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Black Death in Europe

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The Black Death in Europe
Europe had prospered for about 300 years prior to the beginning of the 1300’s but a series of natural disasters occurred. Economies were in recession at the onset of Black Death, Europe as a whole would take a step backward because of an epidemic that almost wipeout sixty percent of the entire population. Black Death was one of the worst disasters on record (Lerner 533). This plague began in 1946 on grassland where a reservoir stretches far from the northwestern shores of Caspian Sea into Southern Russia. At the time, Southern Russia was believed to be under the rule Mongolian Empire travelling in Silk Road using caravan between China and Europe. As a result, Russia which might have become the Black Death’s European conquest, but in fact was its last, and was invaded by the disease not from the east but from the west which is China (Benedictow 4). During the rampage of the bubonic plague, the Chinese population was decimated by up to 90 percent. The Mongols who were infected with the disease surrounded a Genovese trading centre in the Crimean coast and fled the site by a ship carrying the disease with them back to Europe via ports of Sicily. The plague spread further North by major trade routes and reached Europe through its ports. Once it had reached England, it proceeded rapidly with devastating consequences throughout Eastern Europe all the way to Russia (Duiker 322). There were many theories that existed at the time about the reason behind the Black Death. Most people believed that the plague and mass illness was a punishment from God for their sins (Benedictow 5). And others also believe that the end of the world had come. This crisis made people respond with religious penitential acts aimed at tempering the Lord’s wrath (Benedictow 5). But the truth was the disease is caused by a bacterium called Yesinia Pestis that was carried in the

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