Did trade increase during the Black Death?

The expansion of trade brought many benefits, increasing access to material goods and technology, as well as spreading knowledge. However, the plague illustrates how increased cross-cultural contacts along denser trade networks increased the potential damage that could be caused by disease.

How did trade affect the Black Death?

The medieval Silk Road brought a wealth of goods, spices, and new ideas from China and Central Asia to Europe. In 1346, the trade also likely carried the deadly bubonic plague that killed as many as half of all Europeans within 7 years, in what is known as the Black Death.

What happened to the economy during the Black Death?

While the Black Death resulted in short term economic damage, the longer-term consequences were less obvious. Before the plague erupted, several centuries of population growth had produced a labour surplus, which was abruptly replaced with a labour shortage when many serfs and free peasants died.

How did the Black Death spread along trade routes?

The Black Death was not the only plague to spread along trade routes. In the sixth century, bubonic plague spread across the Mediterranean, infecting millions over two centuries. Another great outbreak of the plague started in China and India in the nineteenth century.

How did the Black Death affect medieval society?

Grain was the foundation of pre-plague agriculture. However, the reduction in the population caused by the Black Death meant there were fewer people to work the land. Crops rotted in the field, and there was no one to plant new ones.

What did people do after the Black Death?

Career criminals, keen for rich pickings, began to flock to the stricken, larger, towns such as London, where they took advantage of the death toll to help themselves to abandoned goods. Even after the plague had ended, London still maintained a reputation for greed, immorality, and hardheartedness.

What did people do in the plague years?

However, there was also a sense of abandonment about sex in the plague years, as if people were determined to celebrate life while they still could, at the same time thumbing their noses at death. Orgies in cemeteries became peculiarly familiar.

How did the Black Death affect trade in Europe?

The devastation caused by the plague led to sharp declines in production and trade all over Afro-Eurasia. Even places unaffected by the epidemic suffered from disruptions to long-distance trade. In general, the plague was the worst in Europe, which had crowded, damp, and poorly sanitized cities.

How did they stop the spread of the Black Death?

Plague had claimed half of the population, wiping out entire families, villages and even towns such as Bristol. The measures that were taken to hinder the spread of the first Black Death epidemic were powerless, but there were contingency plans for future outbreaks later in history.

How did people die from the bubonic plague?

When the infection got into the blood stream it effectively poisoned the blood, leading to probable death. Some survived the infection but most people died within days, sometimes hours. This wave of bubonic plague became known then as the Pestilence – or later, the Black Death.

What was life like for women after the Black Death?

In the 150 years after the Black Death halved London’s population, women enjoyed new economic power in the city. Caroline Barron asks whether this era truly was a ‘golden age’ for English women