Black Death Essay Research Paper Black DeathThe

Black Death Essay, Research Paper

Black Death

The most sever epidemic in human history, The Black Death ravaged Europe from 1347-1351. This plague killed entire families at a time and destroyed many villages. The Black Death had many effects beyond its immediate symptoms that contributed to the crisis of the Fourteenth Century. This plague not only took a devastating toll on human life, but it also played a major role in shaping European life in the years to follow. The Black Death divides the central and the late Middle Ages. This horrible catastrophe that occurred in 1348, swept through Europe causing numerous changes.

“The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320’s.” This plague originated there and spread outward in every direction. In the autumn of 1347, twelve ships arrived in Messina, a port on the island of Sicily. Usually the people of Messina were eager to see the exotic products these merchants’ ships would bring from Caffa, on the Black Sea. This particular time the people found something astonishing. Instead of silk, perfumes, and spices, these ships carried a strange and destructive disease that would eventually change Europe forever.

City officials found very few people alive on these ships when they ported Messina. Dead bodies littered the decks and the ships reeked of decaying flesh. On the deceased they found large black swellings covering the bodies. These officials who inspected these ships feared that the disease that had slaughtered the sailors would spread to Messina. This fear led to the decree that no one, or any piece of merchandise was to leave the ships. They would not even allow the sick sailors to leave the ships or even get medical treatment. It is thought that the people of the ships, who were living in Caffa during the summer of 1347, were exposed to this terrible disease while fighting the Tatars. The Tatars were Mongolian warriors who attacked the city of Caffa, and had the city contained for months. They seemed to have the advantage and were expected to seize the city, until they suffered an unexpected blow that defeated their army. This unexpected blow was the plague. The plague broke out within their army and they were forced to retreat. The Mongolian warriors believed the disease was a curse put on them by the people in Caffa. Out of hate and trying to get revenge, the Tartars catapulted the dead bodies of the plague victims over the walls of Caffa. The plague soon began to spread after the Tatars retreated and the people of Caffa realized that the only way they were to survive was to flee the area. They boarded merchant ships and set sail for Italy. These ships where later found by the Missena city officials. The city officials could not prevent the disaster that would follow. Within days the disease spread not only within the city, but also the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:

Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial.

The wealthy nobles since of monetary security had the advantage over the poor. The rich could usually flee the towns and cities, where the plague raged unmercifully, and escape to their castles and villas in the country. In the country their were usually less people and cleaner reducing the chance of dirty and infested rats to enter the country homes. When this disease hit the coast of Italy people had no idea what they were encountering. All they knew was that masses of people were dying. Some thought it was due to the influence of celestial bodies. Others thought it was put upon them by the wrath of God getting them for their iniquities or sins. Even though they had absolutely no earthly idea where this disaster was coming from, they soon learned to recognize the symptoms.

Blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli. From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the malady began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the armor thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, then minute and numerous. And as the gavocciolo had and still were an infallible token of death.

By the following August, this disease had spread as far as England. This is where people began to call this disease the “Black Death,” due to the black sores that was found over the entire body after contacting the disease.

The Black Death is an acute, infectious, contagious disease that affects rodents and humans alike. It is caused by a short, thick, gram-negative bacillus, Yersina pestis. In humans, plague occurs in three different forms known as the bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague. Bubonic plague is the most comm