INTRODUCTION
Europe before the plague, commonly
known as the Black Death, was a place of social advancement and urbanization.
Particularly important during this period from 1200 to 1400 was Italy, where
the seeds of the Renaissance were sown. Before the Black Death swept through
and decimated populations and slowed the progress of all of Europe, Europeans,
especially in Northern Italy, were enjoying a period of growth not seen since
the Roman Empire.
Those who benefited most during this
period were the artisans and merchants. In Florence, merchants collected church
taxes. This led merchants to form banks. One such family – the Medici family –
did so well in the 14th century that their descendent Cosimo de’
Medici was later able to take control of the city from the merchant oligarchy
that was ruling. The engine behind the forward progress of the merchant class
in Florence was wool. Wool became one of the two most important manufactured
products that Europe could sell in foreign markets. The wool merchants were
important figures in Florence, and at the peak of the 14th century
up to half of the city’s population were involved. The city itself was enclosed
in a series of walls, the last ring being completed between 1284 and 1333.
These walls provided protection, but they also increased density; more people
lived closer together, making the spread of disease more rapid and deadly.
Shipbuilding was to Venice as wool was
to Florence. In Venice, the merchants lived well like their Florentine
counterparts, except that they made their money through shipbuilding. When
Venice gained independence from the Byzantine Empire around the year 1000,
Venice achieved the freedom to further expand. Like wool in Florence, Venice
shipbuilding required the hands of many trades. In Venice’s arsenale, or “Arsenal”, artificial pools
connected by canals that led to open sea were created to build and house ships.
Here, carpenters, sail-makers, caulkers, and designers all worked together to
make ships efficiently. As a trading port, Venice brought in all kinds of goods
and then sent those goods throughout Europe, creating a perfect route for the
plague to follow throughout Europe when it struck in 1348.
The century before the Black Death
struck in 1348, Europe, especially North Italy, saw great growth. However, this
growth also caused greater urbanization, which facilitated the spread of the
plague. Venice, although a great trading city, proved deadly when the plague
broke out, for the very same ships spreading wealth and goods through Europe
also spread the plague.
Andrew Conley
THE ECONOMIC EFFECT
OF THE PLAGUE
In
the fourteenth century the Black Death spread across Europe devastating the
populations of western civilisation both urban and rural. Estimates give the
death toll as ranging between 18 to 50 million people depending on different
historical and modern scientific sources. This would be approximately 30-60% of
the population. Disaster of this epic scale affected all Europeans of this age
and severely affected the advances made in the Renaissance era..
Such
a massive and rapid death toll most certainly caused there to be an incredible vacuum
in both the workforce and the economic marketplace. Suddenly, workers and their
goods would be in much higher demand. Effects would be wages rising, also prices
rising rapidly, while evidence exists to suggest rents lowered as demand
decreased in urban centres especially. Evidence supporting this can be found in
contemporary sources.
With
such a profound shortage of labour and skilled workers there were abandoned and
uncultivated lands. Fewer lands being worked for food production meant that
there would be less produce to sell at markets creating a higher demand than
supply and therefore rapid inflation. However, the common rural person in
agrarian communities did not get their food from market, they ate what they
grew, so any food they were able to sell would make them that much more money
arguably lessening yet not avoiding the economic impact felt in urban centres.
Richard
Holland
THE SEVERITY OF THE
BLACK DEATH
Most
commonly known as bubonic, it would cause dangerous swellings called “buboes”. It was transferred by fleas to rats and then
to humans. It originated in Asia where large sums of people were killed, and
brought over to Sicily in 1347 when merchant travelers brought infected rats
with their ship.
The
infection could spread one of two ways.
1.
Septacaemic: or infected by the blood,
death results in a few hours.
2.
Pneumonic: spread via the air, death
results in a few days.
The
Plague hit the cities the hardest, however when it came to the county side it
did major damage as the population was already weakened by famine. Children and
the Elderly were the greatest impacted. It
lasted generations from 1347-1720.
CHART OF DRAMATIC
POPULATION DECREASE
City
|
Population
Before Plague
|
Population
After Plague
|
Florence
|
100,000
|
30,000
|
Venice
|
120,000
|
84,00
|
Bolongna
|
54,000
|
34,000
|
Padua
|
38,000
|
18,000
|
Pisa
|
50,000
|
10,000
|
“In
thirteen hundred and forty-eight of a hundred, there lived but eight”
Jade
Popper
 |
| The picture is drawn by an Artist named Gilles Le Muisit. He was an artist and a painter during the time when black death has spread. The picture shows people burying people who died from Black Death. |
Social Impacts of the Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating events in history, resulting in millions of deaths across Europe. With the death of up to 50% of the population in cities and in rural areas there is a large impact on social areas of the region.The first major impact was when the plague first broke out and everyone needed someone to blame. Due to its incredible rate of expansion, no one could work out exactly what was causing the plague, and many people blamed it on God’s anger or one of many natural phenomenons, like earthquakes. Many speculated that the Jews were also involved in poisoning the water, and as such they persecuted them heavily, ending in many Jewish deaths in an attempt to stop the plague.
As well as this persecution, the Church was seen to weaken. This was caused from a few different reasons, the major one being that priests were not able to help the sick, and therefore the power of god was questioned. The church also tended towards keeping itself apart from the general populace after the realising that there was nothing to prevent the plague. This led to the people seeing the church as weak, and turning their backs on the world.
