A.P European History DBQ: The Plague
The Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague, was a devastating pandemic, which affected Europe from as early as the middle fourteenth century to some outbreaks of the disease as late as the eighteenth century. Killing about one third of the western European population, the plague caused substantial change in the world’s economy and society. People throughout Europe and the rest of the world reacted to these drastic changes in different ways, with their own views contrasting and supporting each other, but with the main fear being that of spreading the plague even more.
The economy of Europe suffered extreme devastation during this time. A French author, Nicholas Versoris of the early sixteenth century, wrote about the loss of the working class from the plague. The rich upper class fled, leaving the poor to perish. The working class was practically wiped out with no one able or willing to work and no one left to work for. Count Henrich von Staden, a traveler to Russia later that century, and Daniel Defoe, of the same period, saw first hand the actions people and their governments had taken to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague. Von Staden saw throughout the country, houses boarded up and quarantined and guarded highways and roads. Almost all travel was banned to avoid the spread of the disease. Many people confined to their homes starved to death whether they had the plague or not and had to be buried there immediately. Defoe wrote in a private journal about the virtual halting of trade in Europe. The nations of Europe avoided all those that were afflicted with the plague. Foreign exportation and later the general trade in manufactured goods was slowed almost to a stop. The responses to the plague in Europe resulted in a great economic crash as trade and the movement of people was stopped.
The plague influenced the social aspect of life significantly for many Europeans. A Dutch schoolmaster of the late fifteenth century and Nicholas Versoris of the early sixteenth century, both primary sources, watched as people fled the nations of pestilence. The schoolmaster experienced the loss of twenty boys from the plague and saw as many others were driven away from his school from the fear of catching the disease. The nobles and other upper class Europeans fled from fear as well, which, in addition, left few wage earners and merchants. The balance of social classes shifted leaving mostly peasants in the plague stricken states. Heirs to family fortunes or possessions went to drastic measures to gain wealth during the outbreaks of plague. Johann Weyer, a German physician during the late sixteenth century saw as these people paid others to smear a dangerous ointment on town gates, which would spread the plague and allow heirs to gain their inheritances sooner. Fear of the plague proved to be behind all actions done during the early waves of the Black Death, and greatly changed the social structure of Europe.
Over time, the actions of people change. This proved to be true during the plague as Europeans’ fear began to dwindle. Father Dragoni of the early seventeenth century and Sir John Reresby, an English traveler of the middle seventeenth century, both illustrated the change of people’s actions in their writings. Father Dragoni showed that faith proved to be stronger than fear in his compassion towards those afflicted with the plague. He cared for, and hired guards and gravediggers to tend to the living and the dead with money from the church. He proclaimed that God had showed him to do good during these times. Reresby also wrote of bravery to do what he felt was right. Reresby, along with other travelers set out to go to Rome and to see the beauty of the city even though the plague was violent there. While fear did still exist during the later periods of the Black Death, change was occurring. People’s determination and faith empowered them to break the tradition that had become so widely accepted and began to travel to areas with the plague.
The Black Death brought about many changes in the lives of the Europeans. Trade and the balance of social classes faltered while people died horrible deaths. Fear of the plague remained severely strong until the seventeenth century, when Europe began to show signs of change. The plague proved to play a major role in the history of Europe and the rest of the world.
