The Black Death
Middle Ages' Most Notorious Killer:
The Black Death
This paper analyzes the documentary film "Secrets of the dead-Mystery of the Black Death". This film discusses about the Black Death, a disease resulting from a combination of bubonic and pneumonic plague, which killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages. Researchers in this video clarify the origins of this pandemic/how it spread, the damage it caused on the whole European continent, the theory explaining how some people managed to escape the Black Death and the relationship between the disease and today's most dangerous virus: the HIV. The team of experts in this film is composed of historians, geneticists, a microbiologist, a virologist and even a gastroenterologist. Thus, the combination of historical and scientific knowledge will answer the questions about the past that people have always asked. Primary sources First of all, many primary sources were used in this film to analyze the subject of Black Death. The experts had access to the written files in the London Archives, such as the burial records and plague register of the period where the disease appeared. The first type of primary source used was the burial records. Another type of written document (handwritten volume, also known as registers), is also considered as a useful primary source that helped the researchers get a clearer view of history. For example the parish and plague registers. The third type of primary source showed in this video was the oral stories/records, told by the direct descendents of Black Death's survivors. As a matter of fact, the plague register analyzed by the historian Justin Champion, indicated approximately the number of households who were affected by the plague, and the burial records indicated the number of people who died. Thus, if we correlate the findings of both primary sources, we will obviously have an idea of the numbers of survivors. The parish register( document
The Black Death
This paper analyzes the documentary film "Secrets of the dead-Mystery of the Black Death". This film discusses about the Black Death, a disease resulting from a combination of bubonic and pneumonic plague, which killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages. Researchers in this video clarify the origins of this pandemic/how it spread, the damage it caused on the whole European continent, the theory explaining how some people managed to escape the Black Death and the relationship between the disease and today's most dangerous virus: the HIV. The team of experts in this film is composed of historians, geneticists, a microbiologist, a virologist and even a gastroenterologist. Thus, the combination of historical and scientific knowledge will answer the questions about the past that people have always asked. Primary sources First of all, many primary sources were used in this film to analyze the subject of Black Death. The experts had access to the written files in the London Archives, such as the burial records and plague register of the period where the disease appeared. The first type of primary source used was the burial records. Another type of written document (handwritten volume, also known as registers), is also considered as a useful primary source that helped the researchers get a clearer view of history. For example the parish and plague registers. The third type of primary source showed in this video was the oral stories/records, told by the direct descendents of Black Death's survivors. As a matter of fact, the plague register analyzed by the historian Justin Champion, indicated approximately the number of households who were affected by the plague, and the burial records indicated the number of people who died. Thus, if we correlate the findings of both primary sources, we will obviously have an idea of the numbers of survivors. The parish register( document