A turning point

Was the Black Death a turning point in history?

Your challenge is to review the evidence and take a position: Was the Black Death a turning
point in history?
Below is a summary of key changes that occurred in Europe as a result of the Black Death.
Use this information and the information from the earlier lessons on the effects of the Black
Death to complete the barometer task and come to a final decision.

The Church
Medieval people were very religious and reaching Heaven in the afterlife was the ultimate
goal of people. The only way people thought they could achieve salvation and reach Heaven
was to attend Church services (known as mass), pray regularly and obey God’s laws.
Since most people could not read or write, priests, monks and nuns interpreted God’s will
and were responsible for ensuring that the religious practices of the Church were followed.
Only priests could conduct baptisms, weddings and funerals and only priests could say
mass.
Loss of clergy
Many members of the clergy died so there were fewer trained people to say mass or deal
with other religious needs of the people. The Church had to find new priests and this was
difficult.
Quality of new clergy
Many new priests were poorly educated and some were only interested in charging as much
as they could to say mass and conduct other religious services.
Loss of faith in the Church
The Church seemed to have no answer to the plague except to try to account for it as part of
God’s punishment for human wrongdoing. This did not explain, however, why many good
people died. Priests and monks were accused of abandoning their responsibilities and
fleeing. While this left many people disillusioned with the Church, religious faith remained
strong.
Excessive religious fervour
The plague increased the occurrences of extreme religious practices, such as flagellation.
Many people thought that by punishing themselves they would divert God’s anger and
prevent further occurrences of the plague. They punished themselves by whipping
themselves, sometimes until they drew blood. They formed groups, some quite large, and
travelled from town to town whipping themselves in public.
Charity
Less emphasis was placed on formal religion and more on finding one’s own pathways to
salvation. More people seem to have left donations to charities in their wills, probably as a
means of pleasing God with their generosity.

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Medicine
Although physicians received training at universities, their responses to the Black Death
showed how limited their understanding of the disease was. They had no solutions to the
problems of the plague and relied on an array of useless remedies.
New ideas
The death of so many doctors and surgeons as well as teachers of medicine at universities
meant that new people took their places. This eventually led to new ideas. However, the
basic premise on which medicine in the Middle Ages was based did not really change until
the nineteenth century. This was the belief that all health depended on the balance of four
‘humours’ in the human body. The four humours were black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and
blood, all of which were produced by different organs in the human body. Doctors still had no
answers when further outbreaks of plague struck.
Although, in the short term, there remained little understanding of what caused the Black
Death or how to cure it, more emphasis was placed on understanding the human body.
Dissection practices increased in medical schools and more practical courses were
introduced into universities.
Hospitals
One area of medicine that improved was the purpose and management of hospitals. After
the Black Death, hospitals became places where people might hope to be helped and even
cured of illnesses, not places where they were simply left to die. Better hygiene was
implemented as well.
Behaviour of doctors
The Black Death seems to have also encouraged a more ethical approach to medicine. Guy
de Chauliac, a French doctor, wrote down a range of suggested behaviours for doctors and
John of Arderne, an English doctor, added to this. Their advice emphasised the doctor’s
responsibility to live an ethical life and to put the care of the patient first.

Feudal system
Labour
At least one-third of the population of Europe died, which left a huge shortage of labour.
There were not enough people in many parts of Europe to plant and harvest crops. Those
who were left had choices about working, which they had not had before.
Wages
Workers could now ask for money to work the land and, if they were not given what they
wanted, they could find work elsewhere. Wages increased as fewer workers could demand
better wages.
Mobility of labour
More and more people could move from one area to another to find work and gradually the
whole system of being tied to the land of one landlord broke down. Work opportunities were
more flexible and people pursued work in different places.

