Black Death

Impact of Black Death

Introduction

The Black Death refers to the pandemic that struck Europe in the fourteenth century and peaked between 1347 and 1353, estimated that it was the cause of death of 25 million people (about one third of the continent's population at that time). There are several theories about the origin of the plague: the most accepted by the scientific community says that it was an outbreak caused by a variant of the bacterium Yesinia pests, however, the above question for lack of medical evidence and historical. It is common that the word “plague "is used as a synonym of "Black Death", although this stems from the Latin pests, i.e. disease or epidemic, and the pathogen (Cohn, 2002).

According to current knowledge, the pandemic broke out first in Asia, and then proceeds through Europe trade routes. Introduced by sailors, the epidemic began in Messina. While some areas were depopulated, others were free of disease or were only slightly affected. In Florence, only a fifth of its inhabitants survived. In the present territory of Germany, an estimated one in ten people lost their lives because of the Black Death. Hamburg, Cologne and Bremen were the cities where a greater proportion of the population died. However, the number of deaths in East Germany was much lower.

The social consequences of the Black Death came very far away quickly accused the Jews as the cause of the epidemic through intoxication and poisoning wells. Consequently, in many parts of Europe, began pogroms Jews and local extinction of Jewish communities. Although spiritual and secular leaders tried to prevent this situation, the lack of authority because of the unrest, which in turn was a consequence of the severity of the epidemic, generally those not allowed succeeding.

Impact of Black Death

The plague had important economic, social and religious:

Labor became scarce and its cost increased, especially in agriculture. Many villages were abandoned, the poorer land returned to fallow and forests developed;

landowners ferrets forced to make concessions to keep (or get) the workforce, which ended in the disappearance of serfdom;

the cities turned into deserts one after the other, the medicine of the time with neither the knowledge nor the capacity to curb the epidemics;

property tax revenues collapsed following the fall of royalty rates and rising wages;

groups of flagellants were formed, trying to atone for sins, before the Apocalypse , they thought the plague was a warning sign;

the Jews, Gypsies (and Travelers ) and another tribe commonly known as the hypocrites , by the people ...