History Extended Essay

[Twista]

I just had to do it today in timed and exam conditions. Its worths 30% of my final grade. This was my draft, my final essay was pretty much the same. Can i have your opinions please?:




“To what extend did the Black Death merely accelerate changes in Europe, in the Fourteenth Century?”


"Short term disaster but also a long term benefit that completely revolutionised the land", wrote Thornald Rodgers in the late fourteenth century. The Black Death rampaged through the whole of Europe in the 14th century, spread by rats, brought over from the East. It's greatest victory, it could argued, was that it changed medieval society and brought a demise to feudalism, and helped save Serf's from an eternity of poverty. However, some historians do say that it was not just the black death, for the plague was just a random catalyst that accelerated what was already happening. Most historians believe that it was in fact the black death was the turning point of the age, the point where people could begin to speak fro themselves, and live their own life free from the damnation of medieval slavery.

There was obviously major flaws to this ‘acceleration’, as many people had to die in the process. As a result of this, Europe faced a massive population drop, Zeigler wrote; "at least a third of Europe’s inhabitants were killed off”. The plague came to Europe in the fall of 1347. By 1350 it had mostly passed out of western Europe. Within two years, one out of every three people were dead. Nothing like that had ever happened before or since. These numbers hide the random nature of the epidemic, as some areas suffered more than other, and there was even some pockets within the centre of Europe that seemed non-effected at all. It was these deaths that started to signify a main point. The church was beginning to fail. The majority of people explained the plague within two reasons, either God was punishing everyone, or the Devil was inflicting massive evil upon the world. And at the same time, no matter how much people turned to the church, people carried on dieing. Not to mention that the church actually suffered massive causalities to its order. This was because all the priests had to say the last rights to all those dying, and subsequently caught the plague off all those they came in contact with. This just showed that the plague effected everyone. The chroniclers said, the plague touched everyone, rich and poor, and the Florentine historian, Villani, wrote this, "And many lands and cities were made desolate. The plague lasted until _____" - he left a blank at the end of the sentence, hoping to fill in a date after the plague had gone, however, he never did since he died in 1348 from the plague. The loss of life in such great numbers and to so gruesome a disease, brought despair and misery everywhere. The church didn’t so much fall however, as it constantly had a larger and larger flow of income coming in. Many people, in the will’s, left everything to the Church, and with hundreds dying everyday, they basically had a endless supply of money coming their way. Not that they could use it for anything however, as if something needed built, there was no one to build it, and further more, no priest to fill that position. This whole idea of people not being able to go to church on a regular basis, and loosing faith besides that, was quite a good thing as it allowed people to ‘think outside the box’ and actually live their lives in a different manner to how the church so harshly demanded. People ( including that of high Bishops ) lost their faith to such a degree that they went out on drinking binges, and had very promiscuous nights to say the least. Open opposition to the authority of Pope and Church came in the person of John Wycliffe, a notable theologian and master of Balliol College, Oxford. He not only questioned the Churches power, but also attacked the worship of images and relics, the sale of pardons, and masses for the dead. Wycliffe was dismissed from his position at Balliol College for his views but many people flocked to his teachings and his large following became known as the Lollards. These were a key group that basically deserted the church all together for the tragedies they had faced. This kind of thing could be foreseen as happening because every day people were coming up with new theories to dispitute God, and the plague was most probably the catalyst that set it going even further.

Economically, the plague was a disaster, yet a perfect answer for everyone, for although many became poor, more became rich after the disaster struck. Cities were hit hard by the plague. Financial business was ruined as people who owed people money died and their creditors found themselves without recourse. Not only had the debtor died, his whole family had died with him and many of his kinsmen. There was no one left to collect the owed money from. Construction stopped for a while or were abandoned altogether. Guilds lost their craftsmen and could not replace them. Mills and other special machinery might break and the one man in town who had the skill to repair it had died in the plague. Towns were advertising for specialists, offering high wages. The labour shortage was very severe, especially in the short term and landlord were desperate for labourers and had to give into the peasants so wages rose. Prices also rose with the wages ( even though most peasants were payed in kind-food), however, because of the mortality food prices ten dropped. Between these two trends, the standard of living rose. The Short term disaster here is that prices rose and landlord found it hard finding labour; as well as it being hard to pay them. However, the long term benefit is that when prices fell everyone alive was living better off. This kind of thing could not to be said of happening anyway, was the black death was probably in fact the sole cause of it happening. Some historians even think if the Black Death hadn’t accoutred then we might still be living under a feudalistic society.

