which section of the population was most struck by the black death? course hero

How did the Black Death affect the world?

The Black Death peaked in Europe between 1348 and 1350 with an estimated one-third of the continent's population ultimately succumbing to the disease. Often simply referred to as "The Plague", the Black Death had both immediate and long-term effects on human population across the world as one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.

What were the symptoms of the bubonic plague Quizlet?

Symptoms of the bubonic plague included painful and enlarged or swollen lymph nodes, headaches, chills, fatigue, vomiting, and fevers, and within 3–5 days, 80% of the victims would be dead. Historians estimate that it reduced the total world population from 475 million to between 350 and 375 million.

Where did the Black Death start and end?

The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350. How many people died during the Black Death?

Is the Black Death caused by the same disease?

^ Cheng, Maria (28 January 2014). "Plague DNA found in ancient teeth shows medieval Black Death, 1,500-year pandemic caused by same disease". National Post. Archived from the original on 29 January 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2020.

What was the most severe plague in China?

The most severe outbreak of plague, in the Chinese province of Hubei in 1334, claimed up to 80 percent of the population. China had several epidemics and famines from 1200 to the 1350s and its population decreased from an estimated 125 million to 65 million in the late 14th century.

Why did the plague happen?

Because 14th-century healers were at a loss to explain the cause of the Black Death, many Europeans ascribed supernatural forces, earthquakes and malicious conspiracies, among other things, as possible reasons for the plague's emergence. No one in the 14th century considered rat control a way to ward off the plague, and people began to believe only God's anger could produce such horrific displays of suffering and death. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet of the era, questioned whether it was sent by God for their correction, or that it came through the influence of the heavenly bodies. Christians accused Jews of poisoning public water supplies, alleging Jews of an effort to ruin European civilization. The spreading of this rumor led to complete destruction of entire Jewish towns. In February 1349, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg. In August of the same year, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were murdered.

How many people died in Florence in 1351?

The population of the city of Florence was reduced from 110,000–120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351. In the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, 60–70% of the inhabitants died. In Provence, Dauphiné, and Normandy, historians observe a decrease of 60% of fiscal hearths.

What were the laws that restricted wages before the Black Death?

These governmental controls sought to freeze wages at the old levels before the Black Death. Within England, for example, the Ordinance of Labourers, enacted in 1349, and the Statute of Labourers, enacted in 1351 , restricted both wage increases and the relocation of workers.

How did the Black Death affect Europe?

The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard, although rural areas (where most of the population lived at the time) were also significantly affected.

What were the consequences of the Black Death?

The rapid development of the use was probably one of the consequences of the Black Death, during which many landowning nobility died, leaving their realty to their widows and minor orphans.

Why did the Black Death hit the monasteries so hard?

The Black Death hit the monasteries very hard because of their proximity with the sick who sought refuge there. This left a severe shortage of clergy after the epidemic cycle. Eventually the losses were replaced by hastily trained and inexperienced clergy members, many of whom knew little of the rigors of their predecessors. New colleges were opened at established universities, and the training process sped up. The shortage of priests opened new opportunities for laywomen to assume more extensive and more important service roles in the local parish.

Which country was most affected by the Black Death?

Because of the lack of good demographic information it is very difficult to say which country was most affected by the black death. It came to Europe through Sicily and moved quickly to Italy. High centers of population were hit particularly hard. Florence lost over 65,000 people, probably more than 1/2 of its population. If you read the statistics you often see a staggering number of deaths in the Italian cities quoted, but to draw the conclusion that Italy was the hardest hit can be misleading, since Italy had the best statistical information it is frequently quoted. English estimates say that their country lost 1.5 million inhabitants out of an estimated 4 million. Whole villages and monasteries were lost while other villages were spared. Estimates of deaths vary greatly from 1/4 if the population to over 1/2 of the population of Europe. The number of deaths overflowed any recordkeeping of the times. The dead were often just flung into pits and covered with lime, never being named or recorded. Many times there were no funerals for the dead as the rest of their family's had died too, and priests and monks died in higher percentages than the rest since doing their duty put them in contact with those from the plague. While most accounts of the plague focus on Europe, the plague came from Asia and we have little idea of how many deaths it caused there. Below are some good sites to check.

What is a certified educator?

Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. It is impossible to answer this question because historians do not have comprehensive ...

How much did the population of Europe lose during the Black Death?

Instead, historians have estimated that the population of Europe, as a whole, was decimated by the plague, with a total population loss of between one-third and 50%. However, historians have noted that the Black Death affected some areas more than others. ...

What caused the Bubonic Plague?

Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but it may also cause septicaemic or pneumonic plagues. The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history.

What was the plague called?