After the plague decimated the population of Europe there was a much smaller available workforce and a lot of spare land, so this allowed for higher wages and for more of the common people to own their own land. Because of this trend landlords were forced more often to use freedom to buy the services of the peasants in their service. Overall it caused a complete reversal in power across Europe as the peasants were now required to work in an effort to reconstruct what Europe had been.
James Muus
Blog question: "The
Black Death 'choked' the ideas of the Renaissance, do you agree?"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe black death did indeed 'choke' the ideas of the renaissance. The renaissance was a period when fast tracked developments in arts, literature, philosophy, music, art, early natural sciences, and theology (a revival and transcendence on the classical works) were prominent. Urbanisation and commercial activities were also blooming. Arguably, all these blooming developments were forming the early modern ideology of 'progress' and 'advancement' - that things get better with the help of the natural sciences and human effort. The black death certainly put a dent in these ideas as it rapidly killed through the general population and diminished the 'progressive' idea - that things can get better (maybe God was angry with this idea?) and the decline of the economic state (increased wages, decreased rents, abandoned farm lands etc). The black death abruptly hindered the renaissance period as what it could have been.
ReplyDeleteThe Black Death definitely ‘choked’ the ideas of the Renaissance as Europe saw a great number of its population die from disease. At a time when European society was flourishing, the Black Death effectively caused the ideas on art, architecture, literature and music; among countless others, to be halted in their tracks. At a time when religious faith served as fundamental to the people of Europe, the Black Death saw faith being removed from the people as the very people who were supposed to help them overcome the plague were themselves succumbing to it. As the Renaissance was seen as a great social advancement and period of urbanisation, the Black Death successfully slowed down the progress that Europe had been making towards advancement. Although this growth can be seen as a way to expand progress, it proved to be its downfall however as travelling merchants who had explored the East were the most likely transmitters of the disease. In towns full of wealthy and successful merchants, this proved to be excessively deadly.
ReplyDeleteyes, to an extent; the massive population decrease as a result of the Black Plague was majorly detrimental to the differing guilds/artisans/merchants etc, especially in seaside cities like Venice, whose own trade/merchant ships helped to spread the disease.
ReplyDeleteThe prosperous mercantilist economy of Italy during the fourteenth century allowed for a rapid growth in population, wealth and artistic prestige. Such a thriving condition seemed to give birth to the characteristics one now associates with the Renaissance, all of which were, for the most part, fueled by humans. In this sense, the Black Plague halted and 'choked' the ideas of the Renaissance, with the mass death it created and spread across Europe, all manner of people were effected and therefore all areas of development.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly does seem that the Black Death hampered the beginnings of a Renaissance when it broke out in 1348. However, to say that the ideas leading to the Renaissance were actually choked is perhaps to exaggerate the situation.
ReplyDeleteWhat could be called the beginnings of a Renaissance was indisputably apparent in both Venice and Florence leading up to the fateful year 1348. As this week’s presenters have indicated, Florence was thriving off a banking and wool-based economy, while Venice’s maritime economy was also flourishing. In the context of these urbanized city states, new ideas and cultures flourished: the Jurists and the Secretaries raised fundamental questions about the self and religion and how these things fit in the new republican environments; and Dante, Giotto, Boccaccio and Petrarch were all incredibly innovative, in their own ways, in terms of the thinking and culture of the time.
King suggests that the arrival of the Black Death ‘interrupted, but did not choke off’, the ideas generated by the movements and individuals listed above. Indeed, the evidence she gives is quite convincing in supporting this. King observes that the visual arts experienced no revival comparable to that of Giotto until around 1400; and that literature similarly took until 1390 to begin evolving again. Yet the fact that literary thought continued to focus on humanism, which was apparently a keystone to Renaissance thought, surely suggests that the humanist ideas pre-Plague were not choked off but rather were temporarily limited in their growth.
I agree that the Black Death, seems to have played a part in interrupting the Renaissance. There was a period of growth leading to a Renaissance in Europe until the start of the Black Death, also known as the Plague. During this time Urbanisation, trade and many of the arts were expanding. The Black Death resulted in millions of deaths across Europe, a large decrease in the population. It became the major focus of the people, rather than developing new ideas. People stopped working together, some even blamed the church or each other.
ReplyDeleteI think that without a doubt the plague 'choked' the ideas of the Renaissance...pretty much because Europe's population - all the merchants, scholars etc- was plunged into this period of darkness, where sickness dominated the normal routines/life of everyone. After the first bout of plague, the remaining people of Europe tried to return to the life they had before the plague, but after such a disaster, this was difficult (trade had fallen through, prices escalated dramatically etc.)
ReplyDeleteThis is from Anna Southwell:
ReplyDeleteIt is almost certain that the Black Death would have impeded Europe’s cultural development to some degree, if only because the confronting death tolls would have meant that at least a few educated intellectuals would have died who might otherwise have contributed new ideas and perspectives. However, the Black Death did not entirely ‘choke’ the ideas of the Renaissance. Survivors of the Renaissance included Giovanni Boccaccio, who would become a hugely important writer on a range of topics. These topics included humanism, a characteristically Renaissance cultural movement that valorised the contributions of classical Greece and Rome and encouraged the perception that humans (or at least men) were virtuous, strong creatures that could control their destinies at least to some degree. This was in contrast to the Medieval depictions of Christ and other figures, which emphasised the weakness, vulnerability and fragility of mortal humans.