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The Black Death

The Worst Plague in History

Millions have died. Thousands are suffering. Everybody is scared. Nobody is safe.

That was the daily reality of the people living during the Great Pestilence. Could this unimaginable horror have been a blessing in disguise? I think so. The plague solved numerous problems of 14th century Europe. One being its overpopulation, the plague sparked the renaissance and it laid the foundation of our modern society. Let me prove this to you:

Daily life in ancient Europe was terrible. Life was tough. It was especially hard for the poor. It was smelly, crowded and gross. The main reason, for all these attributes, was because there were too many people. Squished, crammed and packed with an overabundance of human beings. It is unimaginable in today's day and age. Ancient Europe was bursting at the seams with people. It was a sardine can. It was suffocating. The living conditions were disgusting as people were literally living right on top of one another. People avoided taking baths, and of lack of better wording, like the plague. They believed it opened the pores and allowed bacteria to enter easily. This made lice and fleas common, among the rich and the poor. To say hygiene standards were low would be an understatement. Their level of cleanliness was six feet underground, which is where most were headed. Everyone lived in close conditions with each other and their animals. They did not have anywhere else to go. This made diseases spread like a wildfire. They dumped their waste and emptied their chamber pots on the streets. Sometime dead horses would be left to rot for weeks, until someone came and removed it. Rats were everywhere. There was little space so garbage had to be carted off and there was no room for cesspools. Ultimately, people got lazy. They ended up living in their own filth. This caused cholera in later years. Life was horrible and nothing changed. People accepted life the way it was. Nothing changed. Then, the Plague made it so that life required changing. It needed to change, and the Black Plague was the reason.

The Great Plague sparked the renaissance. Before, they depended on the Church. After, the age of free thought had begun. It caused people to start changing their thinking. The plague made way so that people had a cultural reawakening. It was a period of great art and beauty. This period encouraged intellectual thinking and questioning. It paved the road for the middle class so that they became the patrons for the arts, science, literature and philosophy. The people uncovered the lost roots of their cultural origin. We owe many of our everyday necessary items to the renaissance. Therefore, we owe it to the plague. It gave start to the modern age. Some famous names of the renaissance are; Leonardo Da Vinci, Galilei Galileo, Raphael, Michelangelo, William Shakespeare and Nicole Copernicus. We owe our very lives to them. Maybe without the plague we would have never known the many valuable pieces of information that they have found out for us. All of the facts we know about the world, space and the universe could be because of the plague. What if we never found out the sun is the center of the universe and the earth was, like originally the Church preached. We never would have known.

The Black Death gave the groundwork for society as we know it today. It affected the people living at the time by giving them a choice. Serfs could choose which masters to work for. In turn, they too could become masters themselves. This is a brief glimpse of the individualism we so crave in our modern day. Before the Plague, you had no choice in which class you were in. Once you were there, you had little ways to get out. The lower class, who before, had no way to get higher on the social ladder. Now they had an opportunity to get higher. This enabled them more freedom. Lords had to make their work more appealing and the conditions better to attract serfs to work for him. Jobs increased, rent decreased, wealth was more evenly distributed, the diet improved, people lived longer and wages were higher. These are just some of the many advantages the people gained after the Black Plague. The Plague also created lasting effects still felt today. The people were healthier. It birthed the origin of perfume. It made hospitals and healthcare better. It improved the architecture of buildings. Last but not least, it created English. That is the reason you are reading this essay in English, rather than Latin.

You may object at this point and say that; "The Black Plague was absolutely horrible and no one deserves that type of suffering." You would be 100% correct. I would wholeheartedly agree with you, with no doubts, whatsoever, on my part. But, I would also tell you to have a good look at the whole picture. Not just the plague, but also what was before it and what came after it. You cannot be so narrow –minded and naive. Pay attention to the big picture. If not the plague, there would have been something else and much worse. There could have been a war, famine or drought. Without the plague, there would have been more people. Having a few billion extra people would put a drain on our resources and have devastating consequences on the environment. Something would eventually happen. At least the plague was short and you either knew you were going to make it or not. There was no uncertainty or doubt. Victims had to get through 3 days and after, they either lived or they did not. It was short and sweet. Nothing like a war, that has widespread suffering. That is what I would say to your argument.

All in all, I think the Black Plague was necessary. It was quite an ordeal, but Europe came out better and stronger than before. The plague was quite a hit but everyone adapted and made it through. A way to describe the plague could be; a necessary evil. It was terrible at the time but immediately after, everyone felt the benefits. It was a medicine. Difficult to swallow at first, but gradually you got used to it. Once the sickness was over, you never had to look back at it ever again. The plague solved an overpopulation crisis, caused a shift to more modern thinking and laid the foundation of our society. It just goes to show how if one is able to change their viewpoint and inspect an issue from all angles, they can have a deeper understanding of the whole issue. One can see how less scary it is once they better understand the whole picture. You have to look at the past, present and the future to make sure you understand the whole problem. I hope I have subtly altered your perspective on the matter of the plague. Now, let us stop looking back, as for I fear, we may trip over our own feet.