{"id":2684,"date":"2016-09-27T05:23:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T05:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2684"},"modified":"2026-02-21T11:50:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:50:59","slug":"why-did-so-many-people-die-in-the-black-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/why-did-so-many-people-die-in-the-black-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did So Many People Die in the Black Death?: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many people died in the Black Death<\/a> due to the highly contagious nature of the bubonic plague<\/a>, lack of medical knowledge, and poor hygiene and living conditions in medieval Europe. The plague spread quickly<\/a>, especially in crowded cities where people lived in close quarters with rats and fleas. Additionally, ineffective treatments and a limited understanding of disease made it nearly impossible to contain the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT WAS THE BLACK DEATH?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Black Death<\/a>\u00a0is one of the most important events in Western history and is the most famous pandemic in all of human history.\u00a0 A pandemic is the term used to describe the spread of an infectious disease over a wide area including the entire planet.\u00a0 The Black Death occurred during the 14th century and ravaged human populations throughout Asia and Europe as it spread along trade routes and through trading ports.\u00a0 Throughout history it has also been referred to as the \u2018Great Mortality\u2019 and \u2018Great Pestilence\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Death is the term that historians use to describe the spread of the bubonic plague.\u00a0 It is believed that the plague first began in Central Asia and spread to Europe through vast trade routes such as the\u00a0Silk Road<\/a>.\u00a0 Historians studying the spread of the plague discovered that the disease was spread by fleas that are commonly found on rodents such as rats and mice.\u00a0 As such, it is now understood that the plague spread via trade routes as the rodents travelled in caravans and on merchant ships.\u00a0 In total, the spread of the plague caused the death of millions and a large percentage of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Where
The bubonic plague was spread when infected fleas from rodents bit human beings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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WHY DID SO MANY PEOPLE DIE IN THE BLACK DEATH?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The death tolls were so high due to several factors.\u00a0 First, hygiene played a crucial role in the spread of the disease.\u00a0 Europe in the Middle Ages lacked the modern conveniences of sanitation and running water.\u00a0 Instead, human filth was often just dumped in the street.\u00a0 This situation caused rodents such as rats and mice to flourish which helped spread the fleas that carried the plague with them.\u00a0 As such, crowded cities and towns were often havens for the plague since it attracted rodents that were drawn to human activity.\u00a0 The second factor that caused the plague to lead to such high death tolls was the lack of understanding of the disease on the part of Europeans and doctors.\u00a0 At the time, there was little understanding of the connection between hygiene and disease.\u00a0 As a result, there were several different theories on the cause and spread of the diseases, which were all ultimately incorrect.\u00a0 For example, during the Middle Ages<\/a>, many medical doctors believed that human health was related to the movement of the planets in our solar system.\u00a0 As such, many related the spread of the plague to the rotation of the planets including Mars and Jupiter.\u00a0 Another common belief about the plague was that it was spread by certain ethnic groups.\u00a0 For example, immigrant groups and Jewish people were often blamed for the spread of the disease and were persecuted as a result.\u00a0 Next, some believed that the plague was a result of God\u2019s will and was punishment for the actions of people.\u00a0 As such, many people turned to their faith during the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of medical understanding during the time is evidenced by the remedies or cures that people believed would work.  For instance, some believed that the plague was spread by \u201cbad air\u201d and thought that they could cleanse the air with the burning of incense.  This belief led to doctors of the period wearing strange outfits with masks that looked like the beak of a bird.  Believing that the plague was spread through the air, the doctors would fill the nose area of the mask with incense in order to overpower the \u201cbad air\u201d.  However, it also served to mask the smell of death, which was a common reality due to the large number of dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Black
A plague doctor wore very characteristic clothes during outbreaks of the plague. (1656)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In all, the Black Death was an important event that fundamentally changed life for people across Europe and Asia.  It was caused by the spread of the bubonic plague and caused massive death tolls wherever it occurred.  It is remembered today as one of the most important pandemics in all of human history and for its role in other major events and time periods, such as: the Silk Road, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why did so many people die in the Black Death? A combination of factors led to the massive death tolls of the Black Death. This article details the main reasons for why the Black Death was so deadly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":27,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,42],"tags":[85,15,83],"class_list":["post-2684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-ages","category-black-death","tag-black-death","tag-history","tag-middle-ages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5529,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions\/5529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}