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The Impact Of Bubonic Plague On Society

929 Words4 Pages

It starts with a flea bite, and the next thing you know you have a fever, chills,

excruciating pain, perhaps black pus-oozing boils, and then death comes. The problem is you

have no idea that a flea was the cause and you could be fine today and dead by tomorrow. It

sounds horrible, but it was the reality for 1 in 3 people if you lived during the mid-1300s in

Europe(History.com staff, par.1). It became known as the “Black Death” or as we know it today,

Bubonic plague. The Bubonic Plague severely impacted society at that time, had an impact on

our time, and a similar outbreak of disease could have similar effects even in modern times.

The Bubonic plague impacted almost every aspect of European society in the middle

Ages. Obviously it …show more content…

Churches and nobles loss power

because with less people, they loss an income source and resorted to selling freedom to serfs.

With more free people, they loss their grip and their power just continued to dwindle. There was

a better distribution of wealth which actually helped the economies to recover(Butler,par.11-14).

Every part of their society was impacted by “Black Death”.

Unsurprisingly, an event that had such a huge impact then also has had an effect on

today’s society as well. Obviously the economic setbacks and the mass loss of life at that time

had a ripple effect because those affected countries took time to recover economically so it’s

possible they would be stronger today if they had not suffered such losses. Also, their

populations are not what they would have grown to if millions hadn’t died. One impact on

today’s society is how our social order is set up today. Once serfs got a taste of freedom, could

choose employers, and had a better standard of living, there was no way they would go back to

the old way(Whipps, par. 8,9). So the “Black Death” contributed to how our economy allows so

much freedom and that we are not under some sort of feudal system. Another big impact …show more content…

Events like Bubonic

plague; even though it happened hundreds of years ago, still have an effect on today’s society.

So, what would happen today if something like the “Black Death” would start to spread?

We can’t be certain, but based on human nature, a lot of people would act much like they did

back then. Hysteria wins out over sound thinking. Although we have a clear understanding of

how most disease is transmitted, all it would take is for a new plague that we don’t fully

understand to start and people would start hunting scapegoats and turn on each other. Human

always fear what they don’t understand. Disease would spread far more quickly because unlike

the 1300s we not only travel wide distances, we travel world-wide and faster through air travel.

There is a good chance that if it was resistant to antibiotics or if we ran out of them, a strain

could wipe out most of the people on this planet except for those with very strong immune

systems or living in remote parts of the earth. The flip side is that it could also equalize

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