The Black Death Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Black Death - Essay Example 3 Not so the pneumonic plague, which attacked the respiratory system and killed virtually 100 percent of its victims within 2 or 3 days.4 A more rare form, the septicemic, also killed virtually 100 percent of its victims, killing them within hours.5 A large number of people died during these two years, and that death rate cut across population and socioeconomic boundaries. It spread by human contact with remarkable speed - "whenever those suffering from it mixed with people who were still unaffected, it would rush upon these with the speed of a fire racing through dry or oily substances that happened to be placed within its reach....it also seemed to transfer the sickness to anyone touching the clothes or other objects which had been handled or used by victims."6 With the speed and ease of transmission that was shown by this pestilence, the disease was an equal opportunity killer. One of the striking aspects of the plague was its effect as a kind of leveler between the peasant and ruling classes. Because the plague swept across socioeconomic boundaries, taking both consumers and producers, peasants commanded more of a wage while manorial incomes went down. This is in evidenced in the fact that labor laws were put into place to try to halt the trend of paying serfs more, stating that Lords who payed higher wages and the serfs who accepted them would be punished, as sign that "the new market forces created by the Black Death were so irresistible that only more draconian measures could halt them.†7 The economic necessities that the Black Death imposed include such progressive ideas as "emancipation higher wages and living standards, greater land-holdings, and the labor-saving devices that became available."8 Giovanni Boccaccio, a literary figure, described the servants who remained as greedy, stating that they were "in short supply