Impact of the Black Death During the 14th Century - Essay Example

The Impact of the Black Death during the 14th Century During the 14th century the lands of Europe and adjacent regions were infected with a plague that created social, economic and cultural shifts and changes because of the uncontrolled spread of a disease that wiped out significant portions of the population. Social consequences included examining the nature of culture for its sense of sin, the plague being considered a punishment for the direction of social behaviors during the time period. Economic struggles occurred as trade and production slowed to a crawl because of the impact of a diminished population on the development of business potentials. Cultural changes occurred as people had to cope with the consequences of the plague, creating a situation where changes occurred in order to combat the disease through means that reflected beliefs and traditions. The effects of the plague were written about through firsthand accounts of its devastating effects by Henry Knighton. He relates that in one day 1312 persons died from the disease. In relating the devastating effects of the disease in regard to how the affects reached farther than just human mortality, he reports that the sheep populations were also affected, creating a sense of the expanding ripples of effects that spread throughout all of human existence as the disease became an enemy to fight against and try to prevail. Knighton reports that the Scots believed that the disease was a condemnation of the English who seemed to have caused the wrath of God. However, soon the disease reached the Scottish shores and five thousand Scots were dead from the disease.1 One of the prominent theories on how the disease began its travels across the known world was through the use of a disease as a biological weapon. Allegedly, the Mongols during their siege of Caffa in Crimea hurled dead bodies, rotting with disease, into the holds of their enemies.2 From there, the disease began to proliferate and travel through trade routes as individuals and vermin carried the disease. A key understanding was made during the development of the plague in regard to the epistemology of disease control. According to Walsh, “Global shipping traffic has long served as a conduit for disease.3 The plague was spread through maritime routes, the rats on board the ships carrying fleas that transmitted the plague.4 While full understanding of how disease was spread was not understood, it was understood how this disease was traveling from place to place, but finding a way to contain the disease was not as easily grasped. In Venice, however, ships were quarantined in order to prevent the spread into the city, but this was not successful and even Venice eventually fell to the disease.5 It was during the period of time of the Black Plague that the term quarantine was coined in regard to efforts to contain the spread of the disease.6 The impact of the plague was harsh, quick and severe, impacting regions through decimations of populations that significantly changed the course of human development in the Western world. As an example, the art world was detrimentally affected as both artists and clients of artists were lost, thus changing the landscape. The first half of the 14th century had seen a great deal of activity, the world of art beginning to experience an expansion in style which was halted during the first breakout of the plague in 1348 and again in 1361. Central Italy was the core of the explosion in art advancement, but during this time it was stalled as it was also one of the worst areas hit by the plague.7 Death became personified in many of the works of the period, stalking the population through imagery that suggested that there was an intent behind the spread of the disease as it ravaged populations and spread across continents. A preoccupation with death is visibly evident in the artwork of the period as well as the literature.8 It can be said that it was during this time that death became known as a cruel specter in the human experience.9 It was not only the art world that lost much of its potential, but the academic world as well. According to Severy, two thirds of the academic population of the period at Oxford was lost, losing potential minds that could have contributed to the general knowledge of the period and for the future. In understanding the loss of the time period, it must be considered that the plague stalled the overall advancement of knowledge and creativity. This means the cultural development changed during this time sent in a completely different direction than might have been experienced. The example of the art world as it became focused on the personification of death is an example of how an impact such as catastrophic disease can change how the social discourse is continued and how it is stalled. The fourteenth century began with some difficulties in regard to economic stability. During 1310s and 1320s, crops had failed throughout England with repeated problems in agricultural production creating an atmosphere of starvation and death that already began a trend of mortality that was at a high level. From the poor crop production of those periods areas lost as much as 15% of their male populations and even higher rates of more vulnerable demographics.10 This occurred before the plague swept through the regions, thus the lands were already trying to recover and were vulnerable when the disease began to spread. The 14th century was also a time in which the emergence of the market system as it exists today began to rise as the primary form of economic interaction. Where the fiefdom system was declining, the development of t a solid market system provided for a more generalized use of the assets of the realms rather than depending primarily on only one support pyramid in which a single leader was at the top and the benefits tricked down through the symbiotic relationship that was developed through that leader. He was supported in favor of an extorted relationship in which he provided protection for those under him and they provided for him through their labors. This system was replaced by the theories of the market as it was put into perspective with global economies of the period.11 The economic consequences were far reaching as the system suffered from the dwindling population. The population of England was decreased from somewhere between 4 