The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) - Deadly Epidemic
Also known as the plague, the disease is thought to have originated in Central Asia and it swept across Europe in the late 1340s. The terrible disease caused not only massive numbers of deaths, but also caused many minority groups to be blamed and persecuted for "causing" the black death.
In these days when we are threatened with a possible worldwide swine flu epidemic, it is important to glance back at the major epidemics of the past, such as the Black Death, and see how people handled them.
The Black Death (video)
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)
Amazon Price: $10.79 (as of 12/16/2009)
A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and graphic detail.
Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing."
Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road."
Equivalent of a nuclear war!
"The Black death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, taking millions of lives."
-- Norman F. Cantor
Websites on the Black Death and the Plague
- The Plague
- An interesting essay with pictures on the Black Death and other occurences of the Plague over the centuries.
- The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
- A short history of the Black Death.
- Medieval World - Black Death
- "The critical fact of the impact of the Black Death was that England from 1400 was half empty..."
- Great Plague of London, 1664-65
- "The total number of deaths from in that year, according to the bills of mortality was 68,596, in a population estimated at 460,000..."
- The Black Death, 1347-1350
- "Culprit: Oriental Rat Flea... Dead littered the streets everywhere. Cattle and livestock roamed the country attended. Brother deserted brother..."
Plague Victims Being Blessed by a Priest
Black Death (article)
The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. On its return in 1603, the plague killed 38,000 Londoners. Other notable 17th century outbreaks were the Italian Plague of 1629-1631 , the Great Plague of Seville (1647-1652), the Great Plague of London (1665-1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679). There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form, after the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720-1722 and the 1771 plague in Moscow it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 19th century.
The 14th century eruption of the Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church , and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews , foreigners, beggars, and lepers . The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity , influencing people to "live for the moment", as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353).
Source: Wapedia
The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague (by Johannes Nohl)
The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague
Amazon Price: $15.34 (as of 12/16/2009)
Johannes Nohl wrote and compiled an interesting work entitled "The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague," which revealed eye-opening contemporary accounts of the Black Death during the Medieval Europe. With roughly 270 pages and twelve chapters, this book gives one a new and shocking perspective on the history of the Black Death: the reactions of the people to the plague.
The Black Death was one of the worst disasters in the history of humankind to which it killed off the third of the whole population, beginning in the year of 1348. And, this book brought forth the personal experiences and official documents to give the reader to deeply understand what the people of that ill-fated era were experiencing. Nohl's work is rather unique because of its degree to the aspects of historical, sociological, and geographical nature.
The book begins with the aspects of the plague, including the victims and the deaths, to the causes of the plague, to which some believed it to be of a divine origin or other forms of superstitions or beforehanded seen "fateful comets." Then, the author goes on to bring to light of the medical profession and its role during the plague, the detailed accounts that might prevent the plague, the precaution measurements by the Church and the governments, the role of the Church, and moral collapse and other elements. And, the rest of the book deals with the issue of persecutions of the Jews and their role, the issue of sexuality and the appearance of respectability where it "had disappeared after the terror of the Black Death had swept away not only all law courts and police, but had destroyed the last conventions of decency" (p. 207). Finally, the discussion of the role of flagellants and the personal accounts surrounding them during the plague, and then the author finally wrapped up the book with a brief aftermath of the plague where the "joy" returned.
Personally, I found this book to be quite an eye-opening and shocking to which I felt it was very important for one to read the contemporary detailed accounts, both officially and intimately, from the people who lived through or died in the Black Death. When one read the history about the Black Death, a very little can be understood about the magnitude or the impact of the plague on the people until one personally experience the detailed graphic accounts from the people who lived and died during the deadly plague.
I believe this book to be one of the most important works for the study of the Black Death because it surely brings the powerful lessons on how medieval people reacted to the plague and how the few survived such a worst disaster.
Black Death: Influence on Culture and Religion
More Books on the Black Death and the Plague
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
Amazon Price: $10.07 (as of 12/16/2009)
The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (European history series)
Amazon Price: $13.26 (as of 12/16/2009)
The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe
Amazon Price: $17.16 (as of 12/16/2009)
The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
Amazon Price: $11.65 (as of 12/16/2009)
Black Death Poster
Latest News on Black Death and Similar Epidemics
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byExtraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Amazon Price: $29.95 (as of 12/16/2009)
How did people react to the Black Death?
In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit... -from the Preface The satanic child-abuse mania of the 1980s.
The dotcom craze of the 1990s. The housing bubble of the 2000s. It may seem like we today invented mass insanity, but it's always been with us, as this classic expose of the madness of humanity demonstrates in a way that's both disturbing and highly entertaining.
First published in 1841 across multiple volumes but presented here in one omnibus volume, this enlightening work explores such societal delusions and aberrations as:
* the Mississippi Scheme, in which an 18th-century Scottish financier created a stock bubble in France for land in the New World
* the infamous tulip mania that seized Holland in the 1600s
* the grip that alchemists, with their claims of turning lead to gold, held over the European imagination during the Enlightenment
* the centuries-long Crusades of the Middle Ages
* the witch hunts that plagued both sides of the Atlantic in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries
* and many more.
A powerful study of human psychology on a cultural scale, this important work is startlingly relevant today... as it's sure to still be centuries from now.
Scottish journalist CHARLES MACKAY (1814-1889) held an honorary law degree from Glasgow University, as well as a doctorate in literature. A renowned poet and songwriter, he also authored a Dictionary of Lowland Scotch.
Have something to say about this lens or about the Black Death and the plague?
Do it here!
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- pkmcr pkmcr Dec 6, 2009 @ 4:16 pm
- What an excellent lens and one of many that I can see you have on a variety of topics. Blessed by a Squid Angel :-)
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- KimGiancaterino KimGiancaterino May 18, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
- My step-son was just asking me about the plague, so now I can refer him here! Very nice work... I'm featuring this on my Squid Angel Diary this week.
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- Janusz Janusz Apr 19, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
- Well done! Blessed by a Squid Angel :)
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- BusyQueen BusyQueen Mar 14, 2009 @ 1:46 am
- Thanks for sharing your knowledge. It's well done. 5 *****'s and yes very scary.
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- SemperFidelis SemperFidelis Aug 6, 2008 @ 8:22 am
- Yikes! The black death is scary!
Blessed by a Squid Angel today! :)
Colleen ~ www.squidoo.com/squid-angel
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