A HenryTudor eKit

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The Black Death
Name
A HenryTudor.co.uk Production
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What is the Black Death?
A bacteria-born disease, Yersinia Pestis, carried
in the blood of wild Black rats and the fleas
that lived on the rats. When the rats died, the
fleas searched for another host, when it was a
human being the disease moved to the human
population. Originated in the Far Eastern trading
routes, transferred by ships and sailors. It was
first seen in Messina, Sicily in 1347, a trading
vessel from Caffa came ashore with the disease.
When the disease was found to come from the
shore, the harbour was closed forcing ships to
other ports, this spread the disease further.
The Black Death plague was instrumental in
killing nearly half the population of England
between 1348 and 1350. The population dropped
from 5 million to 3 million, London lost 30,000
of its 70,000 inhabitants where primitive
sanitation aided its spread. Closed communities
like prisons and monasteries were hard hit, over
60 of their populations died. Over 40 of
Englands priests died in the epidemic, their
places taken by under qualified, unscrupulous
applicants who turned the church into an
enterprise and alienated the population thus
accelerating the decline of the churchs power
and helping the move to the English reformation.
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The Symptoms
Fear of the plague lasted for 300 years
The most common form of the plague was the fist
sized swellings in the groin, armpits and neck of
its victims where the fleas bit, these were
called the Buboes, the name of this form of
plague then became Bubonic Plague. The painful
swellings were red at first but soon turned
purple with bruising. The victims died 2 to 6
days later. Other forms were air borne and caused
pneumonia, named Pneumonic Plague , another by
entering the blood stream was called Septicemic
Plague and would kill within a day.
The changes in England
Religious people were so scared of dying without
a priest present that the Pope gave absolution to
whole nations at once. Racial and religious
discrimination began as people looked for someone
to blame. Farms, food production deteriorated,
the surfedom system collapsed, rebellion of
workers began. The Church was never the same, the
people began to mistrust the clergy for not
protecting them.