WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -When the Black Death struck Europe in 1347, the increasingly secular Church was forced to respond when its religious, spiritual, and instructive capabilities were found wanting. 2 The Black Death exacerbated this decline of faith in the Church because it exposed its vulnerability to Christian society.

Detailed explanation-2: -By 1500, many forces had weakened the power of the Catholic Church. The most important of these forces were the new ideas of the Renaissance, the new technology of the printing press, and the increasing skepticism of Church authority generated from events such as the Great Schism and Black Death.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Weakening of the Catholic Church By the Late Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was weakened by corruption, political struggles, and humanist ideas. Many Catholics were dismayed by worldliness and immorality in the Church, including the sale of indulgences and the practice of simony.

Detailed explanation-4: -The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many labourers died, which devastated families through lost means of survival and caused personal suffering; landowners who used labourers as tenant farmers were also affected.

Detailed explanation-5: -The plague had large scale social and economic effects, many of which are recorded in the introduction of the Decameron. People abandoned their friends and family, fled cities, and shut themselves off from the world. Funeral rites became perfunctory or stopped altogether, and work ceased being done.

Detailed explanation-6: -These huge death tolls sparked off a chain of events that would redefine the position of the peasant in England. Due to the fact that so many had died, there were far fewer people to work the land: peasants were therefore able to demand better conditions and higher wages from their landlords.