can anyone help me i need info on how to survived the black plague during 1300s?

Question

i was also asigned and character, am a trader; i need to know what kind of clothes they wore back then, food they eat, how did a trader travel, how to kill the rats and where i can go plz somebody help!

Answer 1

best bet is to goto a physical library.
as for a trader eating food?
well, no refrigertation, NO mass travel for foods
so, what would be grown in europe ( not bannanas for example)
or produced locally? atrifical sweetners were not around, and suga was for rich people. ( what did they drink)
I am going to travel by foot, or with a horse? pullinga wagon for my wares....
best way to kill a rat? use cats ( its too bad they thought the cats were spreading the plauge and got rid of them)
how do we kill rats and mice now?
poison, traps.
clothes: all hand made, with local materials.
be that wool, or cotton
died in simple colors, few patterns.
and everthing hand made has irregularities, but durring the plague, people afraid of others, a lot of clothes were old no doubt, since you may not be able to find someone who makes clothes, and would have to wear the worn out ones.

Answer 2

That's quite an assignment.

Well, as to clothing--it would be handmade, of course, and likely of linen or wool--or a combination of these two natural fibers called "linsey-woolsey." Depending on how well off a trader you were, they might be dyed such colors as blue, red, or green; or they might have been just left in the natural colors of the cloth. As amale, you'd likely wear a tunic, some sort of leggings, and boots--women, of course, wore dresses and some sort of covering on their feet--perhaps wooden sabots for outdoor work and cloth shoes for inside.

For food, good luck. There was no preservation to speak of. You might be lucky enough to have ham or other smoked meat, but chances are good that you'd depend on bread. This was usually made from whole grains such as rye or wheat. Wine, ale, or beer would be your drink of choice--water was regarded as unhealthy (and probably with good reason, given the lack of sanitation in medieval times).

Traveling? You'd not want to do that alone if you could avoid it. If at all possible, you'd try to join a group going in your direction, because of the old adage of safety in numbers.

To combat the plague you might carry a posy, a small bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers and herbs--it was believed that bad odors carried the infection. Mostly, however, you'd just have to trust to God or luck that you wouldn't be a victim.

One of your other answerers mentioned a show on, I believe, the Discovery Health channel. I only saw part of it, and what I did was quite interesting--it raised the question of whether the Black Death was really the bubonic plague at all, citing other outbreaks of the plague in which the corpses of the rats carrying it filled the streets, according to eyewitnesses (I believe they referred specifically to an outbreak of bubonic plague in India in the 1890's)--a phenomenon the European chroniclers of the time never mention.

You might want to research that angle more thoroughly.

Answer 3

It basically hit the more populated places, or port areas, so many people hit the road and headed away, thus you have Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, all of which were told when a group of people were wandering around to avoid the plague. You will find the same thing in the Decameron, many of the same stories.

Look up plague on wikipedia.

Answer 4

The rat and flea idea has been discredited.
The modern idea is that the plague was a viral infection. Analysis of plague victims' bones and die ratios supports this.
Go to your teacher and tell him/her to keep his/her thinking up to date.
So I would say there wasn't any way to protect yourself except to stay away from anyone who might be infected.

Answer 5

There are medical researchers today who are trying to determine the same thing you are.

One theory is that there is something genetic in some people that helps them be resistant to the plague.

When you're doing searches, look for doctors during that time, and/or look for survivor stories. That willl give you a lot of information.

Answer 6

why don't you just type in the words "black plague" on your computer and see what you get? or get out the encylopedia and do it that way. it'll have a lot of info there for sure.

Answer 7

definitely go to a physical library. you need to have factual information for a report and the Internet is not the best place for that. please spare your teacher/professor by not using wikipedia.