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The bubonic plague, or as it is more familiarly known, The Black Death, swept through Europe in the mid 14-century. The epidemic is said to have killed off 25 to 50 percent of the European population between 1347 and 1351. The debilitating disease took only three to five days to kill an untreated victim. The plague had negative, social effects on Europe, being a contributing factor to the cause of the Peasants' Rebellion, as well as serious Economic hardships among Europeans. The bubonic plague is " an acute infection in humans and various species of rodents, cause by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium transmitted by fleas that have fed on the blood of infected rodents, usually rats." (Microsoft Bookshelf 98). The epidemic got its name from the black spots that appeared on the bodies of its victims. Symptoms included high fever, and swelling of the lymph glands. The pneumonic plague, a relative of the bubonic plague, attacked the lungs, after healthy humans breathed in the airborne virus from the waste of those infected with the disease. Both forms brought death within a few days. The Black Death was carried to Europe from the Middle East by rats on merchant vessels. Arrivin
The morality figures for the Black Death will never be known. Although marriage and birth rates increased after the plague, recurrent plagues never allowed population to recover to pre-plague levels. The social and economic repercussions of the epidemic were catastrophic. The plague is known world wide, and will be remembered as one of the worst epidemics in history. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Socially, the Black Death started a heretic and a religious movement among medieval Europe. A given "40% of England's clergy dies in the years 1348-1350." (Bond Men Made Free, Hilton, R.H., 1973, p.113). This left the churches understaffed, and caused the hurried recruiting of lesser, under-experienced priests. There were the frenzied Flagellants , who roamed the countryside, physically punishing themselves, thinking this could keep the plague at bay. Citizens accused their Jewish neighbours of poisoning the drinking wells, and pogroms directed against them occurred in Rhineland and Switzerland. Hysterical charges of witchcraft, heresy, and sorcery were brought against unpopular people. The art and literature of the period te
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