Humanities Alive 8 VC 3E

LESSON 3.14 How did the bubonic plague spread?

LEARNING INTENTION By the end of this lesson you should be able to: • explain the role of trade in the spread of the bubonic plague • describe the distribution of the Black Death across three continents.

Tune in Examine SOURCE1 and consider the relationship between trade and the spread of the disease.

SOURCE1 Permanent human settlement led to the growth of towns and expansion of trade, which allowed the Black Death to spread more easily.

Key

Naples

City

Silk Road

Scandinavia

Other trade routes

Muslim pilgrimage routes

Area of outbreak of Black Death

0

1000

2000

Moscow

Britain

kilometres

London

ASIA

EUROPE

ATLANTIC

Venice

Caffa

OCEAN

Genoa

BLACK SEA

ITALY

Naples

Constantinople

SPAIN

GREECE

Lisbon

Athens

Tabriz

Tunis

Xian

A

Tripoli

Baghdad

Marrakesh

CHINA

Alexandria

Hangzhou

Hubei

EGYPT

Bagan

Arabian Peninsula

Mecca

PACI F IC

INDIA

BURMA

OCEAN

Timbuktu

ARABIAN

AFRICA

Aden

SEA

INDIAN OCEAN

In groups, discuss the following questions: • Why did people need to trade so much?

• There are some areas which were affected by the plague earlier than others — why do you think that is? • Why are there large areas of the world unaffected — do you believe that they did not have any plague at all during this period?

3.14.1 Settlements and trade The early fourteenth century was a time of rapid expansion of trade between Europe, North Africa and Asia. Wherever people traded, black rats and their disease-carrying fleas followed. Disease that had previously been confined to an area in Central Asia soon spread to populations that had no immunity to its infection.

92 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition

Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator