How Did Black Death Affect European Society

Liu, Wenjing
Western Civilization to 1715
Book Essay II
4/10/2014

Black Death

There was dark period in Europe history, full of disease and death. In the thirteen centuries, Black Death turned the Europe into a living hell. The Black Death not only torched people by the symptoms, but also destroyed the current Europe society and cultural. Besides, most people may say that Black Death took away almost half of the people’s lives; it also left a tremendous impact on the political status, religions, cultures, and economics. I have to admit that Black Death did left terrible influences on the living standard on Europeans. But, every coin has two sides. Personally, I think Black Death was more than just a ripper; it also fostered people’s value of life especially shake people’s faith to Christianity and pushed the western society development.
Obviously, Black Death took a lot lives away which lead to huge jump on productivity, which largely impacted the current living standard. The grain crop production was far below the average, and the livestock quantity also damaged.
The agrarian crisis as well as the depletion of livestock had profound effects on European society and economy. (Gottfried, 1985) Since the peasant have nowhere to produce, the
supply of crops largely decreased, which increase the price of crops. The most obvious crisis was in agriculture. Because of the large decline in agriculture products, the costs of living boosted to a high level, which affected all commercial activity and accelerated declining standards of living. (Gottfried, 1985)

Another deep impact Black Death left was it shifted people’s value of God to the people themselves.
People used to believe in god because they think god is selfless and kind, so they think plague was the punishment from god. But they realized that even though they pray more and do more kind things, it didn’t do any good to reduce the death. People lose the faith in God. People started to believe that Christian clergies are greedy, self-centered and filled with a sense of their own importance. The idealized image suffered. (Gottfried, 1985) Since people no longer believe in god after Black Death; the religion revolution is sprouting. People began to relived the rules they obtained from Christians, and exposed their human
nature.
Finally, we cannot ignore the positive effects that Black Death left us. “One of the most important legacies of Black Death the destruction of the existing medical system and the beginning of its modern successor.” Said Robert Gottfried. (Gottfried, 1985) Also, after that period, Europe start their university system, they begin focus on develop the technology to help rebuild the homeland destroyed. (Gottfried, 1985) After Black Death, Europeans took years to recovery their agriculture and industries in an even better format.
Black Death seems more like a silent war. Although this silent war grab a numerous live but it also gave the chance for Europe to restructure their society and rebuild their population and economy. On the one hand, Black Death took away the civilization they built, but, on the other hand, it really boosts the development of European countries nowadays. People get rid of imprisonment of Christianity, and restart their life on this ruin, finally lead to prosperity.
Bibliography
Gottfried, R. S. (1985). Black Death. New York, N.Y., USA: THE FREE PRESS.