Black Death

Today, I have looked at the nature and impact of the Black death in Britain from 1348-50 through the use of internet sites such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml and http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/black_death_of_1348_to_1350.htm and textbooks such as Medieval Realms R. Adams and Medieval Minds: Britain 1066-1500 by J. Bryrom, C. Counsell and M. Riley.



I researched how and when the Black death reached Britain, how it spread throughout the country, the symptoms of the plague, its effects on British medieval life and the medieval myths of how the disease spread, how to avoid it and how to cure it:



The Black death reached England in the summer of 1348 and is believed to have come to England through trading supplies with other countries and was therefore brought in by ships which carried infected people as well as rats.

The most common type of plague around at this time was the 'bubonic plague'. The symptoms of this plague were: swelling (buboes) in the armpits and in the groin, a fever and high temperature, sneezing, vomiting, coughing up of blood, circles of red and black spots would appear all over the body. Another type of plague which was around at this time was the pneumonic plague which killed people when their lungs became infected with the disease and this disease could be passed from person to person from people breathing on each other.

Historians think that about one person in every three died of the plague between 1348 and 1351 and it is estimated that in England it killed approximately 1.5 million people out of a population of 4 million between 1348 and 1351.

Although the plague spread throughout England by fleas which sucked dead rat's blood (which contained the plague germs) and spread this deadly disease onto humans by jumping on them, many people in the medieval times believed that the disease was spread in other ways. For instance, some people believed that the disease could be spread if an infected person stared at you; others thought that it was god's punishment for people sinning; others suggested that the position of the planets had caused the plague; and other claimed that foreigners or those who followed a different religion had poisoned the wells.

Some people even tried to come up with ways to avoid getting the plague or to cure it once you did have it. There were a huge number of suggestions such as: shutting oneself up and fasting, going to church and asking for forgiveness, bursting the swellings so that the poison would come out, carrying posies of herbs and flowers, avoiding breathing in the same air as plague victims and running away to the countryside and leaving everyone else behind. Some even became flagellants and wandered around the countryside praying, beating themselves with sharp-ended whips and preaching their message to all who would listen to them.

In terms of teaching the plague outbreak to students, I would look at how the plague spread throughout Europe using the following map to show and explain to the children: /http://www.ucalgary.ca/HIST/tutor/imagemid/blackdeath.gif and I might also use some of the sources from this page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml so that the children can learn from historical accounts how the disease arrived in Britain and how it spread throughout the country.

I would also use videos as well as images to illustrate how the plague infected people
http://history.howstuffworks.com/middle-ages/black-death.htm (while I showed the children the video I would ask them to take notes or i might give them questions to answer so that I know they have learnt something).

Some of the images I would show them: http://www.planetpatrol.info/images/bd3.jpg, http://www.dynamicscience.com.au/tester/solutions/war/biological/bubonic.jpg, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Symptoms_of_bubonic_plague.png, http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/black-death-3.jpg

Once I had showed them the images and the video I would hand out a blank drawing of a person and ask them to draw on to this some of the symptoms of the black death and label it as well.

I would also look at some of the myths which people linked with the black death such as the cures they believed they could use: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cures_for_the_black_death.htm, http://www.historyonthenet.com/Stuarts/plague_doctor.htm (following showing some of these cures, I would also look into the role of plague doctors and other roles of key individuals who tried to stop the plague spreading such as searchers, watchmen etc) as well as looking at how the black death spread and how people in the medieval times believed it spread.

I would end the lesson by reflecting on what the children had learnt from the lesson and I would create a game which would check what they had learnt about the black death such as a game of SPLAT which involves you putting on a whiteboard a number of answers to questions about the black death and the idea is that two children play against each other and when a question is asked they race to find the correct answer to the question on the board and points are given when an answer is correct.