The Black Death

1. The Black Death

2. Waiting for the Black Death • In the summer of 1348, the people of England were waiting for something to arrive, and they were frightened. • What could it be? An army? Fierce invaders? No, it was a terrible disease - a plague – the Black Death. It had been spreading across Europe for several months, and thousands had already died. • No one knew what caused it, how it could be prevented or if there was any cure.

3. How quickly did it spread?

4. The Black Death arrives Historians think that the plague arrived in the south of England during the summer of 1348. During the following autumn it spread quickly through the south west. Few villages escaped. Churchyards were filled and new pits had to be dug to bury all the bodies. The plague spread quickly to the north of England during the winter of 1348-1349. By 1350, nearly the whole of Britain was infected with the plague.

5. What was the Black Death? Answer: Bubonic Plague

6. What did people think caused the Black Death? • There were lots of ideas around in the Middle Ages about what might be causing the Black Death. • Some of them were: • God – it was a punishment for something people had done wrong. • Bad air (miasma) • Jews poisoning the wells • ‘Contagion’ – a sick person coming into contact with a healthy person

7. What really caused the Black Death? This is your answer! The Oriental Rat Flea!

8. How was bubonic plague passed on? We now know that the most common form of the Black Death was the bubonic plague. This disease was spread by fleas which lived on black rats. The fleas sucked the rats’ blood which contained the plague germs. When the rat died the fleas jumped on to humans, bit them, and passed on the deadly disease. This girl has bubonic plague. The large swelling is called a buboe.

9. Were there other kinds of plague? • Yes. As well as bubonic plague, there was also pneumonic plague (which infected the lungs) and sceptacaemic plague (which infected the blood). • These were more deadly, but much less common.

10. So was there a cure? • As we learned in the last lesson, people in the Middle Ages did not know about bacteria. As a result, they did not know what was causing the plague or how to stop it from spreading. • What kind of cures might a medieval doctor or apothecary have suggested for someone showing the symptoms of the plague?

11. Do you think any of these medieval preventions/ cures for plague would have helped? Potential Prevention/Cure Would it have helped? • Apply a dried toad to the swelling so that the poison will be drawn out and into the body of the toad. When it is full a new one should be applied. • Let your house be clean and make a fire. • Close all doors and windows. • Bleed the patient and make them vomit. • Sing hymns, pray and beat yourself until you bleed. People who did this were known as ‘flagellants’, from the word ‘flagellate’, meaning ‘to whip’.

12. Flagellants

13. What were the effects of the Black Death? • The Black Death made many people change the way they lived. Some tried to help those who were suffering. Others put themselves first. • Those who were not afraid of the disease spent time with the sick, dug the plague pits or went around the towns and villages collecting bodies – these people often died themselves of the plague. • Many other people decided to drink, feast, gamble and buy expensive clothes. Why do you think they did this?

14. The Black Death also had an impact on art This is picture is called ‘The Three Living and the Three Dead’, and is one of many depictions of a famous story, often told following the period of the Black Death.What do you think the message of the story was?

15. How many people died? • At the beginning of 1348, there were about 4 million people in England. • By 1351 there were only about 2.5 million left. • As in Europe, about one person in every three died. Amongst priests, the death rate was much higher – why do you think this was?

16. Social changes • Because so many people died, the Black Death brought about other changes in English society. • Would peasants (villeins and freemen) who survived be better or worse off after the Black Death?

17. Social Changes • For peasants who survived, the future looked good. Because there were fewer workers, they began to demand higher wages. • Some villeins now even had the chance to break free from their lord and be paid for their work – with so few men available, there was usually someone desperate for workers who would employ them. • But would landowners welcome these changes in society? Next week we will look at the peasants’ demands – and how they were met by King Richard II.

18. Was that the end of the plague in England? • NO - The plague returned to England five more times before 1400. • It has not been wiped out either: according to the World Health Organization, there are 1,000 to 3,000 cases of bubonic plague worldwide each year. • But it’s not all doom and gloom! The last major outbreak in England was in 1665-1666, and a cure has now been discovered. • If you are unfortunate enough to catch bubonic plague today (which is very unlikely if you live in England!) you can be successfully treated with antibiotics.

19. Homework! • Black Death source questions. • I have put together a worksheet with three sources explaining or showing ways in which people tried to avoid the Black Death, and a few questions to help you explore them. • I’ll email it to you after the lesson as usual – back to me by Saturday, please!

20. True or False? • The Black Death was another name for the plague. • It was spread by dogs. • It originally came from China. • Everyone who got the Black Death died. • Priests were more likely than farm workers to get the disease. • About one tenth of the population of Europe died of the Black Death during the second half of the 14th century.