Mackenzie Perkins
2/5/15
The Black Plague
I found it interesting that rats, sheep goats, pigs and chickens, get the disease just like we do. People thought they could flee to the countryside to escape the sick people in the city, which sounds like something I would do now, but even there it was unavoidable. The bubonic plague became a problem in the 14th century because people were living in over run, dirty, cities. In places where you have a lot of people you also have rats, which means you have fleas and in fleas lived Yersinia Pestis, which does really well in the blood stream. It seems like it would be a good idea to get rid of the rats since they carry the fleas, but surprisingly when I first learned this, when you get rid of the rats the fleas have to go to the humans. The fleas don’t really care much for humans though, so keeping the rats around is actually helpful. No amount of medical knowledge could have helped them when the plague hit.
We now know and understand that the infection had to also be airborne because there is no way for an infection to spread as quickly as it did just through fleas. Religion was affected greatly by this plague, as it always seems to be during times of great uncertainty. In the 14th century the Pope and the Roman Catholic church were in power. When many people started dying, and there was no available medical explanation, the only rationalization people could come up with was that it was judgment from God, because if it wasn’t God’s judgment then it means that the church was failing. This lead to helplessness and ultimately faithlessness, which lead to secularism and radicalism. Although I learned this in the reading, none of it surprises me at all. People always strive for explanations and at the time, they did not have the knowledge or means to understand what was happening.
The Bubonic Plague had many cultural implications. It was believed that the plague originated in Italy due to the ports and sailors, so they kept men on the ship for 40 days while docked. This was the start of the idea of quarantine, however, it did not work because the infected rats on the ships were able to get off since the ship was docked. Also, before leprosy no one was really able to understand that infections/diseases could be spread through contact with an infected person, but the black plague was one of the first times where people who were sick were separated from others. Self worth is a modern concept that just wasn’t prevalent in the 14th century. Back then you were just a farmer, or the son of your father, but once the plague hit many people died and if you knew how to farm you became more valuable as a person and had more intrinsic power/self worth than you did before. This was the beginning of the idea of self worth. It’s funny that the self worth of the average man came about because of a microbe that killed many people. In a way this plague redefined mankind. There was also agricultural growth during this time. Many people prior to this time plowed their fields by hand, but more man power was needed when the plague was killing people, so they began using oxen and cattle and plows to help.