[Twista]

Effects in the countryside were much the same as far as acceleration was going. Farms and entire villages died out or were abandoned as the few survivors decided to stay on. When Norwegian sailors finally visited Greenland again in the early 15th centaury, they found in the settlements there only wild cattle roaming through deserted villages. Whole families died, with no heirs, their houses standing empty. The countryside faced a short-term shortage of labour, and landlords stopped freeing their serfs. The slow desertion of small villages was inevitable, and people needed to move to larger towns and cities to make more money anyway. Pre – Fourteenth century Britain basically consisted of many small villages, and very fewer towns and so forth, the plague did simply accelerate this process of people grouping together to form larger places of industry. Saying this however, there still was a lot of movement, as people didn’t know what to do. They thought they could escape from the plague by running to the country side, but then food ran sparse and then had to return to the towns, only infecting themselves. The country side was far from a haven from the plague anyhow, as the shadow of death seemed to reach every spot imaginable. The long awaited acceleration was mainly came from the peasants revolt, even though it brought a realisation to the nobles and fears it was beneficial to the peasants as they new things were changing.

In culture terms, the black death accelerated everyone into a new art form. The tone of despair appears eventually in the art of the times. By the late 1300s, when many parts of Europe had been struck down numerous times by the disease, there was a strain of certain artwork that incited great despair. One striking example can be seen in tomb sculptures. A great lord was buried in a coffin, which in turn was in a larger stone casing that was unusually decorated. The sides might be decorated with religious carvings, but the lid of the tomb often held the likeness of the one entombed. Where previously these sculptures showed the lord in his armour with his sword and shield, or the lady in her best clothes, and both in full bloom of health, around 1400 we see a disturbing change. The sculptures of some show half-decomposed bodies with parts of the skeleton clearly visible. The clothes draping the body were rags, and some showed worms and snails burrowing in the rotting flesh. It wasn't a very happy way to remember someone. The knight's tomb is a reassuring denial of death; the face composed and well-featured, the accoutrements of busy life all about. The cardinal's tomb, however, tells the brutal truth- all flesh is grass. It's disturbing to see, but equally disturbing is the thought that such grimness could find a place as an artistic style. A same sort of style started to appear in paintings. The style was given the name "the danse macabre" - the Dance of Death. The motif shows skeletons mingling with living men in daily scenes. Peasants are seen at a harvest festival, or workmen at a construction site, or hunters in a forests. And in each scene, mingled with the living, are skeletons: skeleton horses carry corpses to the hunt; peasant girls dance with death; a skeleton receives an infant from its baptismal font. The plague accelerated peoples feelings here in many ways, as before hand they didn’t really draw and compose what they felt about death. From this era we can see visibly what people think. Again, this would have happened slowly over time anyway, but that spark of the black death did it again, the black death didn’t just seem to be inciting change, it seemed to be provoking a revolution.

Nothing of significant importance happened the politics of things within Europe just after, or during the fourteenth century, so obviously plague had no permanent effect on the course of politics, but make an impact. King Alfonso XI of Castile was the only reigning monarch to die of the plague, but many lesser notables died, including the queens of Aragon and France, and the son of the Byzantine emperor. Parliaments were adjourned when the plague struck, though they were reconvened. The Hundred Years' War was suspended in 1348 because so many soldiers died. But it started up again. The effect at local levels was more severe. City councils were ravaged. Whole families of local nobles were wiped out. Courts closed down and wills could not be probated. But new courts were convened. The legal mess caused by so many deaths was eventually sorted out, and political life went on. Hence forth, to this degree, not so many changes were going on, so there was nothing to really accelerate.

Acceleration of things during the black death caused massive strain upon Europe. It was hard for everyone to adjust to all these changes in such a short period of time. All the things I have mentioned were bound to happen over a long period of time, maybe 100 years or so, but the plague basically compacted this all down to within 5 years. People simply couldn’t understand; "The people did not understand it and feared it so terribly that it sent a tremor through the whole of society", said Zeigler. The Black Death was the catalyst of its age, and it basically incited a revolution of sorts, not inspired by the people, but by the natural course of time itself.

[IronParrot]

I assume that technical and syntactic errors were probably patched up in your final draft, so were you looking for comments more along the lines of content, argumentation, organization, or something else?