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Revolt
When the nobility tried to force common people to return to practices of the past, they
became increasingly rebellious and more likely to resist. Revolts broke out in England
(Peasants’ Revolt) and in Europe. Although the Peasants’ Revolt initially failed in England,
within a year the poll tax was withdrawn and within a decade the controls over wages ended.
Serfdom came to an end in England within 100 years. Other parts of Europe did not
experience the same rates of change. Serfdom was not abolished in Western Europe until
the era of the French Revolution (1790s–1820s). In Eastern Europe, serfdom actually
became more restricted. Russia was the last nation in Eastern Europe to abolish serfdom in
1861.
Prices
Although food prices initially dropped, this did not last, and they rose to be higher than they
had been before the Black Death. With the costs of paying workers increasing, the cost of
producing food increased as well. High prices made life difficult even for those being paid
higher wages. Much of their added income was being used to pay for higher food costs.
On the other hand, other goods decreased in price because there were fewer people to buy
the products artisans made. They found it difficult to make a living and often lost their
business.
Land ownership
Demands for higher wages made it difficult for landowners to plant and harvest their crops.
They fell into financial difficulties and often had to sell parts of their estates. In some areas,
whole families died in the plague and estates had no heirs.
Peasant farmers often had the opportunity to buy some of this land and the result was a
gradual increase in the number of small-scale landowners.
Distribution of wealth
Because so many members of individual families died from the plague, there were often only
one or two family members left to inherit the family wealth. Thus individual wealth increased
and gradually a group of quite wealthy people could afford to buy more expensive goods and
could afford to support cultural activities.

Attitudes and behaviour

Violence
Something as horrendous as the Black Death was bound to leave a mark on people’s
psychological outlook. A degree of cynicism became part of the attitude of Europeans and
there was almost a darkness in the way people viewed life. The number of homicides in
England, for example, doubled between 1320–40 and 1349–69.
Morals
Some people abandoned the restrictions of the past and indulged in excessive and immoral
behaviour. The wealth inherited by some because of the death of other family members led
to a focus on material possessions. Those who did not turn to religion with more fervour
threw away all restraints on behaviour and spent their time enjoying whatever they could and
discarding formerly accepted moral rules.

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Intolerance
Some of the hidden consequences of the Black Death can be seen in the hysteria which
overtook people. Many looked to blame someone and the most easily targeted people were
the Jews. The death toll from the plague was less among Jewish communities, probably
because Jews were often confined to their own section of towns and because Jewish law
demanded certain rituals of cleanliness. Jews were seized and burnt to death. Others were
thrown into swamps or marshes and left to drown. Many Jewish communities ceased to exist
as those who were left alive fled to Eastern Europe to escape persecution.
Other groups were also targeted. Lepers or anyone else with a skin disease were persecuted
as much as Jews, and most of the lepers in Western Europe disappeared during the
fourteenth century. A whole mentality of persecution became entrenched in European
attitudes.

What have historians said about the Black Death?

Source 1: American historian Walter S Zapotoczny, 2005
The very social, economic and political structure of Europe was forever altered. One tiny
insect, a flea, toppled feudalism and changed the course of history in Europe.
Zapotoczny, WS 2006, The political and social consequences of the Black Death, 1348–1351
http://www.wzaponline.com/BlackDeath.pdf

Source 2: American historian Zachary Peschke, 2007

The Black Death was not only one of the greatest disasters in European history, but it was
also one of the most defining moments in world history.
Peschke, Z 2007, ‘The impact of the Black Death,’ ESSAI, vol. 5, article 32 (College of duPage)
http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol5/iss1/32

Source 3: British professor of history Robert S Gottfried, 1983

The environmental crisis of the Late Middle Ages caused existing social and political systems
to stagnate or to regress. Deep-rooted moral, philosophical and religious convictions were
tested and found wanting. Generally, traditional standards seemed no longer to apply.
According to Gottfried (1985) the effects of this natural and human disaster changed Europe
profoundly, perhaps more so than any other series of events. For this reason alone the Black
Death should be ranked as the greatest biological-environmental event in history, and one of
the major turning points in Western Civilisation.
Gottfried, sited in Nienhuis, Piet H 2008 Environmental History of the Rhine-Meuse Delta: An Ecological Story on
Evolving Human-Environmental Relations Coping with Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise, Springer. p. 51

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Barometer task
Fill in the barometer according to how important you judge the impact of each change on a particular aspect of life such as the Church or medicine.
In the last column, fill in the barometer for each historian.
Once you have done this, complete the large barometer on the next page to arrive at an overall conclusion: Was the Black Death a turning point in
history?

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Overall assessment
Was the Black Death a turning point in history?

Bringing it altogether
Now provide the key reasons for your decision. Here are some sentence starters:
• The Black Death was a turning point in history because...
• The Black Death was not a turning point in history because...

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