Europe and the Black Death Essay - 1541 Words

Chaos struck all-over Europe in the 14th century; no social class or individual was immune from this mysterious disaster. Historians estimated that this unidentifiable disease killed â€Å"more than 20 million people in Europe–almost one-third of the continent’s population,† by the 1350’s (Black Death). Now in today’s society scientists classify the unidentifiable disease as the bubonic plague, also referred to as the Black Death. During fourteenth century European-society, there was no logical medical knowledge; instead, people resorted to supplementary explanations, such as God punishing misbehaving religious groups and sinners (Black Death). In this time period, oral tradition was still common among the illiterate. Luckily, for the upper†¦show more content†¦Boccaccio’s resident resided in Florence Italy, where he wrote the Decameron from the years 1348-1353 A.D.. Uncoincidentally, the composure date overlaps with the prime infect ing period of the bubonic plague. Boccaccio was a wealthy merchant who produced other literature prior to the Decameron, reflecting moral attributes of Italian society (Encyclopedia Britannica). Also occurring in this time was the transition away from everyday use of the Catholic Church’s official language: Latin. The Decameron begins to follow the new trend from other renaissance writers by composing literature in vernacular form. By composing in colloquial literature, or the â€Å"everyday spoken language of the common people†, this reveals Boccaccio’s potential audience – the commoners, or the whole society, not the specified group of the clergy or Latin readers (Judge and Langdon 359-6). The language of the allegory’s composure and publication reveals more than just the intended audience; the Decameron also supports motivation behind Boccaccios production. If the Catholic Church prompted him to write the story, then the language would correspon d with language of the clergy, Latin. The content in the Decameron is not religious-based writing, nor propaganda, because this author reveals no signs of exterior influence to write this text. Specifically, quoted byShow MoreRelatedThe Black Death Of Europe1231 Words   |  5 Pagesfound regarding the history of the Black Death in Europe. It incorporates the beginning of the plague, the way that it spread, and the toll it took on Europe’s population. It answers questions concerning the context of my topic, the importance of subject at hand, as well as the affects it had on the society during and after this tragedy. Concluding this paper answers the final question of why people should know about this subject in the first place. The Black Death was single handedly one of the worstRead MoreThe Black Death Of Europe1265 Words   |  6 Pagesill and suffered from many symptoms such as fever, black swellings, and much more. 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Between 1339 and 1351, a pandemic of plague called the Black Death, traveled from China to Europe affecting the importance of cities, creating economic and demographic crises as 2/3rd of the European popula tion was eradicated. ​ In the beginning, the ItalianRead MoreThe Deadly Black Death Plague Of Europe1054 Words   |  5 Pages Background Information  The deadly Black Death plague of Europe arrived in 1346 A.D. , during the middle ages from the Middle East as commonly thought and was also known by other names such as â€Å"the pestilence .â€Å" The infectious deadly bacteria moved rapidly within Europe accounting for approximately 50% of mortality while disseminating northward along major trade routes of ships, lasting until the early 1350’s (Ross, 2015). 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The Black Death transformed the consciousness of the surviving populous of medieval Europe in a way no other event that has occurred before or since could. This transformed psyche created the catalyst that expedited the transformation