The Black Death, 1348–49 Flashcards

All 7 cards in this deck

When did the Black Death reach England, and what were the two forms of the disease?

1348–49; bubonic plague (spread by fleas) and pneumonic plague (spread by coughing).

Give two causes people in 1348 believed were behind the Black Death.

A punishment from God, and miasma (bad air); also an unusual alignment of the planets.

Give one treatment people used against the Black Death.

Bleeding or lancing the buboes; also praying, or using herbal remedies to make the sufferer comfortable.

Give one way towns tried to prevent the spread of the Black Death.

Closing the town gates to keep outsiders out (e.g. Gloucester tried to keep out people from Bristol), or cleaning filth from the streets.

Roughly what proportion of England's population died in the Black Death (1348–49)?

About one-third.

Who were the flagellants during the Black Death?

People who whipped themselves in public to show God they were sorry for their sins, hoping He would end the plague.

How is the Black Death now thought to have been carried from country to country?

Most historians think rats on merchant ships carried infected fleas between ports; when a flea bit a person, the disease passed into their blood.