The Black Death
The two faiths, Christianity and Islamic, approach the black death in
similar ways religiously, medically, and in dealing with the Jews. Religiously the
faiths saw the plague as a curse. The Muslims thought of the black plague as a
blessing from god.
(Document 4, 6, 8) the Muslims and the Christians have their own opinions
of what they think the Black Death is. The Christians refer to the Black Death as a
curse because of the sins that they have made in the past or the present. The
Muslims refer the Black Death as a blessing/gift. What shall we do? King Jesus,
receive the souls of the death, averts your gaze from our sins and blot out all our
iniquities. We know that whatever we suffer is the just reward
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Pre-plague population of Europe: 75,000,000
Population of Europe in 1351: 51,160,000
Mortality rate: 31%
The Black Death mortality estimates for the Middle East from selected Egyptian
and Syrian sources
Pre-plague Egyptian population: 4 to 8,000,000
Pre-plague Syrian population: 1,200,000
Death rate of Egyptian population: 25 to 33%
Death rate of Syrian population: 33%
The mortality in Siena (Italy) began in May (1348) in was a cruel and horrible
thing. There was so much pain and sorrow in the plague times. The signs of the
black plague were very horrifying and disturbing, the signs are swelling beneath
their armpits and in their groins, and they will fall over while talking. They would
die immediately as soon as they got it. It’s awful how the Muslims thought of the
Black Death as a blessing. The plague was so bad that there ditches were full of
dead people. There was so many people that died they believed it was the end of the
world.
Document (7, 8) in document 7 they claimed the Jews were guilty of this
crime. The Jews were burnt in many a lieu and death in this dread form. The
1347 and 1351 Black Death disease medicine was so not advanced doctors converted to astrology and superstition to try to explain the disease medicine they could provide were herbs and bloodletting for plagues sanitation and antibiotics and sulfa drugs social system of integrity and commitment based on land possession herbs, bloodletting, antibiotics, and sulfa drugs doctors don’t give patients medicine to their patient if the moon is in a negative sign jews were accused of poisoning wells then were put to death wore robes of silk with fur trim wanted large fees gave attention to diet, body health, mental standpoint came to patients on horseback would remove cataracts with a silver needle fix a mangled face with skin transplant
This Primary Source is an excerpt from "The Cremation of Strasbourg Jewry, St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1349—About the Great Plague and the Burning of the Jews" This document talks about how the Jews were blamed for the spread of the plague by putting poisons into water and wells. Because of this it was decided that all Jews would be burned to death and none would be allowed to enter specific cities for 200 years. Our primary source gives us an idea of what people thought started the plague. Many people blamed the Jews saying that they had killed christ and that they poisoned the water and the wells with the plague. The Black Plague allowed a new wave of Anti-Semitism to spread through Europe.
The Black Death The Black Death was tragically devastating to the European Society, it affected many people. The Black Death is exactly what it sounds like. The Bubonic Plague (The Black Death) spread in Italy in the spring of 1348. The Black Death is a disease carried by bacteria, which is carried by fleas, on to rats, who pass it on to humans.
Therefore, the medicine and treatments that people received for the Black Death were more based upon prayer and miracles, for example, a fifteenth century Italian medical book suggests that plague victims should make a good death through their last rites rather than treating their body . This would have meant that victims would have accepted their fate and exposed themselves to other people, such as the priest that would come to administer their last rites, meaning that the more contagious part of the disease, the pneumonic plague, would have been passed on to more and more people. However, whilst some of the medicines had no use, others did help to prevent the spread of the disease and, while no one had any idea why, some people did survive being infected due to some of the treatments. Lancing the Black Death’s famous buboes was one such treatment .
People began attacking the Jews with pogroms, burning them at stake or exiling them from the country. On August twenty fourth, 1349, the largest Jewish community in Europe found in Mainz was killed with six thousand Jews being executed (Wein, The Black Death). Some Jews were taken in, tortured and forced to falsely accuse others. By 1351 there were no Jews left in Germany or Southern Europe. Those that survived the Black Death were either murdered or forced to escape to Poland or Russia.
