1. Natural Disasters of the 14th Century
The Great Famine ( ) The Black Death ( )

2. 14th Century Disasters: Human and Natural
Avignon Papacy
Great Schism
Hundred Years War
Great Famine
Black Death

3. Consequences Europe experiences tremendous strains
Become aware of new vulnerabilities
Famine and plague cause millions of deaths
Many challenge old institutions
Many more doubt traditional values
Calamities altered the path of European development

4. The Great Famine of 1315
800 to 1300 AD - the total production of Europe had increased steadily
local food shortages - people did die of starvation
standard of living in Western Europe had risen even while the population had steadily increased

5. 14th century
the population so large that the land could provide enough resources only under the best of conditions
no margin for crop failures or harvest shortfalls
climate underwent a slight change, cooler and wetter summers and earlier autumn storms
Wet spring 1315, 1316, 1317

6. Consequences Europeans malnourished
10-15% die of pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and other sicknesses
Fewer mouths to feed
Nobles and peasants alike suffer
Recovery begins by 1325

7. What Fairy Tales Suggest
The Mouse Tower of Bingen
Hansel and Gretel

8. An Essay on Population Thomas Malthus (1766-1834),
Arithmetic vs geometric increase
the population of a region will eventually increase until there are not sufficient resources to support it

9. The Black Death of
revival of commerce and trade = more movement of people
merchants travelled to regions from which they could bring both profitable wares and contagious disease
hot water a luxury and personal hygiene substandard

10. The Course of the Black Death

11. The Disease transmitted primarily by fleas and rats three forms:
bubonic [infection of the lymph system 60% fatal]
pneumonic [respiratory infection -- about 100% fatal]
septicaemic [infection of the blood and probably 100% fatal]

12. Impact on the Church
Church can’t protect Christians from the ravages of the plague
The Avignon Papacy “The Babylonian Captivity”
The Great Schism
Conciliarism
Councils of Pisa (1409) and Constance(1415)

13. Personal Paths Brethren of the Common Life Mystics Reforming Princes
Heretics
Wycliffe who’s protected
Jan Huss who’s NOT

14. Images and Rhymes
Ring around the rosie, A pocketful of posie, Ashes, ashes All fall down!
The disease finally played out in Scandinavia in about 1351 [see Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal], but another wave of the disease came in 1365 and several times after that until -- for some unknown reason -- the Black Death weakened and was replaced by waves of typhoid fever, typhus, or cholera. Europe continued to experience regular waves of such mortality until the mid-19th century. Although bubonic plague is still endemic in many areas, including New Mexico in the American Southwest. it does not spread as did the Black Death of

15.   "How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world! The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth."
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

16. The Effects of the Plague
new attitudes toward death, the value of life, and of one's self
growth of class conflict
loss of respect for the Church
emergence of a new pietism (personal spirituality)
new cultural vigor in Europe
national languages, rather than Latin, were the vehicle of expression
Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron,