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Black death and Christianity
How did the christians respond to the black death
Muslim and Christian responses to black death
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The responses to the Black Death by Christians and Muslims were vaguely similar but vastly different. The Christians sought someone to condemn, said that the Black Death was a punishment while Muslims said it was a blessing. Yes, both Christians and Muslims turned to their religion, however Christians turned in a much worse way in comparison to Muslims. Christians turned to the church to find someone to condemn, someone other than themselves. Christians challenged the authority of the church, they took up an act of rebellion and defiance, to a point where no king, law, or justice could stop them. Christians saw the Black Death as a reparation for their sins. Christians said the lord is enraged and that the plague was an act of penance so they
...se of the plague’s presence by delimiting impious behavior according to biblical law, and condemning displays of impropriety. Individuals who failed to adhere to religious dictates regarding frugality and matrimony were blamed for ushering in the disease. Those who ignored social conventions regarding decent dress and gender codes were also accused of inciting God’s wrath and bringing society to ruin. According to excerpts of Rosemary Horrox’s The Black Death, the religious message of 1348 states that human pain and suffering are divine punishment for decadence, licentiousness, and frivolity. It is interesting to note that religious leaders of the 21st century state much the same thing regarding catastrophic events. This leads one to conclude that standards of propriety and decorum will always remain an inherent part of any religious diagnosis for societal ailments.
The effects of the Black Death on Medieval Europe were that the economy fell, faith in religion decreased, and the demand for labor was high. The Black Death was a deadly disease that devastated Medieval Europe. This bubonic plague killed 1/3 of the European population, crippling the economy and faith in religion.
Christian and Muslim had been fighting over the Holy Land and which is the better. When Jew wasn’t part of the Crusades, they randomly got pulled in and christian started killing them.Document 1 states that “In the Middle East, both Christians and Muslims committed appalling atrocities
Therefore, the responses of Christians and Muslims to the Black Death greatly differed from each other. Responses to this calamity are different because of faith and world perspectives. Both thinking that it was their God’s will, they accepted it, but thought it was brought upon them for varying reasons. Of course, nowadays, doctors and scientist know it is from bacterial strain, and with the increasingly advanced technology, it will hopefully be prevented if another outbreak ever occurs again.
Both Europeans and Islamic empires experienced the Black Death. However, regions affected by the disease reacted in various ways and differed in reasons for the cause of the disease. Muslims were peaceful, accepted the Black Death as a blessing from God, and were proactive in suggesting causes of the disease. In contrast, Europeans blamed and burned Jews for the plague, rebelled against authority, and saw the illness as a punishment for sins. Even though Christians and Muslims believe in the same God, the responses and actions of both regions toward the Black Death differed immensely.
The Black Death is the name later given to the epidemic of plague that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351. The disaster affected all aspects of life. Depopulation and shortage of labor hastened changes already inherent in the rural economy; the substitution of wages for labor services was accelerated, and social stratification became less rigid. Psychological morbidity affected the arts; in religion, the lack of educated personnel among the clergy gravely reduced the intellectual vigor of the church.
Both religions were terrified of the disease, but the Muslims were more accepting of it. Muslims did not blame anybody for the plague, they just accepted it as a type of holy penance and moved on. Christians, on the other hand, blamed the Jews. Many Jews in Europe were forced to convert to Christianity because of the deadly discrimination they were receiving, therefore, leading them to “convert or die”. Even some Jews that converted also died by the hands of Christians. One might think that this discrimination against the Jews during this time was like a miniature holocaust. In Document seven of the D.B.Q., the poem “Burning of the Jews” written in 1348 by Johannes Nohl is a perfect example of what happened to a lot of Jews when they crossed paths with angry
However, the Christians claimed that the Jews were less affected by the black death. The fact that the Jews were less effected by the black death is not because the plague was their fault but it was due to the sanitary practices of the Jewish law. For example, the Jewish law requires one to wash his or hands several times throughout the day. They must wash before they eat, after they leave the bathroom and at least once a week the Jews bathe for Sabbath. In the medieval world one can go about half his lifetime without ever having to wash his hands.
