The Reasons Of The Black Death During The 18th Century

For over 300 years between the 15th and 18th century a plague known as the Black Death killed over one third of the population of Europe. Most of the people in the had no idea of why the plague came and killed so many people, so they believed in religious or supernatural reasoning. Everyone came up with their own reasoning for the plague. Some people believed that the plague was caused by an irrational or supernatural reasoning , some believed it was caused by rational reasoning. The people didn’t only show their attitudes toward the plague, most of the people reacted to the plague in a supernatural way like pray to god and others acted in a criminal fashion like stealing and looting the possessions of the weak. Reactions and attitudes toward …show more content…
Nicolas Versoris, an author, wrote in his book Book of Reason that the rich fled to their country houses to save themselves from the plague while the plague killed mostly the peasants who had no money to flee (Document 3). The rich were acting in a selfish manner, while the peasants were mostly acting in a supernatural way, suggesting that the everything was being caused in a supernatural form and that only god can save them. Lisabetta Centenni, a legal housewife and probably a peasant, started to claim in court that she witnessed her husband being saved by the church and power of god because her husband ate a piece of bread that was touched by the body of St. Domenica (Document 7). One should look at this document with caution because it does not seem reliable. The wife is a peasant and most likely has not much of an education, so she might make some irrational claims about her husband. There were many many people and classes that each had their own explanation for the cause of the plague, but there was some people that actually knew the cause of the …show more content…
These people, mostly humanist and scientist, included one important person, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus of Rotterdam, a humanist , wrote in one of his letters in 1512 that the plague was caused by the filth in the streets, the plague was killing so many people because they were so unsanitary (Document 3). There was still another group of people who knew the power of the plague, but did not know what caused it, these were mostly the people who acted in a criminal fashion. John Weyer, a German physician, talks about how people would use the plague to get their inheritance faster by spreading the blood of the infected on the gates of the people, where they later died (Document 4). The document is biased because the physician is talking down on the people that who are said to spread the blood on the house of