The Great Plague Analysis

Europe, already dealing with struggles such as the Great Famine, was bombarded again by the Black Plague. The plague was an incredibly fast spreading disease caused by a microbe called Yersinia Pestis. This disease, once contracted, was deadly within two days and caused an excruciating death. It wiped out half of the population of Europe causing major issues among the society. The Black Death was one of the most devastating epidemics to hit Europe, and affected the dynamics of society in many ways. The best way to understand how the Black Death really affected society is to look at the writings and art from that time period. The writings from Jean de Venette express’s how many people felt about the plague during that time and makes it easier

People were celebrating the fact that they had survived and could enjoy life. All of this change in the public view of the church will lead to the downfall of the power of the Catholic Church amongst society. Along with religion and the social standard of society, the Black Plague also affected the European Government and its economy. Europe was already close to being in shambles as stated before, but the Plague brought on a chaos that the government had a hard time handling. Expansion limits were being reached, The Ottomans and Mongols were causing issues disrupting trade, and Europe was nearing a depression. Many of the architectural masterpieces that were already completed and in the process of being completed, halted there and were not completed. Many of the projects were not completed and just left standing, Venette brought this to the public’s attention in his

Customers died, which means that their debt did not get paid back, so it hurt the financial lenders. Guilds died or lost their craftsmen and could not replace them, so the public was out a lot of specialty services that they needed done. With all of the dying public this means that the demand for goods went down and the supply went up, so there was an oversupply of goods with no one to buy them, therefore, the prices were chopped. Along with all of these aspects of society falling apart, there were many groups in society causing issues. One group, the Flagellants, caused a huge uproar amongst the public. They were a group that believed the oublic was being punished by God with the Plague, and they could have their sins forgiven by beating themselves in public. They lashed themselves hoping this would make them safe from the disease, they actually created a large following from the public that had to be taken care of by the government. From class powerpoint presentations, here is a picture of the flagellants. One can see the agony on their faces and the leather whips that they used to inflict major