to 6 million down to 3 million, hitting every demographic and class so that the interdependence of the feudal system lost its stability, a phenomenon that was seen across Europe during the period of illness and epidemic. As a result, events such as the Peasants Revolt of 1381 were the consequence of a poll tax that imposed a tax on each person within a fiefdom. While laborers could charge more for their services because of the loss in their numbers, this put an undue burden on the economy that struggled under decreased property values, higher costs, and the loss of skilled artisans to perform the necessary functions for village life.12 There is speculation that the far reaching economic effects were experienced for as long as 200 years after the plague had ended.13 The relationship between the devastation of the fiefdoms cannot be denied as a part of the demise of that system in favor of a trade system began to emerge. As the artisans, crafts persons, and populations that were combined to make up a fiefdom world begin to dwindle, so too did the way in which the culture of feudal Europe begin to crumble under the weight of death and disassembling of the nature of the way in which the formation of cultural connectivity was created. Culture was changing, the life that was defined by having an earthly lord shifting to the power of commerce. Through the decimation of the population, the gaps in each micro economic system could be filled through the interactions of people with each other in relationship to trade. Rather than each feudal system needing its own craft people, an individual craft person could service a larger population. While a craft often was defined by a community, the loyalty to the overlord was no longer as necessary. This lead to the development of the concept of ‘state’ where there was a government that was not made up of individual governments over land, but over a territory and a people in a larger scale.14 Therefore, there can be a specific connection between the plague and the emergence of a new cultural belief system that would eventually lead to the rise of the individual and the importance of the individual. The devastation that was developed through the puncturing of populations, the losses that meant that populations could no longer support a feudal system would lead to a new way of looking at the position of the individual within the system. As the Renaissance progressed, the new system of trade would continue to grow, leading directly into the Enlightenment where the philosophy of the individual was developed, and into the industrial revolution in which capitalism would eventually be the result. Through the deaths of all those people, the nature of cultural beliefs and traditions were changed, the path set on a new course of beliefs that would revolutionize the world in thought and ideological thinking in regard to what being a person could mean. The emergence of the individual led to the development of a belief system that supported the importance of that individual. In looking at the history critically, the development of the specter of Death, the personification of the idea of the demise of an individual, may have had some connection to the rise of the individual as important. Death is an individual experience, even if it is felt by the entire community as the loss may have an impact on the production that the individual represented. One may wonder if the death of so many brought into focus the importance of the one, the individual suddenly emerging as independent from those who he or she would have previously owed fealty. Culture changed dramatically as a result of the plague, the way in which people considered themselves within their world changed irrevocably. As shown by the writings of Henry Knighton, the devastation of the plague was almost complete.15 The populations were decimated, crying out for the emergence of a completely new type of culture in which the importance of one was more than the importance of the whole. When a system is built on dependence, the chain is weaker and more vulnerable, thus when the population is damaged, the chain can be broken. Where individuals rule as the primary focus of economic stability as it is centered on the family, rather than an extended networks, the stability of an economy is not devastated by individual losses. The irony of the rise of the individual is that it is a counterbalance to the needs of the collective identity that was lost during the plague. Economic stability was the driving force behind the changes from the philosophical importance of loyalty to a collective to the philosophical importance of being singular in the economic landscape. The plague decimated the regions that it infected, sometimes taking out entire villages. Change had to come as a result. Through the growth of overall knowledge about how people interact, a system was changed and the world changed as a result. The social implications of the rise of such a disease was such as to support an understanding that life would change. Works Cited Baragli, Sandra. European Art of the Fourteenth Century. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006. Print. Grant, R G. History of Britain & Ireland: The Definitive Visual Guide. London: DK, 2011. Print. Heymann, David L, Thomson Prentice, and Lina T. Reinders. The World Health Report 2007: A Safer Future : Global Public Health Security in the 21st Century. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2007. Print. Knighton, Henry. The Impact of the Black Death, 1348-1350. Kishlansky, Mark. Meridians: Sources in World History. Pearson Custom Pub, 2006. Print. Lessem, Ronnie, and Alexander Schieffer. Integral Economics: Releasing the Economic Genius of Your Society. Farnham, Surrey, England: Gower Pub, 2010. Print. Prescott, Andrew, and Elizabeth M. Hallam. The British Inheritance: A Treasury of Historic Documents. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Print. Purpura, Philip P. Terrorism and Homeland Security: An Introduction with Applications. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007. Print. Severy, Melvin L. Gillette's Social Redemption: A Review of World-Wide Conditions As They Exist To-Day Offering an Entirely New Suggestion for the Remedy of the Evils They Exhibit. Boston: H.B. Turner & Co, 1907. Print. Walsh, Patrick J. Oceans and Human Health. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008. Print. Read More