Post Plague Social, Economic, and Historical Characteristics of Chaucer’s Pilgrims
Waking up to the familiar sounds of a small English town is no longer an option. The stench of death permeates every inch of existence. Peering out of the window, afraid of stepping outside into the pestilence formerly known as home, you gaze past the mounds of rotting townspeople who used to be known as friends. Every breath catches, because breathing too deep may be too risky. A disease of unknown origin plagues the countryside farther than you can travel in a lifetime. Thoughts run through your mind as you watch your suffering family. The only chance to save them is to confess your sins in hopes that God’s wrath will end with you. There is nothing; everything you have known for all of your life is gone. And there is silence.
Throughout the late Middle Ages, there were many historical landmarks that affected the world in which we now live. These landmarks include the Great Schism, the Hundred Years War, the Renaissance, and most infamous, the Black Plague (Given-Wilson 4). The plague is now believed to have infringed upon European peoples due to the ecological changes in Asia. These changes forced wild rodents carrying the Yersinia pestis bacillus into heavily populated European towns (Horrox 5). Through trade, fleas and rodents carrying this bacillus made their way into English society. Three forms of the plague ran rampant throughout England: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicaemic. The bubonic plague was most notorious due to the visual dark spots located in the armpits and groin area called buboes. In Latin, Bubo means owl: just like owls, buboes preferred the dark places on the body (Given-Wilson 97).
The first epidemic began in 1347 an...
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..., economical, and historical implications changed or affected the lives of every person during the fourteenth century and for centuries to come.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. Nevill Coghill. London: Penguin
Books, 1977.
Given-Wilson, Chris, ed. An Illustrated History of Late Medieval England.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.
Horrox, Rosemary, ed. The Black Death. Manchester: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Lambdin, Laura C., and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer’s Pilgrims: An Illustrated
Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Williman, Daniel, ed. The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth Century
Plague. New York: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982.
Ziegler, Philip. The Black Death. New York: The John Day Company, 1969.
The wide range of prospective uses for stem cells could greatly improve the health and wellbeing of many people. In stem cell treatments, undifferentiated cells are programmed to form specific cells, which can then be transplanted to the afflicted area. Stems cells can possibly treat afflictions including “Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis” (“Stem Cell Basics”). Another important use is in drug testing. Drugs can be tested on stem cells that develop into the target tissue before using it on human test subjects, which improves safety. Finally, transplantation of organs created from stem cells could eliminate the need for human...
However a recent breakthrough from Harvard stem cell researchers is about to change the way Diabetes Mellitus is treated and has the potential to change the lives of diabetes patients for ever. The revolution revolves around the ability to create large quantities of beta cells appropriate for the human pancreas.
The article, “Pancreas Transplant: A Cure for Diabetes?” written by Eli A. Friedman, M.D., explores the possibility of a cure for type 1 diabetes and the implications involving this experimental procedure. The article discusses current procedures and treatments that are commonly used to control type 1 diabetes and highlights provisional treatments that evolved into pancreatic transplant surgery.
In Robert S. Gottfried’s book titled “The Black Death”, he analyzes the 14th century outbreak from an epidemiological perspective. The book is written as a historical account of one of the greatest epidemics on record. Gottfried is a well renowned Professor of History as well as the Director of Medieval Studies at Rutgers University. Another one of his books titled, "Epidemic Disease in Fifteenth Century England” focuses on the additional outbreaks that occurred in Europe after the Black Death plague. The Black Death also called the Great Pestilence the was the second of three pandemic plagues known and is considered one of the most damaging pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 25-50% of the Europe's population in the years 1348 to 1350. The origins of the plague began with east-west trade. In 1347 the Black Death entered Constantinople and spread throughout Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean, it is theorized that foreign rats migrating with the eastern trade carried the disease called Y. pestis to the west, fleas that were feeding on those rats then transmitted the infection to livestock and humans. The epidemic spread at an alarming rate and had devastating effects once contracted, at its peak the plague is said to have taken up to 1000 lives a day.
