Black Death plague had negative impacts on cultural art and literature.
After the end of the year 1350, the existing European culture was largely eroded and hence
became very morbid. The general mood turned to pessimism, and contemporary cultural art
was filled with representations of death in various regions (Schmid et al., 2015).LA Danse
Macabre often referred to as the dance of the death was mainly the represented art, drama and
printed work. Its central theme showed the universality of death indicating that death united
every person no matter one station in daily life. It involved a personified death having various
figures of emperors, kings, pope, monks, and girls painted in skeleton form to signify the
journey of the grave (Sexton, 2016). It also affected demographic civilization to a
considerable extent. This leveling impact was turned around by a "demographic recuperation
that brought about reestablished populace pressure in European regions.
Mortality was exceptionally high in provincial regions, including large regions of
Gaza and Syria. Numerous country individuals fled, leaving their fields and yields, and whole
rustic areas are recorded as being wholly ousted. Enduring records in some urban regions
uncover an overwhelming number of individual deaths. It affected the development of
transport and communication in urban centers lowering the civilization rate. It is evident that
the death and escape of People negatively impacted on the population distribution and
reduced the population size. It also affected on the travel distance from plague entry ports.
This affected European civilization since it lowered communication and exchange of idea
from diverse people from other regions. According to Benedictow (2005) the plague about
half of the Europeans population in cities such as Santiago de Compostela and millions of
people in Central Asia.
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Conclusion
It is evident that the Black Death plague mainly affected European civilization to a
great extent. Economic development, cultural values, art, population, infrastructure
development, and social plans were thwarted. It affected productivity, labour and geographic
mobility, church, and cultural civilization. It affected the civilization history of Europe and
other parts of the world. The citizens had to come together to end this tragedy and recollect
themselves hence moving to the modern period of reconnaissance and improved civilization.
Those impacts can be seen as a critical turning point for modern era European civilization.
This argument is the most significant.
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