Was The Black Death Really So Bad For This Country?
In some ways the Black Death (or The Plague as we refer to it now) was both in a way good and bad. It was good to certain people and creatures but it was also bad for selected people and creatures. But it mostly depends on what your opinion is and the angle you look at it from. It also depended on where you were in the feudal system (that’s a system were you have certain people high up and rich e.g. the king, lords, knights etc and the low people beggars, surfs etc).
The Bad Things About The Black Death
The main big, huge, tremendous bad reason is that thousands upon thousands died of The Black Death. Another smaller reason is that many people lost their jobs from being infected with The Black Death and dieing. A reason linked to that is that people who couldn’t afford to go and buy food then starved to death because no one was there serving or selling any food. Also crime levels went up because of people dieing shops had less security than before so thieves and beggars could just go and take food from shops with out much hassle. Also there would be fewer crops because the surfs (people who did all the farming and hard work for nothing but housing) were the ones who were getting infected the most and because they were dieing there was no one to grow and harvest the crops. Lots of people would have lost some of their family as well. Plus there would be no one to run the country because all the important people would have died too. It was bad for some animals to because at some point during when the Black Death was in England all dogs and cats were killed in hope of it helping to stop the Black Death.
The Good Reasons About The Black Death
The good reasons behind the Black Death were mainly to do with thieves, beggars, poor people and surfs (the ones who hadn’t died yet or weren’t infected). It was good for these people because there were lots of people who owned shops dieing so they could walk into a shop and steal something and get away with it (but this didn’t last very long because after a while the food supply started to run out so people had to grow there own crops to survive). Another good reason for us in the present is that if it didn’t hit then we probably wouldn’t know very much about it now therefore we wouldn’t know how to cure people infected with it right away, so now that if it did hit England again we would know how to cure it. A good reason also is that Surfs got more freedom because their owners caught the Black Death and died (this applies to the Surfs who hadn’t died yet or weren’t infected)
I think that the Black Death was good and bad because there are loads of reasons why it was bad and why it was good. So you can’t say that it was one or the other. So my conclusion is that it is both good and bad.
By Tashan Jones 7W
09/07/07