Exercises on the Black Death

(Mackenzie) The Black Death, which decimated about a third of the European population, the peasant revolts caused by the precarious balance of agricultural production and the Hundred Years' War, between France and England, were responsible:

a) for the formation of the feudal-clerical society.

b) by the crisis of economic mercantilism.

c) for strengthening the nobility at the expense of royal power.

d) for accelerating the crisis of absolutism.

e) for the crisis of feudalism and the consolidation of royal power.

(ENEM-MEC) The Black Death decimated a good part of the European population, with effects on the growth of cities. Medical knowledge at the time was not enough to contain the epidemic. In the city of Siena, Agnolo di Tura wrote:“People died by the hundreds, day and night, and they were all thrown into pits covered with earth, and as soon as those pits were full, more was dug. And I buried my five children with my own hands (...) And so many died that everyone thought it was the end of the world.”

Agnolo di Tura. The Plague in Siena:An Italian Chronicle . In:William M. Bowsky. The Black Death:a turning point in history? New York:HRW, 1971 (with adaptations).

The testimony of Agnolo di Tura, a survivor of the Black Death that ravaged Europe during part of the 14th century, suggests that:

a) the scourge of the Black Death was associated with the end of time.

b) the Church sought to contain the fear of death, disseminating medical knowledge.

c) the impression caused by the number of dead was not so strong, because the victims were few and identifiable.

d) there was a substantial demographic decline in Europe in the period before the Plague.

e) the drama experienced by the survivors was caused by the fact that the corpses were not buried.

Read the following text:“The pandemic that became known as the Black Death ravaged Europe during the 14th century. A considerable part of the bibliography on the Middle Ages devotes few pages to the phenomena related to this terrible fact, which profoundly marked the West, producing representations and symbols that remain today. According to the chroniclers, few events were as tragic as the disease that, around 1347-1350, would have been the cause of the disappearance of a third of the European population. The period between 1300 and the 17th century was marked by the introduction into Europe of diseases from Asia, caused by population and commercial movements. The movement of the plague agent, Yersinia pestis , from primitive niches in southwest China, passed through the caravan routes through Asia and spread across the continent from the ports of the Mediterranean.” (SANTOS, Ricardo Augusto dos. “Carnival, plague and 'Spanish'”. Hist. Cienc. Saúde-Manguinhos [online]. 2006, vol. 13, n.1, pp.129-158.)

Based on the information presented in the text above, it is possible to say that the Black Death reached Europe through:

a) the arrival of Chinese who wanted to decimate the European population so that they could appropriate their raw materials and trade routes.

b) the ports of the Mediterranean Sea, which were centers of proliferation of diseases.

c) caravan routes that came from China and other Asian regions, where the bacillus Yersinia pestis was already present , causative agent of the Plague.

d) of the Jews, who, since ancient times, migrated to Europe and were found guilty of the Plague.

e) of biological weapons, developed in Asia, whose objective was population control of Europe and Asia.

The pandemic known as the Black Death ravaged the European population in the 14th century and, together with the great peasant revolt that took place at this same time, composed the scenario of the so-called Crisis of the 14th century. About the Black Death it is INCORRECT to state that:

a) The biological agent causing the plague was the bacillus Yersinia pestis , which was initially transmitted to humans by rats and fleas.

b) The Plague caused enormous death in Europe, decimating 1/3 of the European population.

c) The causes of the Plague were not explained from a biological point of view, at the time, because scientific knowledge had not yet developed with precision.

d) The Plague was called “Black” because it spread in Europe through the great migration of African blacks during the 14th century to European territory.

e) The blame for the spread of the Plague was placed on the Jews.

Letter E.

The peasant revolts and the Hundred Years' War, added to the Black Death, configure the so-called Crisis of the 14th century in Europe, or, as it is also known:Crisis of the Low Middle Ages, which was characterized by the crisis of feudalism and the consolidation of royal power, as the letter E points out , which is correct. Economic mercantilism and absolutism are post-16th century events, so alternatives B and D are incorrect. The royal power, from the end of the 14th century, grew together with the nobility, while this growth overlapped the old feudal and clerical organization. Therefore, alternatives C and A are incorrect.

Letter A.

From a close reading of the text, we realize that the Italian chronicler, Agnolo di Tura, establishes a direct relationship between the catastrophic event that was the Black Death and the "end of the world", giving the testimony of the huge number of people who died as a result of it. Thus, the letter A is correct, while letter D is wrong in suggesting that the population decline in Europe took place in the period before the Plague. The terrible impression one had of the Plague was largely due to the high number of deaths affected by it (thus, alternative C is incorrect). There was no way to combat the Plague with the medical knowledge available at that time, not even if it was widely fostered by the Church, and, the death toll being very high, corpses did not have an individual funeral, but were buried in mass graves; this did not imply the main drama of the survivors. His main drama was not knowing how many more lives the Plague would take. (This invalidates alternatives B and E).

Letter C.

The text describes the probable route through which the bacillus that caused the Black Death entered European territory; this route was the same as the trade caravans that went from Asia to Europe, since diseases accompanied human movement in the medieval world, mainly through ships and ports. Therefore, the C alternative is correct and alternative B is wrong, as the Plague did not come specifically from the ports. Neither Chinese nor Jews were responsible for any plague, pestilence or disease. This argument usually stems from the search for stereotypes of persecution – foreign peoples, like the two cited, constitute one of these stereotypes (alternatives A and D are incorrect). Diseases, in the medieval world, were not used as biological weapons – there was no such understanding of weaponry at this time; nor would the objective be demographic control. Therefore, alternative E is incorrect.

Letter D.

There was no great migration of black Africans to Europe in the 14th century and, even if there had been, on the African continent, at the time, there was no presence of any plague caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis . The letter D is incorrect because it is the only one to present information with no real connection with the 14th century context.