The Black Death In Europe

If there was ever a catastrophe worse than a war, then that would be epidemics, particularly the one that ravaged all of a continent and killed much more than half of its population. There is only one epidemic that fits that category, and that is the Black Death. As one could take from the name, the Black Death was not a pleasant time for residents in Europe in the 1300s. Life in Europe during the Black Plague was a life fraught with constant death, pandemonium, devastation, persecution, and a collapsing economy. It was not for a very long time that the residents of Europe, as well as even other locations, could rest easy after the final breath of the Black Death. "The Black Death" is the epithet for the outbreak of the bubonic plague. The …show more content…
Both the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea at the time held multiple major ports. (Woodville, KhanAcademy.org) Also not only was it Europe that was suffering from this mass manslaughter by disease, but also Northern Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The disease was able to spread so far and thrive for so long is attributed to the bacteria not entirely being an airborne disease. It was able to thrive in cold weather, so when the wintertime came, the pace was slowed, but it continued to spread. Spread of the epidemic was greater than it was because of the greater population growth, and with a greater population came greater population density, so with more people within one area, travel of the bubonic plague was no hard task. To that end, Iceland and Finland were able to escape the plague as they were two of the more isolated countries of the age, having minimal contact with outside transportation, and they had smaller populations. (Benedictow, …show more content…
People began to persecute minority groups such as the lepers and the Romani. However, the worst of the persecutions went to the Jewish people. People began to notice that the Jewish morality rate was lower than other groups of people, and thus used the Jewish people as scapegoats for bringing the calamity to Europe. They theorized that the Jewish people had poisoned the water wells. (Wein, jewishhistory.org) The low morality rate is contributed to by the fact that the Jewish kept better hygienic practices they followed for religious purposes (Whipps, livescience.com) ,and lived in more isolated communities. The papacy attempted to protect the Jewish population, issuing statements saying that the persecution of these people would not stop the plague. (Wein,