WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Black Death was the largest demographic shock in European history, killing approximately 40% of the region’s population between 1347 and 1352. Some regions and cities were spared, but others were severely hit: England, France, Italy and Spain lost between 50% and 60% of their populations in two years.

Detailed explanation-2: -At the same time, the plague brought benefits as well: modern labor movements, improvements in medicine and a new approach to life. Indeed, much of the Italian Renaissance-even Shakespeare’s drama to some extent-is an aftershock of the Black Death.

Detailed explanation-3: -Deaths were not evenly distributed across Europe, and some areas were affected very little, but others were all but entirely depopulated. The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard although rural areas, where most of the population lived at the time, were also significantly affected.

Detailed explanation-4: -Plague pandemics hit the world in three waves from the 1300s to the 1900s and killed millions of people. The first wave, called the Black Death in Europe, was from 1347 to 1351. The second wave in the 1500s saw the emergence of a new virulent strain of the disease.

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: -In the aftermath of the plague, the richest 10% of the population lost their grip on between 15% and 20% of overall wealth. This decline in inequality was long-lasting, as the richest 10% did not reach again the pre-Black Death level of control on overall wealth before the second half of the seventeenth century.