1) In 1347, a plague known as the Black Death spread from Asia to Europe through trade routes, killing over 20 million people within five years as it spread across the continent. 2) Due to the lack of medical knowledge at the time, many Christians believed the plague was a divine punishment from God for sins such as corruption in the church or failure to fully participate in the Crusades. 3) This belief led Christians to persecute groups they deemed responsible for their sins, most notably Jews, resulting in massacres of thousands across Europe as a way to regain God's favor and stop the plague.

1. Readability: FK – 9.3; Lexile – 1270
The Black Death: Christian Responses
By: Melissa Broach-Hawkshead
Known today as the Bubonic Plague (a bacterial disease transmitted by fleas), the Black
Death occurred in October of 1347 amongst 12 Genoese trading ships. These twelve ships were
on a long exploration of the Black Sea and eventually docked at the Sicilian Port of Messina (an
island off the coast of Italy). When these ships arrived to their ports, those awaiting on dock
were meet with a grim reality. Nearly everyone aboard was deceased and those that were still
alive remained close to death.
Upon further inspection, the bodies of the passengers aboard these 12 ships were
covered in mysterious boils. These mysterious boils were black in color and oozed both blood
and pus from them. It was at this point in which the Plague was rightfully so referred to as the
Black Death. Although the boats were ordered out of port by the Sicilian authority, it was much
too late. The mysterious disease began to spread across land killing more than 20 million
people across Europe within five years. Overall, the Black Death took more than an estimated
total of 75 million lives.
Today, it is now known by scientist that the cause of the Black Death was to be blamed
on a bacillus (bacterium) called Yersina Pestis. Yersinia Pestis must be contained within the
blood to survive and is usually transmitted from fleas, to rats and then human beings. The
Yersina Pestis infection takes on three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic and bubonic
plagues.
Christians’ Response to the Black Death
Due to the lack of knowledge present in the 14th century, many were confused by what
may have caused the Black Death and felt as if there was no rational explanation. This began to
cause a slew of theories with one in particular being that the Black Death was a divine
punishment created by God to reprimand those whom had sinned against him.
Thoughts began to arise that maybe God was punishing European Christians. Perhaps
for corruption within their churches and/or because the Christians did not participate in the
Crusades (a series of wars occurring in what is now known as the Middle East) to their upmost
ability allowing the Muslims to be destroyed and ultimately removing them from the Holy Land.
With these types of beliefs in mind, most Christians came to a now known unrealistic
“realization” that the only way to prevent themselves from being stricken with the Black Death
was to seek forgiveness for their sins, restore their faith in God and remove those from their
communities that were thought to be trouble-makers. Therefore, resulting in the massacre of
thousands of Jews. It is hard to tell whether proportionally more Jews died from the plague or
the persecutions – the Christians claimed that the Jews died at only half the rate of Christians
from the Black Death.

2. The Black Death epidemic had run its course by the early 1350s, but the plague
reappeared every few generations for centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices
have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it. It is still possible
today to be stricken with the plague and an outbreak recently occurred in Madagascar during
2013 – although a very small amount of cases have been reported in the U.S. and other areas,
advancements in science have lessen the chances of mortality.
References:
Black Death. (2010). Retrieved March 2, 2015, from
http://www.history.com/topics/black-death
Jewish History. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2015, from http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-
black-death/
Yersinia pestis. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2015, from
http://web.uconn.edu/mcbstaff/graf/Student presentations/Y. pestis/Yersinia pestis.html