Black Death

How did the plague really spread?

Yes, rodents contracted the disease but it was the fleas from the rodents that helped spread the disease to humans!!

The Silk Road

provides Europe with many exotic new items such as:

Spices, silk, ceramics, jade, new technology and....

The Plague!!!

In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside

What is the Black Death/Plague?!

http://www.history.com/topics/black-death

Overall it is estimated that 75 to 200 million people died

• It lingered for centuries
• outbreaks came in waves
• It took 200 years

The Doctor is in.....

There were no real treatment

of this disease at the time

However, many doctors did the best they could using different methods to try and help those that were suffering.

In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then. Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.

Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.

Aromatherapy

That is, the treatment of the body using different smells. Back during the Black Death, people were instructed to carry sweet smelling flowers with them wherever they went. If they couldn’t get flowers, they were told to carry around packets of herbs

Religion

Some people believed that the dreaded disease was a punishment from God, and others thought that God was testing them. When the plague spread to the Middle East, Muslims were told to sit back and suck it up because it was God’s will.

Rotten Treacle

Treacle—a by-product of sugar production—would often be given to sick patients. Unfortunately, it had to be at least ten years old to be considered effective. The old, smelly, sticky substance was believed to combat not only the horrific effects of the disease, but to rid the body of it for good.

Live in a Sewer

When people figured out that the Black Death was airborne, they began to visit—or even live—in foul-smelling sewers. It was thought that the sharp stench of rotting human waste would discourage the cleaner (but disease-ridden) air from coming near and infecting them.

This didn’t work, of course—and as well as being susceptible to the plague, they often died of other diseases.

Bloodletting

Bloodletting was popular all over Europe during this time, and it was used to cure everything from gout to goiter. If you were lucky, you could afford to have leeches do all the hard work for you. Leeches were actually a fairly painless method of blood-letting. But most people could not afford them, and had to go with the age-old method of cutting the skin open.

Spoonful of Emeralds make the medicine go down

Another edible cure was the powder of crushed emeralds.

The precious stones would be ground down to a fine powder in a mortal and pestle, then either mixed with a liquid and drunk like a potion, mixed with food or in bread and eaten, or swallowed on its own as a powder. This would have been terrible to eat, with a taste and texture vaguely resembling that of crushed glass.

Incidentally, the desperate remedies of disease-ridden victims aren’t too far removed from the fashionable meals of today’s billionaires.

Urine enjoyed a good reputation in medieval Europe, and this was one case in which supply could happily meet demand. Victims of the Black Death would often be bathed in urine several times a day to relieve the symptoms of the plague.

Wash yourself with Urine

Here’s another solution that plague victims wouldn’t have wanted to hear. The buboes (sores) were cut open, and a paste was applied. The paste was made from a mixture of tree resins, flower roots, and poo. Doctors loved the stuff.Unfortunately for the weak-stomached, this smelly paste was pushed inside their open wounds, which would then be tightly wrapped to keep the disgusting concoction inside.

Smear yourself with human poop

Just Rub some Chicken on It

Just like Yahoo Answers, the Middle Ages had plenty of crazy people offering up insane advice. Far and away one of the most bizarre was the Vicary Method—named after Thomas Vicary, an English doctor who invented the technique. People would shave a hen’s butt and strap it to their swollen lymph nodes . . . while the chicken was still alive. Then, when the chicken got sick, they would wash it and repeat the process until only the chicken or victim was healthy.

Governors of cities across Europe rounded up Jews, boarded them up in their homes, and then set them alight. Unfortunately this was because a group of Jews were captured and tortured into admitting that they were behind the disease—Abu Grhaib style. Thousands were killed when they were rounded up and summarily executed to put a stop to the disease.

Killing of the Jews

So now what?

Before the Black Death:

• Feudalism and Manoralism
• Population increase and economic expansion
• Plenty of peasant farmers to work the land
• 85% lived in rural locations
• Church dominated
• Europe and espeically England was weakened by famine

Social changes:

Peasants - With the death of so many in the serf class, there was a shortage of workers. Workers could demand higher wages and better working conditions.

Trade guilds were formed and this marked the end of the feudalism in Europe.

Nobles:

With the lack of workers many nobles were required to do their own work.

They were forced to provide better wages and more freedoms to labors.

The upper-class society quickly lost control of the peasant class.

Changes to economy