The Black Death

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The Black Death
1347 - 1351
Ms. Susan M. PojerHorace Greeley HS
Chappaqua, NY
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The Disease Cycle
Flea drinks rat blood that carries the
bacteria.
Bacteria multiply in fleas gut.
Human is infected!
Fleas gut cloggedwith bacteria.
Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into
human wound.
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The Culprits
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The Famine of 1315-1317

• By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the
  land they could cultivate.
• A population crisis developed.
• Climate changes in Europe produced three years of
  crop failures between 1315-17 because of
  excessive rain.
• As many as 15 of the peasants in some English
  villages died.
• One consequence ofstarvation povertywas
  susceptibility todisease.

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1347 Plague Reaches Constantinople!
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The Symptoms
Bulbous
Septicemic Formalmost 100 mortality rate.
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From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411
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Lancing a Buboe
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Medieval Art the Plague
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Medieval Art the Plague
Bring out your dead!
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Medieval Art the Plague
An obsession with death.
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Boccaccio in The Decameron
The victims ate lunch with their friends and
dinner with their ancestors.
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The Danse Macabre
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(No Transcript)
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Leeching
A Doctors Robe
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
FlagellantiSelf-inflicted penance for our
sins!
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Attempts to Stop the Plague
Pogroms against the Jews
Golden Circle obligatory badge
Jew hat
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Death Triumphant !A Major Artistic Theme
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A Little Macabre Ditty
A sickly season, the merchant said,The town I
left was filled with dead,and everywhere these
queer red fliescrawled upon the corpses
eyes,eating them away.Fair make you sick,
the merchant said,They crawled upon the wine
and bread.Pale priests with oil and
books,bulging eyes and crazy looks,dropping
like the flies.
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A Little Macabre Ditty (2)
I had to laugh, the merchant said,The doctors
purged, and dosed, and bledAnd proved through
solemn disputationThe cause lay in some
constellation.Then they began to die.First
they sneezed, the merchant said,And then they
turned the brightest red,Begged for water, then
fell back.With bulging eyes and face turned
black,they waited for the flies.
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A Little Macabre Ditty (3)
I came away, the merchant said,You cant do
business with the dead.So Ive come here to ply
my trade.Youll find this to be a fine brocade
And then he sneezed.!
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The Mortality Rate
35 - 70
25,000,000 dead !!!
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What were thepolitical,economic,and social
effectsof the Black Death??
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Political

• Upheaval in society, in part, led to a series of
  conflicts known as the Hundred Years War

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Economic/Social

• Labor shortages resulting in a rise in the price
  of labor
• Population decline led to a depressed or stable
  demand for agricultural produce resulting in
  declining prices
• Aristocratic incomes fell by more than 20
• Accelerated the process of converting labor
  services to rents weakening the system of
  manoralism

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Economic/Social(continued)

• Peasants revolts in France, England, and Italy
• France the Jacquerie Revolt- Ultimately crushed
  as the aristocrats closed ranks
• England Peasants Revolt of 1381 prompted when
  the monarch attempted to impose a poll tax.
  Peasants refused payment. Revolt led by John Ball
  and Wat Tyler. Revolt ended when King Richard II
  agreed to meet their demands if they returned
  home. He reneged but the tax was eventually
  repealed.
• Italy the Revolt of the Ciompi wool workers in
  Florence won the right to form guilds and be
  represented in government.

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Economic/Social(continued)

• The three peasant revolts all
• sometimes resulted in short term gains
• were quickly crushed
• Lost all progress that may have been gained
  during the revolts