Black Plague DBQ

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Effects of the Black Plague on Medieval Europe

Imagine 1/3 of the population just wiped out by a disease unknown to many people. This actually happened in 1347 in Europe and Asia, it was called the Black plague. The Black Plague was an awful disease that killed many people in Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages. People had no idea what it was and what the cause was and it lead to several predictions. The black plague is a disease that is transferred to people from fleas that jump off of plague infected rats. Once it is in a human it can be transferred from a person to another person through the air. In medieval Europe the Black plague had an effect on the social structure, religious structure and economics structure. The Black plague
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Religion was a big thing for people back then. They believed that god was punishing them for their sins. Furthermore, Leonard believes that people were losing hope, he says, “Faith in religion decreased after the plague, both because of the death of so many of the clergy and because of the failure of prayer to prevent sickness and death” (Doc 6). People were finding comfort in praying, but their prayers were not being answered. They were starting to believe that god doesn’t fix everything.

Finally, the Black plague affected the economic structure in Europe. Since people were dying there were more jobs but less production. The economy was going down and prices were going up. For example, Elizabeth Ellis and Anthony Esler researched that lords were losing money, they say, “Since it was so difficult to gain goods through trade and to produce them, the prices of both goods produced locally and those imported from foreign lands skyrocketed” (Doc 9). Many serfs were finding jobs, but everything was so much more expensive. Economy was really poor at this time because of this terrible disease. In conclusion, in a 3 year period the plague killed nearly 1/3 of the entire population of Europe and it had many effects. Europe was affected by the plague socially, religiously and economically. It had such an effect because it was an unknown disease with no cure. Many times in life the unknown is what scares us and affects us