An image created by Givoennni Srcambihas, a pharmacist in the 14th Century, shows the intensity that the Black Death hit Europe with. In his image, an Angel of Death appears to be shooting arrows to everyone in sight; The author uses this angel to represent how the plague would kill anyone in its path (Document 3). This image accurately represented what was going on in Europe during these times. The amount of lives lost was so severe that Europe ended up losing around one-third of their population. As seen in the chart “Estimated Long Term Impact on Population of Europe”, in 1345 there were around 83 million people.
The Black Death ravaged over 20 million people in China, India, Persia, Syria and Egypt during the early 1340’s. Most of these people were in Europe; this was over ⅓ of the population at the time (“BLACK PLAGUE”). This was the First Pandemic of the Bubonic Plague, killing far more than any Pandemic to follow it. Given the knowledge of medicine and science during this era, the Black Plague spread like wildfire, and caused many hideous symptoms which led to several ineffective treatments. Luckily, scientists and doctors worked together to create a cure, and while the Bubonic Plague does still infect people to this day, the wave that killed countless Europeans died out by 1400 (“IN THE WAKE OF THE PLAGUE:
Often as a result of overpopulation, pandemics—like swine flu and ebola, for instance—have affected life on Earth for centuries; one of the most well-known, and possibly the most unforgiving epidemics was the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death . Although the first symptoms of the Plague trace back to the Mongol Empire in 1331, the disease first struck Europe in Venice and Genoa during the winter of 1348. In the following years, the Bubonic Plague spread rapidly throughout Europe, killing roughly a third of its population. It is suggested that the rapid spread and extreme severity of the Black Death was partially due to the weakened immune system of the Europeans, which had been caused by the Great Famine, a period of food scarcity that affected Europe from 1315 to 1322. Additionally, the lack of knowledge about the spread of
The Christians and Muslims were both struck by the Black Death. I will be answering the question “How different were Christian and Muslim responses.” I will also be writing the Christian response. Next, I will be writing about the Muslim response. Finally I will be writing about the Jewish reformation and the scientific inquiry.
They believed the resurrection would come, and that means the deserving dead would resurrect, on this day everyone prayed. Some of the Muslim society at this time would have considered the Black Death an apocalypse. (DBQ: The Black Death, 2010) The Black Death was a tragic, scary time for everyone who lived in it, But the responses from the Muslims and the Christians were much different. The plague ended in 1351, as a result of the plague the people fasted for 3 days, afterward assembling in the Great mosque, and spent the night there in prayers.
The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black death is a disease that ravaged Europe in the 14th century. The disease seemed incurable and spread like wildfire. The effects were devastating as roughly one third of Europe’s population is thought to have been lost along with countless Jewish people as the subject of blame. The origin of the Bubonic Plague was Central Asia but it made its way to Europe through trade ships. Fleas, the source of the disease, were on the rats carried over by these ships.
The Christians claimed that the Jews were “poisoning food, wells and streams,” as a way to eliminate the Christians and become the dominate religion in Europe (Cohn 3). As a result of this, Jews were taken and “tortured into confessions, rounded up in city squares or their synagogues, and
Thus, began the persecution of the Jews which involved burning all those accused, no matter age or gender. The last document however, states that the blaming of Jews was wrong and that they could not have possibly done such a heinous crime. The sickness had affected everyone regardless of who they were. The documents show and describe the Black Death and how it happened in many ways.
During the mid-fourteenth century, a plague hit Europe. Initially spreading through rats and subsequently fleas, it killed at least one-third of the population of Europe and continued intermittently until the 18th century. There was no known cure at the time, and the bacteria spread very quickly and would kill an infected person within two days, which led to structural public policies, religious, and medical changes in Europe. The plague had an enormous social effect, killing much of the population and encouraging new health reforms, it also had religious effects by attracting the attention of the Catholic Church, and lastly, it affected the trade around Europe, limiting the transportation of goods. As a response to the plague that took place
Muslims did not believe in the idea of ordinal sin. They did not believe humanity had committed a great act of sin, and therefore they did not believe that God created the Black Death as a means of punishment. Muslims viewed the Black Death as more of a natural disaster in which God did not try to prevent. Additionally, Muslims believed that the Black Death served as a martyrdom for those individuals who were truly committed to their faith. Ibn al-Wardi, of Aleppo, Syria states in an essay on the Report of the Pestilence “When a Muslim endures misfortune, then patience is in his worship.”