The Black Death
Overview
The pandemic of bubonic plague that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353 is known today as the Black Death, though contemporaries called it the "Great Pestilence," and the disease itself was generally known as peste. During these years, plague affected the lives of all Europeans, and killed nearly half of them. Its impact was enormous, not only because of the tremendous loss of life, but because of the pessimism, fear, suspicion, and even persecution of Jews (who were blamed for the disease) that followed.
In the long term, the Black Death may have increased economic opportunities and promoted a higher standard of living for those who survived. Its rapid spread gave rise to the medical theory of contagion. This scientific observation, in fact, is one reason that the epidemic is often cited as a turning point from the medieval era to the Renaissance.
Background
Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is usually a disease of rats, not of man. Named for Alexander Yersin, the nineteenth-century scientist who first isolated it, the bacillus is found naturally in rodent populations, among which a small number of cases at any given time is common. Occasionally, however, the disease becomes endemic, killing off large numbers of rats.
