The Black Death caused as much emotional, economic, and physical turmoil as any crisis in European history. Most people thought it was much more than just a disease; it was God’s way of punishing them.

An obvious effect of the Black Death was the major decline in population. Because the

The main reason the plague spread so rapidly was because the people in the era were not aware of where the plague had originated or how it was transmitted. When they fled the area, traveling to other cities, they brought the disease with them. The European society was unsanitary and the people had poor personal hygiene. The Black Death rapidly spread to the north, particularly impacting London, Florence, Vienna, and Avignon. Historians estimate that in some cities, nearly 80-90 percent of the population was killed off (Cantor 2001).

As some people lost faith in God, others practiced more elaborate and intense religious exercises. Another shift was the focus on the body of Christ. People had “Corpus Christ festivals and processions in the late medieval towns and countryside (Cantor 2001).

After the outbreak of the plague, European art became more “religious” and “less humanistic” (Cantor 2001). Authors, poets, and doctors wrote about their ideas on the cause and effects of the black plague. One of the most well known pieces of literature was Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, which told stories of the wealthy, prestigious people as they fled the cities, hoping to escape the disease. Historians are now pondering the idea of whether or not the Italian Renaissance was a result of biomedical trauma. “Perhaps the Black Death weakened the faith in traditional medieval Catholic spirituality and set off a quest for a deeper naturalistic understanding of human psychology and behavior and the expression of a more personal sensibility”

A group of fanatics, called Flagellants, were convinced that the plague was God’s way of punishing them. They marched through cities, taking the sins upon themselves, looking for worldwide repentance, as they whipped each other. In some areas they became more popular than the priests and clergy.

The medical field was not very knowledgeable or advanced during that time. The government hired medical workers to attempt to contain the plague and cure those who were already infected. However, due to lack of treatment, medical knowledge, and experience, these attempts failed.

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