#black / death

[cecilias-cool-stuff]

Never stop hating

[weirdlookindog]

Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage | 1926 | dir. F.W. Murnau

Emil Jannings as Mephisto

[rherlotshadow]

'From 1348 to 1350 the Black Death killed roughly a third of England's population, and chronicles recorded that, after months of heavy rain, the fields of rotting crops were taken over by enormous, vivid fungi in red, purple and black. What a sight that must have been at a terrifying time.'

From 'The Secret Life of Fungi' by Aliya Whiteley

[mapsontheweb]

Spread of the Black Death, 1346-1353. It arrived from Central Asia & quickly traveled on merchant ships carrying grains & furs from the Italian Black Sea colonies Tana & Kaffa, moving west along the dense, interwoven trade networks and eventually causing ~ 50 million deaths.

(Credit: Simeon Netchev)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was in medieval England and instead of the Black Death everyone kept getting Gonorrhea so in the history books they called it “London’s Cheeks: The Clappening”.

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

Listen.

LISTEN.

LISTEN.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[harrowedworld]

You may be old, but are you old enough to remember the Black Death?

Then you might just be a vampire.

[pragmatismandmagic]

Would love to study the sociological reason we all decided plague doctor's needed to be fashionable. It has no roots in actual history. Look at what plague masks actually looked like in Europe during the Black Death:

look at these silly little birds. These ugly ducklings. Why the fuck did they grow up to be sexy goth swans

You could make a historically accurate plague doctor costume out of a burlap sack and a graduation gown, and if you showed up to a Halloween party like that you would be cropped out of the Instagram pics for the night. Why did this happen???????? Where did you come from historically non-existent tumblr sexy-men plague doctors

[curtvilescomic]

Black Death movie promotional poster by Simon Bisley

The Sean Bean movie is quite good too

[ollyvoile]

Add your reasons, if you like!

Other people have added these:

• Yellow fever @notoverjoyed

• Scurvy @monitorchakas

• Lymph disease @wyrmalien

• Diphtheria ( I couldn’t fit this one)

• Malaria “ye olde marsh fever” @bombadilbaddie

• Scrofula “The King’s Evil” @hasturswig

Edit for all the people telling me “uhhh tuberculosis still exists”: I know! :) In fact, all of these sicknesses still exist. In the modern world we live in, however, most of these are only prevalent in developing countries, and certainly not to the extent they once were.

[syrupie]

Medievalist Professor Answers Medieval Questions From Twitter

[weirdlookindog]

17th century plague pit, Toulouse, France.

© Michaël Gourvennec

[mapsontheweb]

The second pandemic of the Black Death in Europe. 

One key reason often attributed to the low rates of contagion in Poland was the decision by Polish king, Casimir the Great, to close the country's 'borders' shortly after the initial reports from the west and set up internal quarantines.