Social Effects Of The Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating diseases in human history. The disease spread fast and covered the territory from China to England and the western part of Europe, covering almost all of Europe within several years. The disease was mysterious to Medieval people, the medicine back in the day was underdeveloped to fight such a disease as the Black Death, which was thought to be a plague. The development and spread of the disease was fast and started the depopulation of Europe. At the same time, the Black Death had not only a devastating population impact but also the disease had a terrible economic impact on Europe as well as other countries in the world and, an the disease contributed to the consistent change of social relations, …show more content…
Along with these people, the Church was also severely affected. Before the Black Death occurred, the Church throughout Europe had nearly absolute power. But, once the plague hit, corruption became unwelcomed that people were less willing to follow law. The people blamed God for the occurrence of the plague and they thought it was a punishment of their sins. Rapidly, the Church began to suffer. Before the plague, the Church had thousands of followers,and when the plague started, the people strayed from the Church and blamed them for the plague,and since the church had no explanation for the outrage, so the people were infuriated. The people thought of the Church as omniscient, so when the priests and bishops could not give them the answers they wanted, the Church began losing spiritual authority over its …show more content…
The immediate consequence of the Black Death was a massive reduction of the population; however, the plague also had a lot of long term effects. Many of the scholarly people of the time died. This would lead to a decline in colleges and many were destroyed. In addition, a decline in trade happend because people were fearful to trade goods with a country that was infected with the plague. All of these factors contributed to Europe’s period of reduced prosperity. During the middle ages, the plague was known as all destroying. One third of a country's population cannot be eliminated over a period of three years without considerable dislocation to its’ economy, Church life, and family life. Through these losses, Europe’s social structure and altered medieval society