All the conditions were right for an epidemic. Doctors were powerless against infectious disease. People were weakened by war and harvest failures. Germs, the fleas which carried them, and the rats which carried the fleas, flourished in the dirty towns. Busy trade routes carried the plague from one place to another.
The plague arrived at Melcombe Regis in Dorset in June 1348 and it spread throughout the south of England. In 1349 it reached Wales, Ireland and the north of England. By 1350, it had made it to Scotland. Estimates suggest as much as half the population died.
The Black Death affected the way people thought about life in many different ways. Some lived lives perceived to be wild or immoral, others fell into deep despair, whilst many chose to accept their fate.
Historians suggest that the Black Death helped to cause a religious movement in the shape of the Lollards, the end of the feudal system and the Peasants' Revolt.
You may wish to study the facts of Medicine through time, and to compare the Black Death to the Plague of 1665.
Causes of the Black Death
Poor medical knowledge. Medieval doctors did not understand disease, and had limited ability to prevent or cure it. So, when the plague came, doctors were powerless to stop it.
Causes of the Black Death
Poor public health. Medieval towns had no system of drains, sewers or rubbish collections. In such dirty conditions, rats lived and germs could grow.
Causes of the Black Death
Bad harvests. After 1300, there was climate change and harvests failed. Also, during the Hundred Years' War armies used a tactic called 'chevauchée' where soldiers roamed around destroying houses and crops so it is possible that, when the plague hit, people were not as healthy and strong as they could have been.
Causes of the Black Death
Global trade. By the later Middle Ages, merchants were trading world-wide. One route took silk and spices from China to Baghdad, and from there to the Crimea in the Black Sea, where the goods were bought by Italian merchants for sale all over Europe. Many historians believe that the plague originated in China, and followed the trade routes.
Causes of the Black Death
Rats. Most historians believe that the Black Death was caused by strains of the bubonic plague. The plague lived in fleas which lived on black rats. They gave the disease to the rats. When the rats died, the fleas hopped off onto humans.
Causes of the Black Death
Victims of the Black Death from 1349. The Black Death (1348 - 1350) had killed many people which meant there was a shortage of workers and wages went up.
Medieval European medicine was very different from our modern concept of medicine. There was no knowledge of germs, and only relatively basic tools to diagnose and treat illness. Much of medicine was, at best, based on ancient Roman and Greek ideas of the 'humours'. The ideal was to balance specific fluids known as 'black bile', 'yellow bile', blood and phlegm (the fluids made by your ear, nose and throat). To be in a bad or good humour was evidence of how healthy you were! Other doctors would release "evil spirits" by trepanning (drilling a hole in your head to release them). In this context it is not surprising that the causes listed below emerged.
Medieval doctors were not certain what caused the plague, but believed it could be the result of:
the movements of the planets
a punishment from God
bad smells and corrupt air
enemies who had poisoned the wells
staring at a victim
wearing pointed shoes
strangers to villages too were blamed
The spread of the Black Death
The Plague
The bubonic plague was a painful disease, with black buboes or swellings, in the groin and armpits, which lasted up to a week. There was some chance of surviving if the buboes burst. If the buboes burst of their own accord it was a sign that the victim might recover.
Explanation:
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