8-4Plague

Prepared by John G
The major plague that struck Elizabethan England was the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death. The disease was not only in big cities but also in the country. The plague victims were locked in their houses so the plague wouldn’t spread. This might seem like a good idea but it was pretty much a death sentence for the victim and his or her family. People called “watchmen” would watch the houses of victims and feed food through windows with poles. According to the book //Elizabeth’s London: everyday life in Elizabethan London// by, Liza Picard, all patients and their family were locked in their houses for at least twenty days. The only consolation they had was a sign on the door saying, “Lord have mercy upon us.” If they recovered which was rare they had to get a certificate of health to resume normal life. After a death, cart laborers would take the body out and put it in a mass grave. The cart labor job itself had a high death rate. Because of the plague they were even forced to open old mass graves from previous plagues. The plague was not a pulchritudinous site.

The plague affected Shakespeare himself in a ways but even any taste of the horrors of the disease left Shakespeare terrorized. A few of Shakespeare’s siblings were killed by the plague. Later the theaters were closed due to the plague. They only closed the theater during serious cases of the plague. During Shakespeare’s life they closed the theater three times for this reason. If they would have left the theaters open people may have caught the disease from fellow spectators. This greatly affected his acting career, because he couldn’t act for some time. Due to these closings theater companies had trouble making money and the actors did not receive money. Shakespeare was reportedly very terrified of the deadly disease; it is easy to see why.

The disease came from terrible things and was almost incurable. The symptoms were terrible; they included swelling of the lymph nodes, vomiting, high fever, and bleeding in the lungs. The victims felt very tired and they were more likely to die if they slept. The main reasons for the disease were rodents roaming the streets and poor hygiene but the people didn’t know these causes. Victims normally died in two to four days. The medical profession was not as advanced and there was no cure. Some people were sent to pest houses to try to help them but, the disease still spread. Only the very rich could see a physician and physicians couldn’t do much. Some people went to see ladies with herbs that they believed would help but, this did not work. At one point London seemed to be going crazy trying to stop it; they even killed dogs running from house to house. They also cleaned the streets very often. One hospital even considered building a plague house for victims. They tried their best to stop the disease but they could not figure out how to stop it. Works Cited Biel, Timothy. The Black Death. 1st. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1989. Dunn, John. Life During the Black Death. 1st. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2000. "The black death bubonic plague during the Elizabethan era." William Shakespeare info. 2005. 14 Apr 2009 .