The Black Death In England

Arriving by ships carrying flea infested rats, the Black Death originated in the 1340s in China and spread west along European trade routes eventually arriving on the British Isles. Since the ships bringing goods and more resources to England, the Americas, and more places, were not clean and had unsuitable living conditions, disease broke out. (Unknown Where Did Black Death Start?) Anywhere the ship stopped left disease behind, and since it was fabricated by new types of bacterium and was isolated on these immense ships on month long trips, it was an unknown disease with no known cure. Many people believe the Black Death only affected the poor persons of England at the time but this is not true. (Unknown King Edward III). Not only did it affect
His war distraction did not save him nor his family from being affected by the Black Death though, for his daughter Joan was killed by the plague on September 2, 1348 (Hennelore Caulk Scheu, Joan Plantagenet). When the infection began to spread, a trend in symptoms was noticed. the first part was a nosebleed, which many saw as the first warning. As the Black Death progressed, tumors began to grow in places such as the groin and armpits, some swelling up to the size of a golf ball, others even bigger. These swellings/ tumors on the body were also known as Buboes which started off as a red color, soon turning dark purple or black in some cases (Unknown, Black Death Symptoms). This was only one of the three stages of the plague, often referred to as Bubonic. The next stage was Septicement which targeted the bloodstream, and the last was Pneumonic which made the disease airborne and allowed people to get sick from any contact at all (Craig McCasland, The Black Death). About fifty percent of people affected with Bubonic died, the other two had almost no chance of survival at all, and anyone who had caught the Black Death was expected to die within two to four
People infected died in their homes and on the streets where many other civilians would pass by, making them more susceptible to the infection. The fact that the majority of citizens were malnutritioned made them even more of easy targets for the plague due to their weak immune systems (Unknown, The Black Death – How the Black Death received its name). Elites and more wealthy people did not have to go to the same public places therefore they had better chances of avoiding the infection, but they were still not completely untouchable. After everyone had shut themselves up in their homes, lost jobs and many family members as well as friends, the plague began to disappear. ‘It had not been long since it had arrived in England, and since the plague was carried mainly by fleas and fleas were summer and spring time insects, the disease would only strike people in summer, calm down over the summer and would come back the following spring.’ (Bates and Salkeld) Throughout the five years that this went on, citizens would look for new ways to try and prevent this deadly disease from coming back once again. Citizens of England began to think the Black Death was a punishment from God, and feared even changing clothes at the time of the disease because it was a sign of vanity which was a sin that they feared they would be reprimanded by being struck