The Black Death, 1348-49: Causes, Spread and Contemporary Responses
The Black Death was an outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague that reached England in 1348 and killed a very large proportion of the population within about eighteen months, with some historians estimating losses of a third to a half of the population in the worst-affected areas. Contemporaries could not identify the true cause, a bacterium spread mainly by fleas living on black rats, and instead explained the outbreak through the same three frameworks used for everyday illness: supernatural punishment from God for humanity's sins, an unfavourable alignment of the planets, and miasma, poisonous air rising from rotting matter. Symptoms included painful swellings called buboes in the armpit, groin or neck, high fever and, in the more deadly pneumonic form, coughing blood. Responses ranged from religious acts such as prayer, processions and self-flagellation, to practical but ultimately ineffective measures such as burning sweet-smelling herbs, avoiding baths on the theory that open pores let miasma enter the body, bloodletting, and fleeing infected towns for those wealthy enough to do so.
Before you start
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Method
- Separate what people at the time BELIEVED caused the Black Death (the three usual medieval explanations) from what actually caused it (the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread mainly by rat fleas), since exam questions may ask about either.
- Learn the symptoms precisely, since case-study questions sometimes test detail: painful swellings (buboes) in the armpit, groin or neck, high fever, and in the pneumonic form, coughing blood, with death often following within days.
- Learn the range of contemporary responses and sort them into categories: religious (prayer, processions, self-flagellation), miasma-based (burning herbs and incense, avoiding baths), humoral (bloodletting and purging), and practical (fleeing infected towns, avoiding the sick), so you can select the right category for a question.
- Explain WHY none of these responses worked, using the true cause: since no one understood fleas and rats spread the disease, measures such as burning herbs or avoiding baths could never interrupt its real means of transmission, however logical they seemed given contemporary beliefs.
- For a 4-mark 'explain one way X was similar to/different from Y' question comparing the Black Death with a later outbreak, choose one precise point (e.g. whether government organised a compulsory response) and support both sides with a named, dated detail.
- For a 12-mark 'explain why' question about the scale of the Black Death's impact, use named factors such as the lack of any understanding of the true cause, overcrowded and unsanitary towns, and the absence of any organised government machinery capable of quarantine, rather than simply describing the outbreak.
- Keep a bank of precise supporting detail ready: the outbreak reached England in 1348, both bubonic and pneumonic forms occurred, and death toll estimates commonly cited by historians for England range from around a third to around half of the population.
Worked example
Explain one way in which contemporary responses to the Black Death, 1348-49, were similar to contemporary responses to the Great Plague of 1665.
- Choose a precise similarity rather than a vague one: in both outbreaks, ordinary people relied heavily on prayer and on burning sweet-smelling substances to ward off miasma, alongside fleeing infected areas if they had the means.
- Support the Black Death side with detail: in 1348-49, many people turned to religious processions and self-flagellation, and burned herbs in the belief that miasma, poisonous bad air, was spreading the disease.
- Support the Great Plague side with detail: in 1665, alongside the government's new compulsory Plague Orders, individuals still prayed, burned herbs against miasma, and fled London for the countryside if they could afford to.
- State the similarity clearly: despite more than three centuries passing and a more organised official response developing by 1665, the individual, non-government reaction to plague, rooted in the same core beliefs about disease, changed remarkably little.
Practice questions
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Q1In what year did the Black Death reach England?Show answer
Answer: 1348.
Q2Name the two forms the Black Death is understood to have taken.Show answer
Answer: Bubonic plague (spread mainly by fleas on black rats) and pneumonic plague (spread through the air by coughing), with pneumonic plague being the more deadly form.
Q3What was a bubo?Show answer
Answer: A painful, swollen lump that appeared in the armpit, groin or neck of a plague victim, one of the disease's most recognisable symptoms.
Q4Give one supernatural explanation contemporaries gave for the Black Death.Show answer
Answer: That it was sent by God as punishment for humanity's sins (or that it was caused by an unfavourable alignment of the planets, read through astrology).
Q5Why did some contemporaries avoid bathing during the Black Death?Show answer
Answer: Because they believed hot water opened the pores of the skin, allowing poisonous miasma (bad air) to enter the body more easily.
Q6Give one practical response to the Black Death available only to wealthier people.Show answer
Answer: Fleeing an infected town for the countryside, since this required money, property elsewhere, and the ability to stop working.
Q7Why were medieval responses to the Black Death unable to stop it spreading?Show answer
Answer: Because no one understood that fleas living on black rats carried the true cause, the bacterium Yersinia pestis, so none of the measures people used, such as burning herbs or bloodletting, addressed the disease's real means of transmission.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a GCSE History exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Explain one way in which explanations for the cause of the Black Death, 1348-49, were similar to explanations for the cause of everyday illness in medieval Britain more generally.
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Explain why the Black Death had such a devastating impact on the population of England in 1348-49.
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'Medieval medicine made no difference to how many people died in the Black Death.' How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer. You may use the Black Death of 1348-49 in your answer, as well as any other information you know.
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