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Reasons Why the Bubonic Plague was Devastating to European Society

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“Ring around the rosy, Pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes, We all fall down,” this tune can be heard today being sung by children, but the meaning of this song goes deeper than just a children’s song. This song is about the bubonic plague, the bubonic plague was a very dangerous disease that caused devastating effects all across medieval Europe. But why was this disease so devastating? Some reasons could have been: lack of medicine, the large death count, and the mass hysteria caused by the disease. These things are what made the bubonic plague such a devastating event in history.

One reason that the plague was so devastating is because there was a lack of medicine. The medicine practices being used that the time were not advanced enough …show more content…

In the text it states that, “And those who were responsible for the dead carried them on their backs in the night in which they died and threw them into the ditch, or else they paid a high price to those who would do it for them” (Document 4). This goes to show that many people feared carrying the dead knowing that they might catch the disease themselves. This spread the infection to people trying to dispose of their families corpses. The amount of bodies piled up and up forcing them to: “put layer on layer just like one puts layers of cheese in a lasagna” (Document 4). The death toll absolutely devastated the European population. According to Document 8, “37 million people were left alive post plague.” This means that around 16 million people died in Europe during the course of the plague. The large death toll had a severe impact on the devastation of the …show more content…

Due to the mass hysteria the blame quickly fell to the rich Jews. It is stated that, “Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it [the plague] through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the well” (Document 7). The nation was in need of answers so when the Jews were pointed out as a scapegoat all of Europe followed. Though sadly the blame was not the worst thing to befall the Jewish people. In Document 7 it is stated that, “On Saturday - that was St. Valentine’s Day - they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were about two thousand of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared.” The people of Europe burnt all of those Jewish people because there was a slight possibility that they could have caused the plague. They all quickly turned there sanity aside and murdered over 2,000 people. Mass hysteria was played a great roll in the downfall of Europe during the bubonic

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