1. The Black Death

2. The Culprits

3. The Famine of
By 1300 Europeans were farming almost all the land they could cultivate.
A population crisis developed.
Climate changes produced three years of crop failures.
As many as 15% of the peasants in some villages died.
One consequence of starvation & poverty was susceptibility to disease.

4. 1347: Plague Reaches Constantinople!

5. Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.
The Symptoms
Bulbous
Septicemic Form: almost 100% mortality rate.

6. From the Toggenburg Bible, 1411

7. Lancing a Buboe

8. The Disease Cycle Human is infected!
Flea drinks rat blood that carries the bacteria.
Bacteria
multiply in
flea’s gut.
Human is infected!
Flea’s gut clogged with bacteria.
Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into human wound.

9. Medieval Art & the Plague
Bring out your dead!

10. The Danse Macabre

11. Boccaccio in The Decameron
“The victims ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors.”

12. A Morbid Children’s Nursery Rhyme
“Ring Around the Roses;
Pocket Full of Posies;
Ashes, Ashes (Achoo, Achoo) We All Fall Down.”

14. Attempts to Stop the Plague
“Leeching”
A Doctor’s Robe

15. Attempts to Stop the Plague
Flagellanti: Self-inflicted “penance” for our sins!

16. Attempts to Stop the Plague
Pograms against the Jews
“Golden Circle” obligatory badge
“Jew” hat

17. Death Triumphant !: A Major Artistic Theme

18. The Mortality Rate
35% - 70%
25,000,000 dead !!!

19. What were the political, economic, and social effects of the Black Death??