Unexpected Benefits

In the fourteenth cannonb wholly along of light, the face of atomic number 63 was forever changed by a annihilating event k flatn as the swarthy canker. This abomination would rear its ugly head era and again through bug out atomic number 63 in lesser outbreaks right up through the eighteenth atomic number 6, when it in conclusion disappeared from the continent for good. However, its initial appearance happened in the fourteenth century, and this de scarcely capital punishment was its most dramatic and destructive.Callight-emitting diode the capital mortality by contemporary writers1, for the great number of people kil take in the outbreak, the term black plague or black death became to a greater extent than comm save used later on as more outbreaks hit the europiuman continent. Carried by fleas on rats, the glowering enkindle is now commonly thought to be bubonic plague, a disease characterized by sub-dermal hemorrhages that blacken the skin it is highly contagious a nd has a high mortality rate. It is thought that dense chevy setoff entered atomic number 63 from Asia, along the silk roads that merchants used to travel between the continents for the purposes of trade. 4 1Boccaccio, Giovani.The Decameron. Signet Classics invigoratedborn York. 2002 (reissue). 4Kelly, John. The Great Mortality An Intimate History of the pitch blackness expiration, the close destroy harry of All Time. Harper Collins New York. 2005. When the shadowy Plague first hit Europe, the conditions in Europe were ripe for a desolate outbreak. Warfare and a widespread famine that lasted nearly a century had weakened the universe of Europe to the point that the people were extremely susceptible to disease. Famine also hurt productivity by weakening workers, olibanum further reducing the out project of food and other necessary goods it was an ugly, self-perpetuating cycle.In a population already suffering and on the brink of disaster, the down in the mouth Plague, which first made its European appearance in 1347, was a final bear on toward a dramatic re-alignment of society. Over one-third of the population of Europe was killed by the moody Plague (and over half the population in Britain). It wiped out entire families, and even entire communities. When it was over, the stunned and decimated population had to face a virtual rebuilding of their entire society from scratch.However, as devastating as the saturnine Plague was on the inhabitants of Europe, and as hard as things were on the survivors, the Black Plague did have more or less unexpected benefits for the survivors and their descendants, benefits that would improve the boilersuit quality of life for everyone in Europe, small frys included, for generations to come. One of the most immediate benefits to survivors of the Black Plague was an subjoin in remuneration. Before the population was decimated by the Black Plague, Europe had been drastically overpopulated for its resources, re sulting in widespread poverty, especially among the peasants.After the Black Plague, however, industry came at a premium, due to the reduction in the population. There were not nearly as some people easy to do much- needful work, and thence those who were available to do it were more desire-after. As a result, reinforcement change magnitude, because employers were now competing for the smaller pool of workers, rather than workers competing for a smaller pool of jobs, as had been the case before. With higher wages, survivors were better able to provide for their families, and the standard of life story for many families dramatically increased.In fact, some families fortunes increased so dramatically that they began to outlast as the nobility did, dressing in fine fabrices, living in fine houses, and even employing servants of their consume. In some European countries, the nobility were so threatened by the new upward mobility of the peasants that laws were enacted that reg ulated just what the peasant divide could wear and where they could live, so as to prevent the peasant class from mingling with the nobility or trying to become part of the nobility2.In fact, increased opportunities for hearty advancement were another unexpected benefit of the Black Plague for survivors. Before the Black Plague, Europe was fairly 2Cantor, Norman. In the Wake of the Plague The Black Death and the World it Made. Harper perennial New York. 2002. entrench in the feudal system, whereby peasants worked the realm for wealthy nobles, being allowed to take only a small portion of the harvest they worked to bring in for their own use, and being pretty much tied to the body politic of their patron for life.After the Black Plague, the surviving population realized it now had options. With so few peasants available to work the res publica, chargelords began competing to attract tenants to their estates, a phenomenon that was new in Europe. Previous to the Black Plague, la ndlords had a self-propagating population of peasants on their land, generation upon generation of families that stayed on the corresponding land, on the same estate, and worked under whatever conditions the landlord set, as there was nowhere else for them to go.However, after the Black Plague, landlords offered incentives for peasants to come work their land, incentives ranging from actual wages to modify living conditions to increased freedoms. In fact, some historians believe that the conditions in Europe just after the end of the initial Black Plague pose the roots of what was to become capitalism centuries later. A reduction in the population also meant that there was an increase in the amount of fertile land available to the population.With entire families wiped out, sometimes noble or land-owning families, their land became available, land that had often been