Black Death .

« disappeared in the West. V DISAPPEARANCE OF PLAGUE Plague became less common in Europe after the 1530s.

The last plague in England was in 1665, the last in Western Europe in 1722.

Numerous theories have beenoffered to explain the disappearance of plague.

It has been argued that black rats, the primary carriers of plague, may have been replaced by larger brown rats that donot carry the infection.

A second theory suggests that increased immunity among the rodents that carried the disease or changes in the disease itself broke the cycle oftransmission.

The most likely explanation, however, is human intervention.

Although it wasn’t until the 19th century that doctors understood how germs could causedisease, Europeans recognized by the 16th century that plague was contagious and could be carried from one area to another. VI EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE The Black Death and the other epidemics of bubonic plague had many consequences.

One was a series of vicious attacks on Jews, lepers, and outsiders who wereaccused of deliberately poisoning the water or the air.

The attacks began in the south of France, but were most dramatic in parts of Switzerland and Germany—areaswith a long history of attacks on local Jewish communities.

Massacres in Bern were typical of this pattern: After weeks of fearful tension, Jews were rounded up andburned or drowned in marshes.

Sometimes there were attacks on Jews even where there was no plague.

The Pope, the leader of the Catholic church, and most publicofficials condemned the massacres and tried to stop them.

In the face of mob fury, however, they were often unsuccessful.

Persecutions only ended when the deathsfrom the plague began to decline.

There were occasional local persecutions during later plagues, but never with the violence of those that occurred from 1348 through1351. Contemporary chroniclers of the Black Death called the epidemic “a horrible and cruel thing.” It seemed to them that the towns of Europe were nearly deserted in theaftermath of the plague.

Overall, European population declined by about one-third.

In many European cities population may have declined by up to 50 percent or more.Bremen in Germany lost almost 7,000 of its 12,000 inhabitants.

The prosperous city of Florence, Italy, may have lost 40,000 of its nearly 90,000 inhabitants.

NearbySiena probably lost two-thirds of its urban population.

Paris, the largest city north of the Alps, lost more than 50,000 of its 180,000 inhabitants.

Most major cities werequickly forced to create mass graveyards where the dead could be buried.

Many towns and villages lost almost all of their populations, and some eventually disappearedaltogether.

Larger towns declined drastically, as their workforces and merchant classes either died or fled.

The initial population losses could have been quickly made up,but new epidemics prevented a return to the high population levels of the period before 1348.

European population only began to grow again in the last decades of the15th century. The plagues also brought economic changes.

The death of so many people concentrated wealth in the hands of survivors.

In many cases those workers who remainedalive could earn up to five times what they had earned before the plague.

In the towns, plague had the effect of consolidating wealth somewhat, especially among themiddle class.

As plague destroyed people and not possessions, the drop in population was accompanied by a corresponding rise in per capita wealth.

Large increases inspending in the towns at this time are well documented.

Profits, however, for landlords and merchants declined as they found themselves having to pay higher wagesand getting less when they sold their products. Governments were forced to adjust to the social disruption caused by plague.

First local governments, and then in the case of England, the monarchy, attempted toregulate the movement and price of foodstuffs as well as wages paid to laborers.

The English Statute of Laborers of 1351 tried to hold wages at preplague levels.Similar statutes were passed in various parts of France, Germany, and Italy. Landlords tried to collect higher fees from tenant farmers as a way to increase declining incomes.

Unrest among the peasants was one of the major causes of theEnglish Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

The English rebels objected to high payments to landowners and legal limitations on the rights of some peasants.

Economic andpolitical unrest occurred in most parts of Europe during the second half of the 14th century. The Black Death also had an effect on the arts.

In Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, a group of young people fleeing the plague take refuge in a house outside of Florence where they entertain each other with colorful and irreverent stories.

While these stories are often seen as a rejection of traditional medieval values, Boccacciohimself was critical of those who abandoned relatives and friends in the face of the plague.

Like the artists of the day, Boccaccio continued to hold traditional social andreligious values.

The primary impact of the Black Death on painting and sculpture was the willingness of the newly rich to invest in religious art for churches andchapels.

These contributions were often made in gratitude for being spared the plague, or with the hope of preventing future infection.

As was natural, much of the artand literature in the years immediately following the Black Death dealt with death. Plague brought few changes in religious life or to medical practices.

Europeans continued to visit religious shrines.

Saints like St.

Roch, who was thought to protectagainst plague, were especially popular.

It was common to paint images of St.

Roch, or other famous plague saints, protecting individuals from arrows symbolizing thepestilence.

Finally, although Europeans often complained that physicians were of little help against the plague, traditional medical ideas and practices did not change.

Infact, the same ideas about humors, contagion, and quarantine were also at first used to fight cholera when that disease appeared in Europe in the 1830s. Contributed By:Duane J.

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