Focal Point Seminar: The Black Death

Quiz #1, January 28, 2002

Name:

Answer each of the following questions with a few sentences. 5 points each.

1. What were the social levels in the trifunctional system? What function did each of these classes of people perform?

Oratores- the clergy were considered to be the highest class in medieval society. The clergy were responsible for obtaining divine grace from God for the people. Since the Church controlled education, clergy also often functioned in clerical roles as well.

Bellatores- the nobility were landowners and were often military leaders.

Laboratores- the serfs or peasants were the workers. Many were unfree and owed a variety of obligations to the lord whose land they worked.

2. What is a Malthusian crisis? Why does Gottfried feel that Europe was in a Malthusian crisis prior to the plague’s arrival?

A Malthusian crisis is when a population has outgrown the resources available to support it. In this particular case, the good harvests of the little optimum led to a population increase, eventually to the point that any slight change in harvests led to famine. However, the crisis did not resolve because population did not decrease enough to eliminate the possibility of famine. This crisis persisted as the population remained high and food availability was just sufficient to maintain the population. Further growth was not possible but there was no other factor capable of reducing the population so that growth and change would again be possible. The population was in stasis.

3. What is meant by sylvatic plague?

Sylvatic plague refers to an outbreak among wild rodents. Sylvatic plague is important because these outbreaks are thought to precede outbreaks among humans. They also increase the interactions between rats, humans, and infected wild rodents.

4. Give three pieces of evidence that the weather got colder and wetter from between 1250 and 1350.

Tree ring samples from these years indicate slow growth, indicating poor weather.

Pollen counts in soil samples suggest of growth of plants well-suited to cooler, damper climates.

Personal accounts that survive refer to the closing of shipping to Greenland because of ice blocking traditional routes.

Farmer’s records of the time refer to the loss of pastures in the Alps due to the advance of glaciers, suggesting colder weather.

Farm records also indicate a dramatic drop in harvest yields during these years.

Merchant records indicate price changes reflecting a shortage of food.

Birth, death, and tax records give an idea of population in areas where these records survive.