When you hear the word ‘Black Death’, what do you think? I imagine most of you would think ‘death’, ‘misery’, ‘fear’, ‘persecution’, among other things.
But I’m not here to lament about how horrible the Black Death was. Anyone interested in history would know that. Instead, I’m here to show you that the Black Death was the start of a new era, a necessity that paved the modern world as we know it today.
The Black Death was a necessity.
Sounds crazy, right? Come along with me as I discuss how this is actually true, and the positives of the Black Death itself.
We can use the Black Death as a means of thinking about our own future in this pandemic time.
The Discussion in a Nutshell
For those who are impatient and want to know what I’m talking about before reading about in detail, here’s an outline of my discussion.
- Medical Advancements
- More Social Equality
- Less control by the Church
- The Start of the Renaissance
Medical Advancements
A well-known figure of the Black Death; the plague doctor. Of course, with our medical knowledge today, we know that the plague doctor’s eccentric costume did not protect against the plague. However people at that time believed that this costume would protect against the plague.
This is an example of the many unsuccessful protections against the plague, and the unsuccessful ‘cures’ are also numerous, from strapping live chickens on the buboes, to eating rotten treacle.
But in the midst of all this, medical advancements were starting to appear. Before the plague, dissecting bodies were taboo and in some papal reigns it was a crime. However, under Pope Clement VI during the Black Death, dissection of dead plague victims were now legal.
Many physicians used this opportunity to better understand anatomy, even if it meant they were at risk of contracting the plague.
Through the numerous autopsies conducted by various physicians, new medical discoveries were made and published in accurate textbooks. The fascination of the human body continued throughout the era afterwards, the Renaissance, under a new name, humanism.
More Social Equality
In the Middle Ages before the Black Death, feudalism was flourishing way if structuring a society. It was a hierarchical system where your position in the ‘feudal pyramid’ was based on land exchanged with military service, and an allegiance to the King under an oath.
This system was fantastic for those at the top of the pyramid, like the King, Vassals (Lords), etc., but was terrible for the peasants who were the majority of the population and at the bottom of the pyramid. But during the Black Death, things started to change.
The peasant population declined at a faster rate than the wealthy population did, and this meant that peasants were in higher demand for labor. The peasants realized this, but their masters did not increase their wages or improve their working conditions.
In anger, the peasants started an upheaval in 1381; the Peasants’ Revolt.
Although the revolt was diffused by King Richard II, the peasants later reinstated serfdom. In the coming years, peasants’ rights gradually rose until the falling of the feudal system.
Less control by the Church
As we have seen from the feudal pyramid, the Church and the Pope had superior authority to the Monarchy itself. They had immense power and was virtually ‘above the law’. This power also meant that people’s lives were controlled by the Church.
The Church could exile anyone of their choosing, from the poorest peasant, to the glamorous king. Taxes issued by the Church (tithes) were a huge one tenth of your income, and this could be used from funding wars to building cathedrals full of gold.
But during the Black Death, people started to question the Church. Extremists such as the Flagellants arose and some was not as loyal to the Church, nor did they wholly believe in the power of God.
There are three main reasons for the decline of power of the Church.
- Clergy were affected by the plague and hence the quality of clergy deteriorated
- During the aftermath of the Black Death, clergy took advantage of the situation and attempted to become wealthier, and the people started to be distrustful towards the Church
- The plague exposed the weaknesses of the Church from its inability to guide the community effectively
This is not to say the Church lost all power completely. The Church still kept a substantial amount of followers but they did lose their immense power at the top of the feudal system.
The Start of the Renaissance
One of the many causes of the Renaissance is actually the Black Death.
The main reason for this was the people’s growing questioning of the Church. The Church had a lot of power over people’s ideas as well, and regularly censored unreligious works from being published. But now that people were questioning the Church, there was more room for a rebirth of new ideas.
Another reason is the imbalance between power and wealth. In the aftermath of the Black Death, several city-states in Italy (where the Renaissance began) started to gain dominance over the people. One example is the Medici Family of Florence, an incredibly wealthy and powerful family who helped start the Renaissance by funding many artists. Some of famous artists funded by the Medicis include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Donatello. They also funded scientists like Galileo Galilei.
Final Words
So, that’s the end of my discussion of how the Black Death shaped the new era. The Black Death paved a way for medical advancements, more social equality, the decline of the Church’s control, and even the start of the Renaissance.
In the midst of a pandemic, we can look back to another one from history, and the good things that arose from the Black Death gives us a hope for the future. Maybe we’ll have another Renaissance, who knows.
