Life During the Black Death

            In 1346 a disease, later described as a calamitous disease, swept through Europe. Those who survived this plague benefited from an improved standard of living. Damaged farms were abandoned, and a more diversified agriculture developed. Also the birthrate increased and new universities were built to educate the post-plague generation.

            The Black Death lasted from 1346 to 1353, perhaps beginning in the area between the Black and Caspian seas. Nicephorus Gregoras, a Byzantine scholar, called it a “pestilential disease.” He also named its symptoms, “signs indicating early death, were tumorous outgrowths at the roots of thighs and arms, and simultaneously bleeding ulcerations.” Later many historians believed that the plague was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which is the same organism that causes outbreaks today. Soon the plague would reach the Middle East, the North African coast, and Europe. Of all the areas infected, France and the Low Countries were hit the hardest. Fleas that were carrying the disease rode on the back of rats and also on boats that was carrying spices, silks, and porcelain.

            In the Italian city of Pistoia, the government decided that no one could leave the city and go to nearby Pisa or Lucca; also people from those cities were not allowed to enter Pistoia. The government basically set up a quarantine. They also declared that butchers and retailers of meat could not stable horses and mud or dung was not allowed in the store where they sell meat. The archbishop of York in England ordered that devout procession be on every Wednesday and Friday. Some men and women would travel from city to city to churches, where they would undress themselves and whip one another on the floor of the church.

            The people who survived the Black Death’s wrath benefited because there was a smaller population to feed, so less land was needed for farming. Farm lands that were abandoned were returned to pastures, meadows, or forests. Barely became the more profitable crop and some landlords switched from farming to animal husbandry. Peasants and urban workers were able to get better conditions or higher wages from their landlords or employers. With more money to spend people could afford a better diet that included beer and meat. Before the Black Death about seventeen couples per year would get married in Givry, a small town in Burgundy. After the plague, on average forty-seven couples there got married each year. With better jobs people wedded at an earlier age. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV chartered a university at Prague, the king of Poland founded Cracow University, and a Habsburg duke created a university at Vienna. They were left with a large amount of wealth and they wanted to be known as patrons of education, so they built new universities.