The Black Death was one of the deadliest plagues in history. It started out in Asia and spread to Europe. It lasted three years from 1347 to 1350, and killed 2/3 of Europe's population. Even though the Black Death was very bad, it also had some positive effects on society. The Black Death had an effect on society because it changed future medicine, the way economics worked in Europe, and it impacted how people acted. One way the Black Death had an effect on society, was that it helped with future medicine. Doctors had no idea about germs. Microscopes were not invented for another couple hundred years (Lecture Notes). If microscopes were invented during their time, doctors would have …show more content…
One way people acted different was that they made a group called the flagellants. The flagellants were religious people who would go from town to town, going crazy through the streets whipping themselves. They would do this action to prove to God that they were sorry for all of their sins, and hope he would end the Black Death (Lecture Notes). This epidemic made people go crazy to do anything to try and stop it, because they thought the world was coming to an end. Another way people acted different was that they blamed the Jews for the plague. They said that they put poison in the water and wells. They then tortured the Jews and burned them in many towns. The real reason people now think the Jews were blamed was because they were known as the “money lenders” and people didn’t want to have to pay them back (Black Death DBQ’s).Their treatment shows a change in how people acted because they blamed other religions because they had no other explanation for how the Black Death occurred. “Father abandoned child, wife/husband, one brother another for this illness seemed to strike through breath and sight” (Agnolo Di Tura). Families abandoned each other because they didn’t want to get the plague. This was a change in how people acted because they were so scared of getting the Black Death, that they abandoned their own family. The Black Death was so awful that it had an impact on how people acted, such as people …show more content…
Even though this was a horrible event, it had many positives as well, as you can see. The economic changes to the towns during the plague were very helpful in some ways, but were negative in others. During the Black Death many people left their families, so they wouldn’t get the plague. In conclusion, the Black Death was the one of the worst epidemics in the history of the