BLACK DEATH

Anni Ling
 1347 A.D., a great plague swept over Europe, 
ravaged  cities causing  widespread  hysteria 
and death.
Economy

 Depopulation
 Destruction of crops
 Farming communities became rare.
 Lack of sufficient law enforcement
Some stats…

 7,000 people died per day in Cairo.

 1/3 of China evaporated before the rest of the
world knew what was coming.
 75,000,000 people succumbed
 ¾ of Florence's residents were buried in
makeshift graves in just one macabre year.
Church

 Clergy abandoned their Christian duties and

fled.
 Angry and frustrated villagers started to
revolt against the church.
 Lost prestige, spiritual authority, and
leadership over the people.
Society

 Abundant death was used for laughter

 Written language was almost lost and whole
churches were abandoned
 Birth rate dropped
 People left rural areas and migrated to cities
for higher wages
Preventing the plague

 Very likely that life would not have changed at all

 The world as we know it might not exist
 World might still reside in the dark lull of everyday
cruelty and mindless warfare
 America would not exist, mainly because no one
would have cared about finding better trade
routes
 Medicine would still be based on superstition and
leeching, and diseases would remain incurable
Ignored for another decade?

 Death toll would certainly read higher,

perhaps too high for cessation.
 As trade in the Near East and Africa increased
due to the Crusades, plague would have
spread with it
 With it, mankind suffered terribly; but,
without it, mankind might have suffered
more in the end.
 "It is not the means by which the end is
achieved, it is the justice of what is achieved
in the end." ~Sir Thomas More
 Black Death did not kill just hundreds of
thousands of people, it killed an entire way of
life.