European writers contemporary with the plague described the disease in Latin as pestis or pestilentia, 'pestilence'; epidemia, 'epidemic'; mortalitas, 'mortality'. In English prior to the 18th century, the event was called the "pestilence" or "great pestilence", "the plague" or the "great death". Subsequent to the pandemic "the furste moreyn " (first murrain) or "first pestilence" was applied, to distinguish the mid-14th century phenomenon from other infectious diseases and epidemics of plague. The 1347 pandemic plague was not referred to specifically as "black" in the 14th or 15th centuries in any European language, though the expression "black death" had occasionally been applied to fatal disease beforehand.

Which strain of Y. pestis was responsible for the Black Death?

Since this time, further genomic papers have further confirmed the phylogenetic placement of the Y. pestis strain responsible for the Black Death as both the ancestor of later plague epidemics including the third plague pandemic and as the descendant of the strain responsible for the Plague of Justinian.

What is the meaning of the word "black death"?

The phrase 'black death' – describing Death as black – is very old. Homer used it in the Odyssey to describe the monstrous Scylla, with her mouths "full of black Death" ( Ancient Greek: πλεῖοι μέλανος Θανάτοιο, romanized : pleîoi mélanos Thanátoio ). Seneca the Younger may have been the first to describe an epidemic as 'black death', ( Latin: mors atra) but only in reference to the acute lethality and dark prognosis of disease. The 12th–13th century French physician Gilles de Corbeil had already used atra mors to refer to a "pestilential fever" ( febris pestilentialis) in his work On the Signs and Symptoms of Diseases ( De signis et symptomatibus aegritudium ). The phrase mors nigra, 'black death', was used in 1350 by Simon de Covino (or Couvin), a Belgian astronomer, in his poem "On the Judgement of the Sun at a Feast of Saturn" ( De judicio Solis in convivio Saturni ), which attributes the plague to an astrological conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. His use of the phrase is not connected unambiguously with the plague pandemic of 1347 and appears to refer to the fatal outcome of disease.

Why did the Renaissance happen in Italy?

The Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the complex interaction of the above factors, in combination with an influx of Greek scholars following the fall of the Byzantine Empire. As a result of the drastic reduction in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the increased need for labour, workers travelled in search of the most favorable position economically.

Why did wages rise after the Black Death?

With such a large population decline from the pandemic, wages soared in response to a labour shortage. On the other hand, in the quarter century after the Black Death in England, it is clear many labourers, artisans, and craftsmen, those living from money-wages alone, did suffer a reduction in real incomes owing to rampant inflation. Landowners were also pushed to substitute monetary rents for labour services in an effort to keep tenants.

Why is mathematical modelling used?

Mathematical modelling is used to match the spreading patterns and the means of transmission. A research in 2018 challenged the popular hypothesis that "infected rats died, their flea parasites could have jumped from the recently dead rat hosts to humans". It suggested an alternative model in which "the disease was spread from human fleas and body lice to other people". The second model claims to better fit the trends of death toll because the rat-flea-human hypothesis would have produced a delayed but very high spike in deaths, which contradict historical death data.

What are the symptoms of the Pneumonic Plague?

Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and causes symptoms similar to those of severe pneumonia: fever, weakness, and shortness of breath. Fluid fills the lungs and can cause death if untreated. Other symptoms may include insomnia, stupor, a staggering gait, speech disorder, and loss of memory. Septicemic plague is an infection of the blood.

What is genomic information used for?

Know the investigations of researchers using genomic information to reconstruct the cause and transmission routes of the bubonic plague and the Black Death. Researchers using genomic information to trace the transmission routes in past epidemics of plague.

What is the bacterium that causes the plague?

A microscopic image shows Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.

What caused the Black Death?

The Black Death is believed to have been the result of plague, an infectious fever caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The disease was likely transmitted from rodents to humans by the bite of infected fleas.

What is the Black Plague?

This term, along with magna pestilencia (“great pestilence”), was used in the Middle Ages to refer to what we know today as the Black Death as well as to other outbreaks of disease. “Black Plague” is also sometimes used to refer to the Black Death, though it is rarely used in scholarly studies.

What was the effect of the labor shortage on landowners?

The labour shortage caused landowners to substitute wages or money rents in place of labour services in an effort to keep their tenants, which benefited those surviving tenants. Wages for artisans and other workers also increased.

How did the Black Death affect the world?

The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many labourers died, which devastated families through lost means of survival and caused personal suffering; landowners who used labourers as tenant farmers were also affected. The labour shortage caused landowners to substitute wages or money rents in place of labour services in an effort to keep their tenants, which benefited those surviving tenants. Wages for artisans and other workers also increased. Art in the wake of the Black Death became more preoccupied with mortality and the afterlife. Anti-Semitism greatly intensified throughout Europe, as Jews were blamed for the spread of the Black Death, and many Jews were killed by mobs or burned at the stake en masse.