The Black Plague Historical Analysis

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The end of the middle ages was characterized by a series of tragedies, including the Black Death and the 100 Years War. The disasters caused a shift away from the authority of the church and a more brutal type of warfare, respectively. This will paper will show a fundamental shift in social thinking during the tragedies the ravaged Europe. The Black Plague ravaged Europe, killing close to a third of its population in its wrath. When there is such a deadly disease, everyone wants to find the reasoning or a scapegoat as to why this is happening. While, we know today, it was caused by fleas that were carried on diseased rats. Without modern medicine, there is no way that they could have come to this conclusion. A major theme of the Middle …show more content…
Technology changed from the traditional knights in shining armor that engaged in close combat, to the development of ranged warfare. The change helped push medieval warfare to the types of warfare that we see today. For almost the entire war, Europe was the dominant power because they were fighting to win and not to be honorable. They used a long bow that allowed them to kill multiple people from a long distance without having to engage in close combat. Jean Froissart, a writer during the time of the 100 Years War, described the use of a long bow during the battle of Crecy as a “mass of arrows that was so thick that it seemed like snow” (Howarth, 69). The long bow allowed the English soldiers to quickly aim and fire their arrows, in an extremely deadly manor, while the French still relied on a close combat type of warfare. The long bow edged off 16 French lines during the Battle of Crecy. It looked as though England was going to win the war, coming from a large disadvantage in size and in money. Eventually, the French abandoned close combat, and started to adapt the cannon, allowing them to fight back, from a longer distance and caused more destruction. At this point, the idea of a knight in shining armor was abandoned, and the true brutalities of war were …show more content…
There was no longer honor in being a soldier that walked up to an army and killed them by a sword. Instead, war was dominated by the new forms of technology, like cannons. It did not matter who loaded the cannon, who shot the cannon, and who was killed by the cannon. There was no longer a target, but instead killings of a mass amount of people. The Spartans often said that they did not use arrows, because they are weak, and that was an idea that was adapted with many ancient armies, but now, war is about winning, not about being honorable. The English fought to win since the start of the 100 Years War. They did not care about who they killed, how they killed them, or if they were honorable at the end of the war, but instead they wanted to come out on top. The French on the other hand, did not embody the “we are fighting to win” personality until the end of the war. Instead, the French wanted to fight or die with honor. When their mentality was causing them to lose, they had to change it, and that’s what led them to adapt the cannon. While war was already starting to lose its “romantic” essence, the 100 Years war and the evident change from short to long range warfare, pushed romanticism almost completely out of
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