Explain The Major Problems That Affected The Population Of The Fourteenth Century

In the wake of the fourteenth century, Europe and the world experienced one of its biggest pandemics. Over the preceding centuries, Europe had undergone significant agricultural, economic and religious developments. However, the 400 years between 1000 and 1400 saw a rapid increment in population and the onset of war as people scrambled for scarce resources from 75 to close to 210 million. Also, it was accompanied by religious scandals. It led to widespread unsustainability, causing pollution, plague-like diseases and turmoil in the affected regions. The image below shows the areas that were affected.

There was The Great Famine of 1315. It was a series of large scale crises that struck Northern Europe early in the fourteenth century from 1315 until 1322. It extended as far as Russia to Italy. The famine caused millions of deaths over the years and wipe out all of the growth and prosperity that was left from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. The Great Famine started out with bad weather in the spring of 1315 which causes global crop failures that lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did not fully recover from the famine until 1322. The fourteenth century was curse with crime, disease, mass death and even cannibalism and infanticide and ruin European society.

"The Black Death" alone was not the only factor that was responsible for the social and economic change although it was the most important (Ziegler 234). Even without "The Black Death" continued deterioration in Europe would have been likely. The social and economic change had already set in well before 1346. For at least twenty-five years before "The Black Death," exports, agricultural production, and the area of cultivated land had all been shrinking. "The Black Death" contributed a large part to all of this destruction and led to important changes in the social and economic structure of the country (Ziegler 234-235). The plague touched every aspect of social life (Herlihy 19). There was hardly a generation that was not affected by the plague (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Families were set against each other - the well rejecting the sick (www.byu.edu). Families left each other in fear. Many people died without anyone looking after them. When the plague appeared in a house, frightened people abandoned the house and fled to another (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). Due to this, the plague spread more rapidly because people were not aware that being in the same house with the infected person had already exposed them to it. Physicians could not be found because they had also died. Physicians who could be found wanted large sums of money before they entered the house (www.jefferson.village.virginia.edu). When the

Among three devastating events of the fourteenth century, I consider the Black Death(Plague) had the most pronounced impact on the course of medieval history. Although, other two events were also left an impact on the course of medieval history, but there is no such comparison to the black Plague. The changing climate and poor harvests which lead to famine, malnourishment, and death was just the beginning of troublous period on Europe’s. Europe was already suffering from famine, but more devastating time has just arrived along with the medieval shipping. Plague first started from china, and soon brought by Genoese ships to Europe, which was the ticking time bomb waiting its own time to burst. It has start spreading throughout many parts of

In the late Middle Ages the worst evil known to man terrorized Europe. People were dropping dead everywhere and there was no place to put them. This vicious culprit was known as the Black Plague. During the 14th century in Europe millions of people died from the plague and the plague brought about great change. Before the plague there was peace and prosperity in the High Middle Ages and after the plague things were different. Historians consider the outbreak of the Black Plague a watershed moment because of great social, religious and economical changes.

Monarchs prohibited exports of food stuff, condemned black market speculators, placed price control on grain, and outlawed large-scale fishing. These all contributed to the continent-wide downward spiral. France was unable to sell grain because of crop failures and shortage of labor. Any grain that could be shipped were taken by pirates and looters. Countries in the Hundred Years War depleted treasures, population, and infrastructure. Malnutrition, poverty, disease, and hunger with war, growing inflation and other economic concerns made Europe in the mid-fourteenth century full of tragedy. The social and economic change greatly accelerated during the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. The church’s power was weakened and some social roles were replaced by secular ones. Peasants began to cause uprisings, such as France, Jacquerie rebellion. The reduction of Europe’s population from thirty-fifty percent could have resulted in higher wages, more land, and more food. Population losses brought economic changes based on increase social mobility and improved the situation for surviving peasants in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, stringency of laws tied the remaining peasant population tightly to the land because it was hardly affected by the Black Death. Peasant revolts were less common in the east and the plague may be partly responsible for Eastern Europe’s lag in scientific and philosophical

The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century will have the greatest impact on the 16th and 17th centuries. The plague caused the European population the drop by 25 to 50 percent, induced movements and many revolts, and prompted changes in urban life. The European population dropped by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351. So, if the European population was 75 million, this would mean the 18.75 to 37.5 million people died in four years. There were also major outbreaks that lasted many years until the end of the 15th century. Mortality figures were incredibly high. As a result, the European population did not begin to recover until the 16th century. It took many generations after that to achieve thirteenth-century levels. The plague induced movements and many revolts in Europe.

As Europe began to modernize, people began to move from rural villages into the crowded urban areas. Because of the rise in population density, disease was able to spread very quickly. When the Black Plague struck these overpopulated cities, many people began to die. Minorities, such as witches, were blamed for the high mortality rate because people did not yet understand bacteria and germs. Not only were witches blamed for the high mortality rate during the Black Plague, they were also blamed for other misfortunes.

Before the Black Death, Europe was already facing difficulties with the growing population. Due to the

In fourteenth-century Europe, the Black Plague disrupted most of European society devastating many. The Black Plague was devastating to European society economically, demographically, and morally. The plague spread as devastatingly as it did because of the continuous spread via trade, and inadequate medical knowledge. One of the major consequences of the plague was anti-Semitism.

The lower class workforce was wiped out. The lower class was most affected because of the way they lived. The social impact that the plague had in Europe was massive. The fourteenth century was brutal, nasty, and short.

Regardless, the decline in population may have simply marked a continuation of what was already happening in Britain as according to Waley demographic growth had come to an end before the Black Death had arrived in Europe and that it merely accentuated an existing trend, due to the severe living conditions at the time as a result of poor sanitation and the Great Famine of 1315-17.

The 14th Century was characterized by death and destruction in Europe. The Bubonic Plague had a devastating impact on European society because of its unprecedented nature, the immediate effect the disease had on the people of Europe, and the long-term effects on the continent. When the Bubonic Plague erupted, most Europeans had no idea what to think. Nothing like this disease had ever happened to them before, and there was very little knowledge about how to handle the ever-worsening situation. In his book The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio explained that “No human wisdom or foresight had any value” when it came to the quickly-spreading disease (Doc 2.)

In the 1300s, Europe was thriving with new innovations and huge cities that covered the country. Most of Europe was urban and very crowd with a population of 50,000 (“Middle Ages”). The 1300s was a period known as the Middle Ages, which represents the time where the Roman Empire and the Constantinople fell. During this time around 1350, infectious disease was spreading through the streets of Europe. Approximately, 20 million people died in Europe from the plague, which is roughly around one-third of the population (“Black Plague”). The Black Plague affected European civilization and how European society viewed the world. The renaissance is a prime example of how the Black Plague affected Europe. The Black Plague helped influence people

The Great Plague killed nearly half of the European population during the fourteenth century. A plague is a widespread illness. The Illness was also known as the “Black Death”. Most of the European people believed the plague was the beginning of the end of the world. They were scarcely equipped and unready for what was to be entailed. It was by far one of the worst epidemics yet to be seen in those times.