This affected more than just Europe, it really hurt countries in the Middle East and China. The Black Death was spread by the Mongols and passed into Europe through black rats and fleas. Ships were known to arrive in Europe with many dead bodies and only rats living. Symptoms of the Black Death included puss filled abscesses that ended up turning your whole body black. It is believed that after receiving symptoms of the deadly disease people would only survive a few days. It was feared that the entire population would be wiped out by this devastating plague. People of this age believed the plague had meaning and was related to God, there were different perceptions of why the Bubonic plague happened, although some believed God caused it, others strongly believed that it was not possible for God to commit an act that would cause so many issues to the world and its society. The population that survived the Black Death were traumatized by the events and also affected negatively economically. An effect of the plague was a shortage of labor which caused a shortage of supply and increase in demand of workers and laborers. The whole of Europe had changed because of this event and things such as revolts. Protests, and up rise started to occur in cities all over Europe. The Black Death changed the attitudes and thinking of the people of Europe
“I think a rat just climbed up my leg, Dad. And I’ve got fleas, too.” “John, there’s all this Black Death and all you care about is a few fleas and a rat.
No other epidemic reaches the level of the Black Death which took place from 1348 to 1350. The epidemic, better regarded as a pandemic, shook Europe, Asia, and North Africa; therefore it deems as the one of the most devastating events in world history. In The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350, John Aberth, compiles primary sources in order to examine the origins and outcomes of this deadly disease. The author, a history professor and associate academic dean at Vermont’s Castleton State College, specializes in medieval history and the Black Death. He wrote the book in order to provide multiple perspectives of the plague’s impact. Primarily, pathogens started the whole phenomenon; however, geological, economic, and social conditions
The Islamic world had suffered at least five major plague epidemics before the Black Death in the 14th century, yet the Black Death was far more deadly than any of the previous epidemics that had hit the Islamic world. Medieval Muslims had no scientific explanation for the disease and thus Islamic societies began to believe that the plague was of divine origin. Religious teachers declared that for the righteous Muslim death by plague was a blessing, a martyrdom like death in defense of Islam, which ensured the victim a heavenly reward. For the infidel death by plague was considered a punishment for sin that condemned one to hell. As with all acts of Allah, the pestilence seen as just, merciful, good, and could not be avoided. Since God specifically chose each victim, there could be no random spreading of the disease by contagion, nor could one escape death by flight or medication. From these views, Muslims formed three basic tenets for coping with the plague: The disease was a mercy and martyrdom from God for the faithful Muslim but a punishment for the infidel, a Muslim should neither enter nor flee a plague-stricken land, and there was ...
In 1348, people from all around the world suffered from one of the most deadliest and cruel diseases known as the Black Death. The plague killed so many people in Europe that some of the villages were abandoned and the population of some cities was decreased by half. Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer and poet who eye-witnessed and described the horrors caused by the Black Death in his novels Decameron. In Boccaccio’s work, the sick people were left behind to survive on their own and even children were left behind by their parents because they were sick. Unfortunately, from all the people who died during the epidemic, the peasants were those who actually benefited from it. The Black Death end up with political,
The Black Death plagues had disastrous consequences for Europe in the 14th century. After the initial outbreak in Europe, 1347, it continued for around five years and then mysteriously disappeared. However it broke out again in the 1360s and every few decades thereafter till around 1700. The European epidemic was an outbreak of the bubonic plague, which began in Asia and spread across trade routes. When it reached Europe, a path of destruction began to emerge. Medieval society was tossed into disarray, economies were fractured, the face of culture and religion changed forever. However the plagues devastation was not all chaotic, there were benefits too, such as modern labour movements, improvements in medicine and a new outlook on life. Therefore in order to analyse the impact the Black Death had on societies in the 14th century, this essay will consider the social, economic, cultural and religious factors in order to reach an overall conclusion.
killed millions of people in both religions, but the view of the plague on both sides was very