Ap Euro Dbq Essay on Black Death or Plague

The Plague struck Europe in a series of waves beginning from the mid-1400s. During that time, people didn't know the filth they lived in and the unsanitized streets caused the spread of the plague. It is estimated that the first wave killed 25 million people, which is about one third of the population of Western Europe. Sporadic but deadly outbreaks continued throughout Europe into the eighteenth century. The plague didn’t regard any status, age or even gender. During Plague there were also many different beliefs and concerns, which include fear, exploitation, religious and supernatural superstition.
Superstition is one of the belief during the Plague this belief was mainly religious but also supernatural was as many people during this time turned to God and the church for a cure and hope. In (doc#7) a woman fed a piece of bread, which was touched the body of St. Domenica to her sick husband for rapid recovery. Also, in (doc#16) a historical relation of the plague at Marseilles in the year 1720 which believed that the God send plague to people to punish them for their sins. The personally pope used to make fire around him to be saved from plague.
Fear of the Plague mainly came from people not knowing what the cause of the Plague was; this fear seems to become even more uncertain as the best doctors, scientist, or even the educated do not know the cause of the Plague. This Erasmus of Rotterdam (doc# 2) sees this fear, as he seems to blame the cause of the Plague in England because of the filth on the street. Another example of how fear occurred during the plague was in Pepys (doc# 13) rich people used to wear wigs but then they stopped to wear them as they feared the infection they may spread to them as it could have been the hair off the heads of people who had been killed by the Plague. Another type of fear was a fear of trade with nations who had the Plague (doc#14) as no port would admit England's ships and thus their foreign exportation stopped.
Exploitation during the Plague was very common as people were afraid of the Plague and thought money was of the only real value in the end. An example of this exploitation would be in (doc#11) when there was shortage of nurses and most of the times nurses make the patients die more quickly, because the sooner they died, the sooner the nurses collected the fees they had agreed on, which is really unfair.
In conclusion, Sweeping through Western Europe during the fourteenth century, the Plague wiped out nearly one third of the population. All of this occurred as a result of a single fleabite. Plague also known as Black Death started in Asia and traveled to Europe by ships. The Plague was thought to be spread by the dominating empire during this time, the Mongolian Empire, along the Silk Road. The Plague was an infectious disease spread by fleas living on rats, which can be easily, be attached to traveler to be later spread to a city or region. Many factors like depopulation, decreasing trade, and huge shifts in migrations occurred during the Bubonic Plague. During Bubonic Plague there were also many different beliefs and concerns, which include fear, exploitation, religious and supernatural superstition, and a change of response from the fifteenth to eighteen century.