Black Death

Famine of 1315-1317

By 1300 Europeans farmed all land they could cultivate, made population crisis, climate change caused a lot of rain which caused crop failures, 15% of peasants in some villages died, starvation and poverty

Effects on Europe

1/3 of population died, 25 million died, art and science progress stopped, people were mainly worried about survival

Disease cycle

flea drinks rat blood, bacteria multiply in flea’s gut, gut gets clogged, ?

Toggenburg Bible 1411

Art

revolved around an obsession with death

Attempts to stop the plague

Wearing a doctor’s robe, leeching blood, flagellanti(whip yourself to get rid of sins, because sins were thought to make people sick), pogroms against the Jewish people (persecuting Jewish people, to make them wear hats, badges, and then they would kill them— they were less likely to get sick)

Medicinal revolution in the western world

Alchemy, metals, elixir of life, difficult to mention “A Father of Alchemy”