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This interest stands in contrast, as Hatcher points out, to the view of the Black Death taken by historians at mid-century and it may be that the social and economic history of late medieval English society has emerged from the shadow of historians such as Postan and Levett, where the Black death was seen as a catalyst, not a prime mover. Colin Platt's King Death. The Black Death and its aftermath in latemedieval England is a work of synthesis which continues this trend. Written in a fairly chatty style (phrases such as 'Mickey Mouse numbers' and 'rich old ladies' abound) with a liberal sprinkling of modern marketing-speak ('shopping blight', 'customer base' and 'market spread', for example), it is a personal tour through a great deal of the recent secondary literature, largely generated by historians of town and countryside; the book also offers a brief survey of postplague art and architecture.

The international effects of Black Death Death and disease were familiar features of life in the Middle Ages, but previous epidemics were dwarfed by the arrival of the Black Death. It erupted out of central Asia to create a pandemic greater even than the Plague of Justinian 800 years earlier. Present in bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic forms, the Black Death had killed millions by the time it finally declined. Europe may have lost a third of its people, China perhaps half. Besides death, the disease brought fear, panic and very often a complete breakdown of society.

The plague also affected religion and art, which became very dark and preoccupied with death. Many people believed that the Black Death came from God's extreme anger at the world. A group of fanatics, called Flagellants, inflicted various punishments on themselves in an attempt to atone for the world's sins--and end the disease. An artistic style known as the danse macabre depicted skeletons and corpses mingling with the living during happy occasions. These actions reminded the people of the overriding sense of doom that shadowed their lives because of the Black Death.

The Black Death reaches England. The summer of 1348 was abnormally wet. Grain lay rotting in the fields due to the nearly constant rains. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that there would be food shortages. But a far worse enemy was set to appear. It isn't clear exactly when or where the Black Death reached England. Some reports at the time pointed to Bristol, others to Dorset. The disease may have appeared as early as late June or as late as August 4. We do know that in mid-summer the Channel Islands were reeling under an outbreak of the plague. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences.

The Black Death of the Middle Ages was a truly devastating pandemic - a pandemic being the Military-Industrial Full Blown Version of an epidemic. In the mid-1300s, the Black Death killed at least one third of the European population, so it was truly horrible. So most people think that the Black Death began in Europe - but it didn't.

Major setbacks occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth, when population expansion and declining crop yields coincided with a devastating and widespread plague, the Black Death (1348-1349). This had a major impact on population numbers-which dramatically declined-and on both society and economy. Immediately following an economic crisis, a period of crop failure, and an intensification of criminal activity (which may, perhaps, have been linked to fluctuations in food prices), the plague was devastating in its effects, and forms a turning point in the history of medieval England. Nor was the Black Death an isolated event; further pestilence struck in the 1360s, accentuating the problems. Read more: Medieval Britain - Documentation, Norman Period, Feudal Period, Economic Recovery, Cathedrals, Churches, and Monasteries, Impact of Protestantism - England, Castles, Century, Period, Norman, and Built - JRank Articles http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/5958/Medieval-Britain.html#ixzz1Z3mRCdHa

The Black Death that decimated populations in Europe and elsewhere during the middle of the 14th century may not have been a blindly indiscriminate killer as previously believed. An analysis of 490 skeletons from a London cemetery for Black Death victims shows the infection did not affect everyone equally, researchers say.

The 14th century was an era of catastrophes. Some of them man-made, such as the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy, and the Great Schism. These were caused by human beings, and we shall consider them a bit later. There were two more or less natural disasters either of which one would think would have been sufficient to throw medieval Europe into a real "Dark Ages": the Great Famine and the Black Death. Each caused millions of deaths, and each in its way demonstrated in dramatic fashion the existence of new vulnerabilities in Western European society. Together they subjected the population of medieval Europe to tremendous strains, leading many people to challenge old institutions and doubt traditional values, and, by so doing, these calamities altered the path of European development in many areas.

Europe in the first half of the 14th Century seemed to be preparing itself for significant changes. Cities grew in importance, though most of the population was still rural. Population increases had led to overuse of the available land. Poor harvests-also due to cooler, wetter weather-led to famines. The serf system was being undermined. Centralized political authority was becoming more powerful. Then the Black Death cut a path-both literal and figurative-through the middle of the 14th Century. The disease was caused by the bubonic plague, which was spread by rats, whose fleas carried the plague bacilli from the East along trade routes until it penetrated almost all of Europe, killing at least one out of every three people. Such a radical alteration in population in any place, at any time, would likely set off dramatic changes in society. What happened in a Europe already beginning to transform itself? In this lesson, students analyze maps, firsthand accounts, and archival documents to trace the path and aftermath of the Black Death.

Plague germs extracted from medieval corpses in a London cemetery have shed light on why the bacterium that unleashed the Black Death was so lethal and spawned later waves of epidemics.

Consequences of the Black Death

The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, religion, economics and even social class were affected. Contemporary accounts shed light on how medieval Britain was irreversibly changed.

"Barney Sloane, author of The Black Death in London, said: "An emergency cemetery is a really uncommon find: they were open for a very short while in response to a disease that wiped out 60% of London in months. "They give us a snapshot of the health, lifestyle and demographic make up of London - and since the plague killed indiscriminately there should be a good cross-section.""

The Black Death  - background, description

Although the poll tax of 1381 was the immediate cause of the Peasants' Revolt, the root of the conflict lay in deeper tensions between peasants and landowners. These tensions were in turn caused by the demographic consequences of the Black Death, and subsequent outbreaks of the plague.[

"The journal issue looks at scientific breakthroughs of the past few years, including the 2011 sequencing of the genome of the plague pathogen entirely from historical remains, and the theory that a "big bang" of the organism occurred between the 12th and 14th centuries in an area now part of China, ultimately causing the Black Death pandemic. "

In 1347 news reached England of a horrifying and incurable disease that was spreading from Asia through North Africa and Europe. The Black Death struck London in the autumn of 1348. No one knew how to stop the disease. During the next 18 months it killed half of all Londoners - perhaps 40,000 people.

The majority of the population lived in the countryside at the time of the Black Death. Dr Mike Ibeji traces the plague's devastating impact on the rural communities.

Thousands of  painters, craftsmen, patrons of the arts perished during the mid 14th century. The heart of the cultural world was torn open.  The horrors of the black death pervaded all aspects of Medieval culture and especially art. The effects were lasting, bringing a somber darkness to visual art, literature, and music. The dreadful trauma of this era instigated the imaginations of writers and painters in worrying and unsettling ways for decades to follow. The insecurity of daily survival created a atmosphere of gloom and doom influencing artist to move away from optimistic themes and turn to images of Hell, Satan and the Grim Reaper. Many painters simply gave up art believing that it was hopeless to try and create beauty in a hellish world.

A third of Europe's population died over four years due to the Black Death. But was it really spread by rats and fleas? Could it have been caused by a virus? And what has that got to do with the modern-day spread of HIV?