Compare the moral and social effects of the plague on European and Muslim societies

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. Moral and social effects on European societies
1. tempting to see it as a divine instrument to call for repentance and
make people good
2. dice makers, claimed an abbot in northern France, turned to making
rosary beads
3. plague was a stimulus to science
a. scientific inquiry soon replaced lamentations
4. saw infection and contagion as the main threats
a. imposing quarantine spared lives
5. plague shattered morale
a. psychological effect of the disease
b. guilt of survival among the corpses
6. clergy were exceptionally exposed to infection by the need to minister
to the sick
a. Barcelona had 60 percent of jobs in the church fall vacant
b. Records from northern England suggest the first visitation of
plague killed 40 percent of clergy of the archdiocese of York
7. laity suffered just as much
a. in some English manors up to 70 percent of tenants died
b. villages in southern France lost 80 percent of their population
c. towns ran out of cemetery space
d. living had to pile the dead in pits with quicklime to speed decomposition and minimize rot
8. some social groups benefitted from plague
a. propertied women in western Europe
1. shift the balance of property ownership between the sexes
2. widows became the administrators of estates
3. increased prominence of women in political, literary,
and religious life
b. peasants benefited from the plague if they survived it
1. trend toward "free" peasantries
2. previously compulsory services including plowing,
weeding, carting, and preparing soil for planting were
commuted in return for rent
3. revolutionary millenarianism
9. social composition changed
a. Western European nobility composition changed
b. increase in the numbers of free peasants and tenants created a
form of rural capitalism
c. families formerly restricted to modest social ambitions could
accumulate wealth and bid for higher status, buying education
or business opportunities or more land
B. Moral and social effects on Muslim societies
1. fear of plague stimulated a revival of popular practices the clergy
normally condemned: summoning spirits, magical spells, and charms
2. religious interpretations of the origin of plague never inhibited
scientific inquiry into its causes and cures
a. Muslim physicians blamed corrupt air, caused in its turn by
irregular weather, decaying matter, and astrological influences
3. saw infection and contagion as the main threats
a. imposing quarantine spared lives
4. plague shattered morale
a. psychological effect of the disease
b. those it spared were maddened
5. microorganisms traveled between the densely populated ends of Eurasia
a. Arab sources reported that many steppeland dynasties and Mongol warriors succumbed
6. rural population became more restive and mobile in Egypt and in Syria
a. villages in Egypt often had their tax burdens reduced in
acknowledgment of the loss of population
b. cost of labor services rose as population fell
1. created opportunities for economic mobility among
peasants and urban workers
2. stimulated a further decline in rural population levels as
peasants migrated to towns