Medieval Black Death

Question 1

Dates for Medieval Black Death

Answer 1

1346-1353

Question 2

Medieval Climate Anomaly

Answer 2

• unprecedented warmth from 9c-13c, creates expansion

Question 3

How did trade in Mediterranean cities impact Plague (2)

Answer 3

• Venice, Pisa, Genoa, cleaned of Pirates, allowing there to be widespread trade
• Long distance trade = spread from the east

Question 4

Late 13c contraction (7)

Answer 4

• Failure of Crusades: fall of Acre (last stronghold) and arrest of Templars (for being essentially evil magicians)
• economic downturn
• taxation not adjusted for growth, leading to overtaxation and aggravation
• endemic war (100 years war from 1336)
• Over population
• Great Famine of 1315-1322
• agricultural stagnation

Question 5

Climate Anomaly of 1340s and 1350s

Answer 5

• culmination of 100 years of cooling
• worst growth year worldwide was 1346 (poor harvests, famine and flooding in Egypt)
• coincides with movement of wild rodents

Question 6

Seige of Kaffa

Answer 6

• 1345-1346
• outbreak of plague with the Mongols
• flung dead bodies into Kaffa (likely didn’t do anything)
• returned home to Genoa via Constantinople

Question 7

Who was most at risk according to Paris? (4)

Answer 7

• hot, wet bodies
• too much exercise or bathing
• the weak, thin and fearful
• women and children

Question 8

What did Dr Gentile da Foglio suggest?

Answer 8

• 1348
• stay away from lettuce and fish, must eat fine food and drink measured in quantity
• purging and bleeding
• needed expensive theriacs (differentiated rich and poor)

Question 9

Dr. Jacme d’Agramont of Lérida (6)

Answer 9

• 1348
• if Plague spreads through air there is nothing to be done
• use good fires, rosemary, myrtle
• avoid violent exercise
• abstain from sex
• basically no smelly tings

Question 10

Civic Ordinances of Pistoia

Answer 10

• 1348
• deep graves to reduce stench
• prohibition of bringing in bodies
• butchers cannot inflate meat
• prohibition of tanners

Question 11

Quarantine (Milan)

Answer 11

• biblical precedent
• Pistoia ordinance
• Ragussa: 30 day quarantine for visitors

Question 12

Milan

Answer 12

• 1374
• Anyone with bubo had to leave the city
• parish priests who don’t report the sick are burned

Question 13

Council of Siena

Answer 13

• 1349

- workers taxed more to compensate for higher wages

Question 14

Cortes of Castille

Answer 14

• 1351

- outlaws beggars, individuals must remain in their trade

Question 15

English Statute of Labourers

Answer 15

• 1351

- set salaries and prohibited movement of workers: assize court fines

Question 16

Islam traditions with regard to plague (3)

Answer 16

• A muslim should not enter or flee plague stricken lands
• the plague is a martyrdom for the Muslim, punishment for the infidel
• contagion does not exist

Question 17

Plague Treatise of Egyptian Ibn Hajar Plague treatise

Answer 17

• references OT plagues
• plague is martyrdom for Muslims
• miasma doesn’t account for the inconsistent spreading of the plague
• recommends prayer to lift the epidemic

Question 18

Ibn Kathir

Answer 18

• 1350-51

- public penitence with Muslims, Jews, Christians.

Question 19

Ibn Al Wardi

Answer 19

Asks for forgiveness for the transgressions that led to the plague

Question 20

Ibn Al-Khatib

Answer 20

• 1349-52

- talks about contamination, saying that contaminated cloths, earrings –> plague

Question 21

Evil Jinns and Magical Remedies (2)

Answer 21

• healing verses in Qu’aran

- write ‘life’ on house 18 times a day

Question 22

Messina (4)

Answer 22

1347

• residents tried to steal relic from Catania when plague arrived
• demonic dogs appeared
• barefoot procession to return it

Question 23

Other reasons for the plague (superstition) (3)

Answer 23

• women’s dress
• tournaments where women dress as men
• sins of the clergy

Question 24

St Roch of Montpellier

Answer 24

• went on pilgrimage to Rome

- ministered to the sick there and got ill, but recovered

Question 25

Scapegoating (5)

Answer 25

• Jews were blamed
• crusade massacres 1096
• host desecration in Paris
• expulsions
• poisoning wells

Question 26

Who died first in the plague?

Answer 26

the poor. nobility survived more, royalty died off even less

• 20-100% death rates in some English towns
• Landless died off more

Question 27

How are the death in England calculated?

Answer 27

heriots

Question 28

How did the clergy die off?

Answer 28

lower class priests die off more, bishops even less

Question 29

Which gender was more vulnerable in the first pestilence?

Answer 29

women

Question 30

Which gender was more vulnerable in the second pestilence? how was this figured out?

Answer 30

men

more widow were inheriting land

Question 31

Unsolved problems of the plague (2)

Answer 31

• it moved too fast (.62) miles per day (maybe more mammalian carriers)
• degree of virulence (illness and malnourishment were common in those who died)

Question 32

Economic consequences

Answer 32

• end of feudalism
• Malthusian theory: population was rebalanced
• workers’ renaissance (wages went up, rise in English peasant holdings, rich lost ground)
• brief boom for women (contract work) but downturn in 15c

Question 33

new cultural obsessions with death (4)

Answer 33

• momento morii genre of literature
• cult of suffering
• transis
• danse macabre

Question 34

Miquel Parets (6)

Answer 34

1651-1654

• uniquely middle class (tanner)
• shows how prepared Barcelona was for the plague
• no sympathy for the poor
• still food shortages, best course of action was flight
• coincides with Spain’s loss of position in the world

Question 35

Why did the bubonic plague decline in Europe? (5)

Answer 35

• 1666 great fire of London
• development of brick houses due to a wood shortage
• black rat lost prominence to the grey rat (which Wass a burrower)
• rise of quarantine?
• mutation of pathogen?