Lecture 6 - Plague and Revolt!!Key Terms cafe!•Yersinia pestis!•Prato!•Ciompi Revolt!•Red Turbans!• Questions How did disease reshape society in the fourteenth century?!•recurrent plague cycles destabilized social norms, shrank the labor force, and contributed ◦to political crises!What social conditions and political resentment produced rebellion in 14th century Eurasia?!•reduced population = attempts to control labor power!◦peasants, worker resentment of social control, heavy taxation!◦!"Little Ice Age": c. 1300-1700 End of the "Medieval Optimal" warm period (c. 900-1300)!•cold, wet summers!•shorter, unreliable growing season!•last for 300-350 years!•global cooling!•agriculture and harder and more unpredictable!•living in the far north (Greenland with vikings) became harder and harder to grow any ◦crops!difficult!◦northern seas begin to freeze so it's hard people to transport materials toward Greenland !•Greenland colony abandoned !◦!Famine Great Famine Europe 1315-17!•strikes almost all of Europe !◦growing season is shortened!◦drought and excessive rain !◦hard to get a good harvest !◦political instability !◦weakening of the population !◦Famines in China, 1330s-40s!•Famine, revolt in Iran, 1320s-130s!•!Weakened, Vulnerable Populations abandonment of marginal lands!•competition for grain, other resources!•malnourishment = encan res danger of plague, other diseases !•!The Black Death: A Medical Detective Story whether the black death is from the bubonic plague or not!•eventually proven after gaining DNA from skeletons!•study from English play pits which are major mass dumps!◦found aDNA from teeth of plague pit corpses to find the causing bacteria!◦!Plague: yersinia pestis endemic in ground rodents!•transmitted via fleas, lice!•made fit for the population due to their lack of hygienic in crowded cities!◦forms of plague!•bubonic!◦pneumonic!◦septicemic!◦!Diffusion of Plague Bacteria Types from the Mongol empire earliest (just voles) spreading across the continent!•red: medieval!•Asian trade routes from the Mongol empire spread the disease to other territories!•Islamic world was hit severely !•hit by both waves of the plague traveling through the land and Indian Ocean!◦!Caffa: Entrepot and Epidemic Flashpoint Europeans first become aware of the trading city of Caffa!•the disease breaks out by the Golden Hordes army from Mongols in their camps!•!Siege of Caffa, 1346 plague arrives via trade routes !•Golden Horde besieging Genoese (It.) colony !•plague in Golden Horde's camp; bodies flung over walls!•refugees reach Sicily, 1346 !•by a ghost ship full of dead people!◦rats and rodents traveling with them and begin to spread the disease!◦!Contemporary Sources Boccaccio (1313-1375): Florentine author, satirist !•model his account of the plague!◦Decameron: novellas (short stories) told by plague refugees !•Al-Maqrizi (1364-1442): Cairene historian, scholar!•!Response to the Plague religious initiatives (flagellant societies, pious bequests)!•acts of atonement toward God for the sins!◦spike in people making last wills !◦abnormal money given to charities, hospitals, and churches!◦Anti-jewish violence: France and Spain!•looking for the scapegoat and attack them!◦cultural changes: Dance of Death!•skeletons dancing around the grave!◦decorative motif in paintings and tapestries and coffins!◦widespread fascination of death and imperishability of death!◦more concern with death and how to be ready for an early death!◦!Plague Cycles1348-9!•1363: Plague of the Children !•people seeing children dying!◦some survivors of the previous plague died!◦returned frequently enough that you expect to see it again!◦1372-73!•periodic outbreaks into 15th century!•becomes familiar of the Eurasian landscape!◦opportunistic infections !•due to the famine experienced later !◦forms of fever, flu, and other illnesses !◦plague is preceded by bad blows of famine and global cooling!•making other people exposed to other sickness!◦!Prato, Tuscany (central Italy) close neighbor of Florence!•best sources for understanding the demongraphic of the disease!•mid sized town -> well settled densely populated city!•impact of the plague on Prato, 1310-1470!•households -> 72% drop!◦in 1310 -> 4000!‣in 1325 -> 3400!‣after 1410 -> 950 (stable)!‣and they were smaller!‣average in 1298 -> 4.1 people!•in 1371 -> 3.4 people!•!Age Structure 1371: fewer people over 25; population's age structure unchanged!•1427: youths, adolescents rare; proportion of elderly doubled!•population decline blamed on immorality !•!Late Fourteenth Century Rebellions English "Peasants" Rebellion 1381!•Florence: Ciompi Revolt 1378 !•China: Red Turbans !•!Improved Conditions for Subsistence Farmers !English Rebellion of 1381 1381 poll tax !•rebel program!•no serfdom!◦no labor services !◦no poll tax !◦Wat Tyler and Richard II!•king strikes out killing Tyler which is the leader !◦plagues and revolt changed social relations with more tensions!•!Ciompi Revolt, Florence, 1378population !•1300: c. 100,000!◦fall 1348: 35-40,000!◦1362, 70,000!◦1378, c. 50,000!◦8-11,000 male woolworkers!◦making cheap textiles to neighbors !•!Florence's Cloth Industry large numbers of unskilled laborers!•middling cloth merchant, manufacturers!•entrepreneurs sell the finished cloth!•cloth build members: the entrepreneurs!•!Comp Program, July 1378 graduated taxes and no forced loans!•lenient treatment of debtors!•cheaper bread, higher wages!•No Wool Guild authority over their work !•points of assembly = 3 clothworker neighbhoods!•targets the town hall!•Wool Guild palace!•Standardbearer of Justice !•bells 1-8!•!The Red Turbans popular religious ideas: Buddhism, Confucianism, millenarian beliefs!•Resentment vs. Mongol impositions!•Chinese begin to revolt against the Mongols !◦political demands of the resentment !◦hereditary occupations, heavy taxes !•make peasantry try to stay on the land !◦!Regional Rebellions Under Warlords rural rebellions in rural China, 1350s-1368!•peasants goes against the Mongol armies!◦last 1360s looked really bad for the Mongols !◦Red Turbans: religious, social movement!•Last Yuan flees to Karakorum, 1368!•bring the end of the Yuan dynasty!◦!Foundation of the Ming Dynasty, 1368 Zhu Yuangzhang