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The Black Death in Scotland and Europe


in London, 15,000 peasants alone were killed by the Justinian plague and in other places it is thought that thousands more people had died (Ross, 2014). However, it is relatively impossible to convey exactly how many people actually died from the plague as the statistics from the time are merely based on fabrications, exaggerations and stories from chronicles. Historians generally disagree on their figures of the exact number of people who died from the plague between 1100-1542 and certainly between its peak years, 1345-1350. Particular areas in Europe faced severe fatality and were hit very hard by the plague. Some historians claim that the tax surveys of Florence, Pistoia, Prato and Sa Gimignano suggest that the population had more than halved and had declined by almost 62 to 75 percent (Aberth, 2010). However, it is also argued that the recurring epidemics killed roughly 25 to 70 percent of the population so it cannot be stated in exact figures (Ross, 2014). This was in each city and district and clearly suggests a monumental loss of the population in the summit years of the plague. However, there was not such a huge loss of life in Scotland compared to the thousands of people in England and in Europe. The spread of plague in London for example was on a huge scale where there was around one third to one half of the population that was estimated to have been killed the horrible disease (Ibeji, 2011). But as previously argued, it must be highlighted that the percentages of the total mortality rates are not accurate due to the impossible task of keeping track of the death tolls when many people were dying every day and mass burials were becoming more of the norm to try and contain the disease at the time. .
             Furthermore, in Scotland the Black Plague caused huge social problems. Scotland's own army brought the plague back to Scotland with them when they retreated north from Durham as around 5000 of Scotland's soldiers had died from the disease during the attempt of invasion (Ibeji, 2011).


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