Christianity is one of the oldest religions in the world, full of symbolism and historical figures that have caught the attention of many groups of people. Jesus Christ is the most talked about and most analyzed person from the Christian Bible, however, Mary has also been the topic of conversation for many, many time periods. She was once regarded as just the mother of Jesus, but as time went on and people began to look at her role in Christianity as a whole, she began to take on other roles including Mother of God, Mediatrix, and even Mother of all Christians. It is important for all Christians to analyze the origins of ideas in order to best understand how Biblical figures came to be known as the way we understand them to be today. Thus is the case with Mary. By tracing the understanding of Mary from the beginning of Christianity to today’s current society, we can better connect with past cultures and ideas.
Although the Renaissance consisted of discovering new and exciting topics, a major outbreak had occurred. This outbreak was known as the Bubonic Plague or the “Black Death” which had arrived in Europe in 1348 (Woodville). The Bubonic Plague impacted Europe and Europeans negatively economically, politically, and socially.
The Black Death, also known as the Great Mortality and Bubonic Plague, occurred during the years of 1347-1350. Although it didn’t last very long, it is said that the Plague killed over 1.5 million people in its short amount of time in activity throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. The Black Death was a very gruesome and horrible disease that caused fever, headache, chills weakness, and inflammation of the lymph nodes causing the disturbing site of buboes on the neck, groin and armpits. Petrarch, an Italian Scholar, described his feelings towards the Plague as he wrote, “O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a fable” (qtd. in Nohl 17). Here, P...
She demonstrated her physical development with both gross and fine motor skills. When music came on in the classroom she was able to dance and follow the teacher’s dance instructions to Barney. Her dance moves were not in perfect motion, but was pretty good for a toddler. Her walking and running abilities seemed to be average for her age with a little bit of awkwardness and unsteadiness. Her fine motor skills include zipping down her jacket, turning pages in a book (with slight trouble), pasting things on paper, and coloring. Additionally, Chloe is able to play with Play-doh using a plastic knife; however, she holds it in a unique manner as if still learning the technique behind cutting.
The Bubonic Plague, or more commonly known as ‘The Black Death’ or ‘The Black Plague,’ was one of the most devastating and deadliest pandemics that humans have ever witnessed in the history of mankind. The disease spanned two continents in just a few years, marking every country between Western Europe all the way to China. During the reign of the plague, which is estimated to be the years between 1347-1352, it is estimated that “20 million people in Europe–almost one-third of the continent’s population” was killed off due to the plague. The Black Plague would change the course of European history since the plague knew no boundaries and inflicted its wrath upon the rich and the poor alike. As a result, not only did the plague have a devastating demographic impact which encountered a massive social disruption, but also, an economic and religious impact as well.
Considered one of the worst natural disasters in world history, the Black Death came through Europe in 1347 A.D. It ravaged cities and town, causing a death to the masses, and no one was considered safe. The Plague is any epidemic scourge or calamity for which remedies are difficult to find, and according to the encyclopedia, plague is a common term for a disease of rodents that occasionally cause severe human infection. Named for the black spots that appeared on the victims’ skin, the original disease originated from Oriental Rat Fleas and black rats. It first infected Mongol armies and traders in Asia, and then began moving west with them as they traveled. There was no natural immunity to the disease, and standards of public health and personal hygiene were nearly nonexistent. It is believed that if people had not fled to nearby cities in hopes of escaping the plague, it might not have ever spread like it did. In the end, it passed through Italy, France, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland, and even up to the island of Greenland. City dwellers were hit the hardest due to the fact of crowded streets and the lack of sanitation. Up until the mid-15th century, recurrent epidemics prevented the recovery of Europe’s population to pre-plague levels. The Black Death was an important turning point for the history of Europe. This time was “the beginning of the end of the medieval period and the start of a social transformation of the continent.” The social and economic impacts of the plague were so huge, economics, politics and the European society would never be the same again.
