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May 15, 2008

History Extravaganza

The Effect Of The Bubonic Plague On The Arts And Culture of Western Europe

The Bubonic Plague had a great effect on England. Over 25 million people were killed between 1347 and 1350 throughout Europe- a third of its population was now dead (World Cultures, 656). The arts of England soon grew gloomy, and culture was heavily impacted by the deaths. Everything in the world these people lived in seemed to be falling apart.

Theaters were closed so that the disease wouldn’t spread further. The paintings and music from the time of the Bubonic Plague were all very dark, as they should have been. A lot of paintings during that time had skeletons as a symbol of the constant presence of death. The usually horrifyingly sad paintings were actually requested by the Churches (Boisestate). The portray people at the happiest of time, dancing with death of course, but also remind you of the horror your living in (Boisestate).

When the plague hit England the Christians thought that God was punishing them for their sins (World Cultures, 656). They went and prayed all together but people kept dying, so they must have prayed harder. When praying didn’t help they blamed it on the Jews and murdered them.(World Cultures, 656) Too bad for the Jewish people that died, because the disease just kept killing and when they realized it couldn’t have been the Jews it was way to late. For some reason, people insisted on keeping the bodies of their loved ones, but once they figured out that you could get infected that way they started doing mass burials. The stench death hung around England like a great big nasty blanket, holding all the living in a trap of smell. They believed at one point that it was spread through “bad air” (BBC), probably because of the stench. People wore masks to protect themselves from the air, although it didn’t do very much good. They also carried around flowers in their pockets, as to hide the smell of the rotting flesh if they had the plague.

After a while they got that by burning the bodies and their clothes the plague wouldn’t spread as easily. Many were still infected and a whole lot of people still died because the rats were still everywhere. The English hadn’t made the connection to the rodents and just went about dying. The plague was originally spread by infected fleas that then bit rats and dogs. Once you came in contact with one of the infected animals you caught it as well as if you were bitten by a flea. The buboes, or lymph nodes, in your armpits, neck and groin would become enlarged and painful. You have chills, vomiting, tummy aches and fever during the onslaught of the disease (Emedtv). Gangrene could occur in your extremities due to vasculitis(Local), causing your flesh to rot and turn black.

All of Europe was affected and many were killed because of the black death that fell upon them. The plague is still around and in the US there are about 10 cases reported (Local), so don’t think we’ve outgrown it.

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