Plague DBQ

At the beggining of the fifteenth century Western Europeans ha;ted their everyday lives in fear of spreading the Black Plague. The Europeans took actions in attempts to stop the spreading of the Black Plague. The actions the Europeans took affected the society politically, economically, religiously, and socially.
Heinrich von Staden, a member of the Palatinate nobility, and Daniel Defoe, a private writer, both acount for political actions taken by the Europeans to attempt to further the spread of the Black Plague. Such actions included paying gaurds to prevent individuals from traveling to place to place. Also, governments shut their ports off from outside ships in fear that incoming ships were carriers of the Black Plague. These political actions happened out of great fear of the plague, the ports being shut off from outside ships is controlled by the government making it a political action and preventing travel from place to place would also be controlled by the government. Similarly, people took economical actions, but however they were negative for the economy. Daniel Defoe, the private writer mentioned earlier, and Samuel Pepys, an English Bureaucrat, both give pramary examples of economic actions taken by the persons of Europe to prevent the spread of the Black Death. Actions as far as not buying wigs for fear that the hair the wig maker received was from a previously infected body. Another economical action was the closing of the ports of cities to outside ships of trade. The lowered the economy greatly dueto the fact that no one wanted to trade because of the fear of spreading the plague. On the other hand of fear there were those that faced their fears of the spread of the plague to help those that were less fortunate.
Religious individuals were among those people that were able to provide this help. With alms from certain organizations, such as the Health Magistry of Florence, Father Dragoni, a priest, was able to provide exended help to two unfortunate families. Father Dragoni, wrote a letter explaining to the Health Magisrty of Florence what he did with his alms they provided to him. Father Dragoni helped the members of two pest homes, as well as paying guards and grave diggers. Most people took social affecting actions, some out of fear and some In attempts to obtain benefits sooner.
The Schoolmaster at Deventer, wrote a letter, explaining one of many social actions taken out of fear of the plague. Additionally, the students of his school after receiving information about twenty of their classmates deaths from the plague, many of the students failed to attend school in fear of death themselves. A social action taken to obtain benefits sooner, was told by a German physician, Johann Weyer, this action was individuals paying other people to spread a plague spreading cream on the town gates. In the face of a crisis many actions will be taken by people of a civilization.
The actions taken by the people of Western Europe from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century, were able to be analized with the help of the guidlines of political, economical, religious, and social. Most of the actions were fear related, some were to lend a helping hand, but there were those that were using the plague to their advantage.