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Laborers began to demand a wage for their efforts, which led to the rise of a money-based economy as opposed to the earlier land-based economy (middle-ages.org).
Europeans in the middle ages tended to be superstitious in their religious beliefs. As they searched for something or someone to blame for the wrath of the plague, all of their praying and blind faith did not protect them from being infected.
Comets, earthquakes, astrological configurations and the sin of humankind were all examined as possible causes. Interestingly, as Christians watched as their cardinals, bishops, priests and other clergy fall dead, just as vulnerable as anyone else, the religious strength of the feudal structure began to decline, as well. It is thought that these events may have ignited the Protestant Reformation (Uretsky). Johannes Nohl, in his vivid chronicles of the black plague, sums up its effects on feudalism, saying:
The experience incorporated in these graphic representations is the equality of all men in the face of death, an experience of all the greater import as, not only did it shake the foundations of the rigid system of mediaeval castes, but produced the consciousness of the equality...
if, prior to this, the higher estimation of the great had been successfully sustained by the ostentatious show of their obsequies and the innumerable masses said for their souls, the deception now failed. Even bishops and prelates frequently remained unburied and their corpses became the food of dogs, and more essential elements than external power and position began to assume the first place in the estimation of man.
Works Cited
Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. 2006 World Almanac Education Group History.com
Kelly, John the Great Mortality Harper Collins, New York: 2005.
Middle-ages.org. www.middle-ages.org.uk/decline-of-feudalism.htm
Nohl, Johannes the Black Death, a chronicle of the Plauge Compiled from Contemporary sources, Unwin Books, London: 1926.
Ucalgary.com "The end of Europe's middle ages" Feudal Institutions.
A www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/feudal.html
Uretsky, Samuel D. Plague! A history of the effect of epidemics, the (in)famous black death www.medhunters.com/articles/epidemics.html
Works Cited
Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. 2006 World Almanac Education Group History.com
Kelly, John the Great Mortality Harper Collins, New York: 2005.
Middle-ages.org. www.middle-ages.org.uk/decline-of-feudalism.htm
Nohl, Johannes the Black Death, a chronicle of the Plauge Compiled from Contemporary sources, Unwin Books, London: 1926.
..To speak to or go near the sick brought infection and a common death... To touch the clothes (which) the sick had touched or worn gave the disease to the person touching" (Williams, 167). This description is quite accurate, yet even well-educated and enlightened Boccaccio himself did not know how the plague was spread from one person to another. It is also true that the plague bacillus could be spread
This suffering was not exclusive to the lower classes with all social groups being affected. Outbreaks of bubonic plague were a regular feature of the Medieval Period though never as severe. Those who survived the plague were compelled to adjust to a new social and economic reality. Such a multitude of people had perished that a severe shortage of labor ensued which improved wages and living conditions for urban
Black Death in 14th Century Europe Pivot Point In History causes and effects in history 20/20 HISTORICAL HINDSIGHT The Black Death of the middle 14th Century in Europe was a major pivot point in History. Three ways it was a turning point can be seen through social hierarchy, the Roman Catholic Church and Medicine. Social hierarchy, the Church and Medicine were all different before the Black Death, they all failed during the Black Death,
One of the most significant economic consequences affected the feudal system in that "whole villages vanished in the wake of the plague" (Craig 430). As death struck every area of life that meant that there would less people to take care of every day business and an increased need for physicians. The labor supply decreased while wages for labor increased. Many serfs replaced their "labor services with money payments
As feudalism altered, it changed many other aspects of change and social standing. A historian notes, "As you move away from feudalism, the lord stops eating with everybody and goes to a private chamber and eats with his family, creating the beginnings of family life as opposed to courtly life. And houses change to reflect that the halls shrink and eventually disappear" (Sargent 2007, 114). There were slightly greater
Black Death and Religion in Western Europe The Black Death is perhaps considered as the most devastating pandemic that has happened to humanity in the previous to the present century. The disease was transmitted from Asia into and through Europe. The disease set feet in Europe by the sea in October of 1347 when trading ships belonging to Genoese set their dock at the Silician Port of Messina when it