Deadly illnesses swept throughout Europe and Asia destroying everyone infected and took an emotional toll on those who were spared. The Bubonic Plague, also known as “the Black Death”, was a devastating disease that was transmitted through fleas jumping from rodents to humans. It wasn’t bias in who it infected and those who were infected suffered immensely. Scientific research was a thing of the future and God seemed to be the answer for every unexplained event. Those who survived truly questioned why God would put society through such a thing and they started questioning the church and its part in all of this. The plague played a major role in the fall of the Roman Catholic Church, but a series of events had to have happened before the introduction of the plague in Europe that would ultimately lead to Protestant Reformation, such as the rise of the Mongolian Empire and the introduction to working trade routes.
The Mongols were nomadic people and could’ve been found living on the “Eurasian Steppes, East of Korea on the edges of Gobi Desert and north of the boundaries of the old Chinese empire and the Great Wall.” Their first successful Khan was the Chinggis Khan, Temujin. Temujin was known as “The Great Unifier” and his conquests back up his nickname. Under his command, the Mongols were able to successfully move southward and conquer the Western Xia Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty (1215), Central Asia, and the Eurasian Steppes. Mongol armies were able travel great distances with the assistance of the Mongolian Horse; steppes pony. Armies moved with three horses per warrior and travelled light. The Mongols were a powerful empire and were almost always able to move through cities establishing power with ease. Their main goal in all the conquering, was to add a new road to their existing trade route.
Trade was an important part of the livelihood of the Mongols, “With every conquest they went on, it seemed like they went on them to settle disputes over trade and not to acquire an empire”. Because the Mongols were nomadic, they heavily relied on large herds for food and animal skin for clothes and shelter. Personally, I believe that being nomadic hurt them because of their inability to grow their own crops and grains due to moving with the herd and catering to their needs. Trading presented them with the opportunity to make money by moving goods in order to generate enough income. Successfully acquired income was used to buy the things they couldn’t get from herds. By expanding and conquering different empires, the Mongols were able to establish a working trade route that allowed everyone to communicate and have everyone on the same money system. An established trade route brought a lot of positive aspects to their way of life but due to so much movement, things like deadly diseases and illnesses came along.
Deadly illnesses and diseases were able to truly spread and do the most destruction because of the access the trade route provided. Merchants often traded animals and different types of foods but with those goods came rodents and fleas. This plague only affects humans when fleas jump from dead rodents to humans. According to Three Days in October of 1630, “humans are a last resort for these deadly fleas”. The fleas were also known as Xenopsylla Cheopis. Due to the plague being transmitted by an animal, it is known as an enzootic disease. In 1320, the first major outbreak of the bubonic plague was recorded in the Yunnan province in China. The plague finally reached Europe in 1347 through various Italian city states. By 1348, Germany, France, England, and Italy had all experienced an outbreak. By 1350, Norway, Eastern Europe, and Russia were also affected. The bubonic was also known as “The Black Death” because of the visible black filled pus buboes that could be found in the armpit or groin area. This plague is transmitted by a flea but the disease itself is bacterial; Yersinia Pestis. The disease is brutal to anyone who gets it and it is rarely survived. You would have experienced high fever, lesions, and buboes. It will spread to the lungs causing pneumonia symptoms and death should happen within 10 days.
The plague wasn’t biased and with the amount of deaths that it has brought on to different towns, it was hard for people to cope. At this time there wasn’t any scientific research on the plague, so it was feared that this plague was happening because of God. After this infectious disease, different movements like flagellants started to form. Flagellants were those who survived the plague and believed they needed to punish themselves, “Flagellants sought to punish themselves to atone for their sins and the sins of mankind in the hope of appeasing God and sparing them from the plague. They would basically whip and scourge themselves.” People also started to question societal order and the church. Although the church cared for those who were poor and badly affected by the plague, they were questioned because they are the gate between you and God. The church was already on thin ice with society because it was thought that the church was failing God himself, but society wasn’t mad enough to do much about that situation. A reaction from society didn’t happen until the aftermath of the lending hand the churches gave. By helping the infected, the churches suffered many deaths and fell into bankruptcy. To bounce back from their losses, they started “selling indulgences (selling a ticket out of hell or purgatory)”. By doing so, this gave churches the opportunity to abuse those who felt like they cheated death and were disobeying God’s wishes. Peasants found out about these injustices and began revolting and were violently suppressed.
These “unholy” acts that church were doing to the people who were just bouncing back from a deadly plague were frowned upon by society. Although selling indulgences started off harmless, they began to get greedy. The people felt like they had too much power and this was the start of the Protestant Reformation. The Plague was ultimately the start of the fall of the Roman Catholic Church and once questions began to rise, the split was in action. By expanding the Mongolian empire, the Mongols were the start of the fall on the church. They opened trade routes and were able to connect people across the continent, and the plague swept through and killed many. This then was the start of questioning the societal order and church because the church was the gateway to God according the people.
The Bubonic Plague played a major role in the fall of the Roman Catholic Church, but a series of events had to have happened before the introduction of the plague in Europe that would ultimately lead to Protestant Reformation, such as the rise of the Mongolian Empire and the introduction to working trade routes. The plague wasn’t bias in who it infected and those who were infected suffered immensely. There wasn’t any scientific explanation for the plague because God was the answer for everything, unexplainable or not. As deadly as it was, it was a historical event that was able to shape the future and without it who knows what could’ve happened.
