Effects Of The Black Plague On Medieval Europe

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DBQ- What were the effects of the black plague on Medieval Europe?

Medieval Europe, also known as The Middle Ages, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. Medieval Europe began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Between the years 1347 and 1350 a widespread fatal disease back in Medieval Europe known as, the “Black Death”, killed approximately 20 million people. This was 30 percent of Europe’s population (History.com). The black plague is a disease that is carried by rats. Many rats had the black plague and it was transmitted to humans when fleas would jump off the infested rats on to people. The disease back then is now like a common cold and was unpreventable of being transmitted from one person to another. What were the effects of the black plague on Medieval Europe? The black plague caused fear in the people, demand of labor, and loss of religious faith. The outbreak of the plague in …show more content…

The serfdom population was already in decline before the black plague so when the black plague struck, they began to slowly disappear entirely. This shortage of workers caused all labor to become valuable and in demand (Document 7). Landowners and lords suffered greatly during the black plague. The low food prices and high labor costs made landowners and lords lose wealth. People at the bottom of the social ladder such as Serfs most benefited from this because of the labor increase in value. They began to earn money and their standard of living began to slowly rise (Document 8). Production declined due to the loss of workers and employers. It was difficult to gain goods during trade and produce them, so the price of goods produced locally as well as imported goods from foreign lands were high ( Document 9). The demand in labor benefited some social groups better than others, but the black plague also effected other things in Medieval

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