Were medieval people cleaner than we think?.“The very sight of her hands did almost turn my stomach”: a brief history of hand-washing.
Given the state of record-keeping and preservation, we will probably never be able to estimate the Black Death’s European toll with any precision. The plague skipped over or barely touched some European villages, and may not have infected at all vast regions (such as ones in northern German-speaking lands). We know that some populations survived, but medieval people had no such knowledge – all they believed was that everyone would certainly die. Some communities such as Quob in Hampshire were wiped out many rural communities went into decline (and were in time deserted). It is thought that around 50 million people died as a result of the Black Death In fact, in some places such as a village on an estate in Cambridgeshire manorial rolls attest that 70 per cent of its tenants died in a matter of months in 1349, and the city of Florence tax records drawn up shortly before and after the Black Death suggest that its toll may have been about the same in 1348. It killed at least 60 per cent of the population in rural and urban areas. The population was reduced from some 80 million to 30 million. In Europe, it is thought that around 50 million people died as a result of the Black Death over the course of three or four years. How many people died because of the Black Death? Medieval observers – and their modern counterparts in 19th-century China and 20th-century Vietnam, observing more recent outbreaks – noted that different strains of the disease took from five days to as little as half a day to cause death. Symptoms of the Black Death included swellings – most commonly in the groin, armpits and neck dark patches, and the coughing up of blood. What were the symptoms of the Black Death? The plague arrived in western Europe in 1347 and in England in 1348. No one could be sure what caused the deadly plague.
One observer noted “the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead”. It destroyed a higher proportion of the population than any other single known event. It destroyed a higher proportion of the population than any other single known event
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