The Black Death in Scotland and Europe

            The Black Death was a plague which caused devastating deaths and hugely impacted Middle Ages life in Scotland and in Europe. This plague caused devastating loss of people and of livestock and it reoccurred in four main stages throughout the Middle Ages. Firstly, the Justinian plague in the sixth century then the 1260 plague and later the Black Death plague followed by the nineteenth to twentieth century plague, conveys that the disease was never fully gone during the Medieval period. There were Great European epidemics and famine and it is argued that the disasters were due to the climate downturn at the time. The plague came in three different forms: Bubonic, which is more widely known as the form of the Black Plague, Pneumonic and Septicemic. The plague was highly contagious and had a knock out effect throughout Europe and Scotland, as it was spread through the high concentration of fleas and rats during the Medieval period. This essay aims to argue that the result of the Black Death across both Scotland and Europe was significant as it heavily added to the long ongoing crises at the time and had huge consequences on famine, social and economical aspects of society at the time of these great epidemics.
             First, the Justinian plague entered Europe around the time 541-42 AD and this form of the Black Death spread mass panic throughout both Scotland and Europe. As the northern winds swept across Europe it assisted in the spreading of the small germ, and as this plague grew it targeted the poorest people as they more often lived in unsanitary living conditions, which were much worse living conditions than those who came from money or this of a higher class, resulting in the poorest being much more prone to catching the disease. Those who died from the plague were often left to rot as people were too scared to move their bodies at the risk of getting infected themselves and many avoided having or caring for those infected or ill people in their homes in fear of being infected themselves or at the risk of infecting their families.