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Wiping out over half of Europe's population, the Black Death in the Medieval ages was was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.

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The bubonic plague, often known as the 'Black Death' was a devastating disease that, in the 1300's, killed over half the population of Europe. People who suffered from the disease got terrible black boils that popped up on their body, and sometimes victims' lungs were filled with blood from the disease.

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How did it start? Where did it spread to?

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How did it start? Where did it spread to?

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Merchant ships unloaded in Sicily and accidentally gave Sicily citizens the plague in the supposed form of infected fleas on rats. The disease spread up into Italy, then France and Spain, up towards Germany and England, and even to the Baltic states. Italy, Germany and France were completely under the devastating blanket of plague.

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The Black Death was something that the world did not easily recover from. With all the social and economic effects following the disease, European society didn't go back to normal for a long time, as far as economy and population. Half of the people in the region died, that's not an occurrence the government or society knows how to immediately deal with.

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The gruesome and gory aspects of history have always been of interest to me personally, so the Black Death was something that especially caught my attention in class.

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Contrary to popular belief, it was likely the disease was spread by people, person to person rather than by rats. It’s easier to explain if the disease spread by people, because it would be faster than rats.

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If your front door was marked with the letter X, it meant death was inside. If one person in a house was contaminated, the whole house was put into quarantine, basically sentencing everyone inside to a painful death. "Even one person in a household showing plague-like symptoms was enough to mandate a 40-day quarantine for the whole home — a virtual death sentence for everyone living in it." (

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During the age of the Black Death, people thought the world was in it's last phase, and was soon to end in an inevitable cataclysm and the arrival of the Antichrist. People believed the plague was spread through contaminated air. The Black Death epidemic ended without apocalyptic incident, of course, but some consider the real apocalypse to be the pandemic itself.

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A gathering of plague doctors

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Doctors would go into people's houses to inspect for signs of the plague, and issue quarantine if they found probable cause to. The long ‘beak’ mask they wore was filled with herbs, sweet oils and flowers to attempt to ward off the disease. The hat was easily identifiable, and used to shield them from bacteria. The red glass eyes were meant to keep the ‘evil’ of the disease away from the doctor. The overcoat neckline was tucked behind the mask to not risk skin exposure. The coat was floor length and often covered in wax to keep the coat from being stained by body fluids of the diseased. Leather pants protected the doctors legs from disease exposure. The cane was used to direct people where to go without direct contact.

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During this dark period, a lot of the art featured skeletons and other aspects of death.

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Death strangles a victim of the Black Death (1376)

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Death strangles a victim of the Black Death (1376)

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Death was often personified in art, looking gruesome and corpse-like.

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The black death killed 50 to 60% of the population of Europe, old and young, rich and poor.
Many people left land unattended and crops unharvested to get away from the disease. This caused the prices of agricultural goods to rise, since there was less crops and products available, so they were more valuable.
To some people, half the population dying was of great benefit. "Survivors benefited from the redistribution of victims' wealth, eventually stoking demand and production." (Byrne, J.P., 2000). When the infected eventually died, everything they owned was sold or given away to others, causing an inflation. The prices of goods went up, since it was harder to safely make things.

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Since there was no known cure to the horrible disease at the time, one solution for getting rid of victims of the black death was to simply expel them from the city, getting them away from anyone they could contaminate.