Type-1 diabetes is a life time condition which needs lifelong medication and life style changes. One of the treatments is insulin injection. The major objective of the treatment is to control the sugar level in our bloodstream and prevent any further complications. In addition to insulin, exercise and healthy diet are important. Another prospective hope is islets transplant. Islets collected from a normal issue transplanted to a type-1 diabetes patient. The cell duplicate itself and function just like any other normal cells. Islets are cells found in the pancreas. They produce the hormone insulin which helps our body to take in the glucose in our blood stream. If this research succeeds and the treatment is available to everyone, it will give relief to patients from taking insulin daily.
Europe, in the Middle Ages, began to arise with new inventions, like the printing press, that helped many people in that time period, to advance in their education and their labor work, but before all that time, there was the rise of a strong and deadly disease that infected and killed millions of people throughout the world. Before the Black Plague, there were other diseases that had spread around Europe before the Middle Ages but it wasn’t as quickly and deadly as the Black Plague. The Black Plague was found to have come from animals, like rats, but it was mostly from the fleas that were on the rats. The plague in the middle ages had an advantage in Europe due to the overpopulation and the lack of space also because the medicine that was
Capital punishment is the most severe sentence imposed in the United States and is legal in thirty-eight states. The death penalty is a controversial subject, especially because the U.S. is the only western democracy to retain this consequence (Scheb, 518). I personally believe that the death penalty is a valid sentence for those who deserve it. Some believe it is not constitutional, but those who face this penalty are clearly suspect of a savage offense and therefore should be at a loss of certain rights. The arguments don’t end there once one considers that “the controversy over capital punishment becomes more heated when special circumstances arise” (Sternberg, 2). This issue brings up more arguments against the death penalty because of the constitutionally protected ban on cruel and unusual punishment which is protected by the Eighth Amendment. There have been nearly 15,000 executions that have taken place in America, the first in 1608 with the death of Captain George Kendall (Siegel, 410). Most of these were sentenced to death because of their own action of killing others. However, more and more crimes are now able to be punishable by death. This is the result of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which “dramatically increased the number of federal crimes eligible for this sentence” (Scheb, 520). Even so, the federal government has yet to put someone on death row for a non-homicidal case. The arguments for and against capital punishment are lengthy and strictly opinionated, but are also important to see the evolution of our society as the majority view changes and new influences come about.
On Nov. 1, 1987, Frederick Romano found out that his sister had been beaten, tortured, mutilated, and killed in her apartment. The killer, Steven Oken, had also killed two other women: Patricia Hirt and Lori Ward. Romano waited until 2002 to see his sister’s killer die, and stated, “It’s not about closure. There will never be closure. It’s about seeing justice served, not only for my sister, but for Lori and Patricia.” Just days before Oken was set to be executed, the attorney general of M...
On March 10th, 1876, a revolutionary invention was created by Alexander Graham Bell. The telephone was invented to send vibrations from one receiver to another electrically (History.com ‘Speech Transmitted by Telephone’ accessed on March 11, 2014), and due to Alexander Graham Bell accidentally discovering that he could hear the sound of a ‘clock spring twanging’ (Marry Bellis, ‘The History of the Telephone’ accessed on March 11, 2014), that was possible. The invention of the telephone permitted new levels of communication, allowed families connect around the world, and improved military systems, but also served negative consequences, such as breached privacy. If two people wanted to have a conversation, they would have to write letters back and forth, but with the telephone they were able to pick up the receiver, dial the number, and be connected in a matter of minutes. Telephones enabled long-distance communication, which allowed families to converse despite their location. Military officials and soldiers were also able to stay in touch through field telephones as well as keep contact with the president. Although telephones were originally placed in general stores or other major city locations and homes/neighborhoods that were wired (Elon.edu ‘World Changes Due to the Telephone’ accessed on April 2, 2014), telephones became commonly used in homes in the early twentieth century when telephones began to connect internationally.