in the same family for centuries. This opening up of new land created opportunities not only for landlords to incre ase their h oldishings and attract new peasants to work for them, but also created opportunities for upwardly mobile peasants to become landowners in their own right. With land available for those who could afford to purchase it, many peasants found that their newfound increase in wages also bought them the opportunity to become settled on their own land, and, in effect, their own masters.The Black Plague also, in effect, put an end to the century-long famine in Europe. With fewer people to feed, there was more food available for those who were left. The opening up of new, tillable land on which to grow food, the demand for labor that evoked more food, and the increase in wages that allowed a family to buy more food, all led to an increase in consumable food available for everyone. As a result of the Black Plague, the survivors became better nourished and healthier, and thence better able to work to produce more food, as well as better able to vex off new outbreaks of disease as they came.Even with an increase in wages and other benefits attracting most of the available workers after the Black Plague, there were whitewash too few people around to work to do everything that needed to be done in the time in which it needed to be done. Therefore, out of need, a plethora of labor-saving devices began to be invented following the Black Plague. These devices helped to speed along necessary work, and reduced the number of people necessary to breeze through certain jobs. The spinning roll out is an excellent example of this.The spinning wheel was a post-Black Plague invention that dramatically reduced the time and lather involved in turning wool into betray. 3 With more thread able to be produced more quickly than by traditional methods, cloth was able to be weaved quicker and in greater quantities, thus creating an teemingness of fabric available for sale and for personal use. Springs and gears were invented to control the hands of clocks. fit out and spring carriages were invented that eased the burden of travel and increased its efficiency.Three-crop field rotation was invented, which increased farming efficiency by dropping the old imagination of individual farming plots and introducing the idea of open-field communal farming. In addition, heavier plows with wheels and horizontal plowshares were invented, which salve much time and labor in the process of farming. Finally, the ultimate of all medieval inventions, the printing press, was invented post-Black Plague, an invention that saved an enormous amount of time and energy by ending the need of copying books by hand, thus making the written word more widely available to the oecumenical public.3 3Herlihy, David. The Black Death and the translation of the West. Harvard University Press Cambridge. 1997. The effects of the Black Plague were felt in every facet of life, not just social and economic. The Black Plague utterly changed the face of life in Europe forever. The plague eve n touched the art of the times. Whereas before the Black Plague, ghostly themes were the most common topic of art, after the Black Plague, a more pessimistic feeling pervaded a society that was terrified of the plague returning.As a result, themes of death became dominant in the artwork for more than a century after the plague. The prestige and authority of the Church were also negatively affected by the Black Plague. Because the perform was not able to cure victims of the plague, or even explain what was causing the plague, cynicism of the church building grew among the populace. As a result, many sought out alternatives to the traditional church, particularly through smaller religious cults such as self-flagellants (who flogged themselves in atonement for the sins that supposedly brought on the plague).Others sought out secular solutions to ending the plague. Further, because so many monks died in the plague (from living in close quarters and from generously tending the sick), the church experienced an influx of new, less dedicated clergy, who were more opportunistic than the old guard, and contributed to an upcoming period of severe corruption within the Catholic church that eventually led to the Protestant Reformation. 2While the Black Plague was a devastating event for all of Europe, killing millions, it left behind conditions that lead to some positive changes in European society. While wiping out entire families and towns, the Black Plague nonetheless created a fertile ground for economic progression and upward social mobility for the underclass in its wake. The Black Plague led to the downfall of the feudal system and created the conditions that later ushered in the Age of Enlightenment.It ushered in a new age of labor-saving inventions that changed the face of production in the world. Because it was such a powerful force on both society and the psyche, the Black Plague also ushered in an era of change in both art and religion, changes that eventua lly led to the Protestant Reformation, which in turn led to the founding of America by the Puritans. The Black Plague, though it destroyed, also provided the seeds of sowing something new and good. 2Cantor, Norman. In the Wake of the Plague The Black Death and the World it Made.Harper Perennial New York. 2002. Bibliography Boccaccio, Giovani. The Decameron. Signet Classics New York. 2002 (reissue). Cantor, Norman. In the Wake of the Plague The Black Death and the World it Made. Harper Perennial New York. 2002. Herlihy, David. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. Harvard University Press Cambridge. 1997. Kelly, John. The Great Mortality An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. Harper Collins New York. 2005.