Can England fight off the Black Death in 1348?

ben0628

Banned
The Black Death reached England in the Year of 1348. One it reached England, the entire country suffered immensely, killing somewhere between 40-60% of the population. However since England was an island nation, is there any realistic way they can prevent the plague from reaching them?

Some advantages that England has is the following:

1) England is on an island (rats carrying the plague can't swim, although they can ride boats).
2) News of the plague travels much faster than the plague itself.
3) The Hundred Years War was occurring at this time.
4) The kingdom was ruled by Edward III. He was youthful, energetic, ruled with a hands on mentality, and most importantly, his daughter died from the plague when she was in France on her way to Spain, which means the plague has a personal impact on him.

So what I was thinking is something along the lines of this: England gets crushed at the battle of Crecy (Edward stills survives). In the immediate aftermath, England loses all of its French possessions, however the English destroy every port they owned in France as they withdraw and take every boat with them to prevent a possible French invasion of England. As in otl, the plague reaches France and kills Edward's daughter, who is on her way to Spain. Upset about the plague killing his daughter, Edward becomes more invested in keeping the plague out of his country. At the same time, maritime trade with the continent lowers drastically because England lost all of its French possessions and there are no boats in France.

If the plague could be stopped, how would this effect England in the coming future? I feel that they'd do better later in the Hundred Years War against France since they'd still have a large population.
 

Red Orm

Banned
ASB. The Channel's only 20 miles wide, any fisherman with a half decent old hunk of junk boat could make the trip on a good day to smuggle goods...assuming that any monarch trying to stifle trade with the continent could hold onto his throne/head long enough for the order to make it out of the palace.
 

ben0628

Banned
You can't fight disease unless you have every Brexit voter's wet dream: complete control over your borders; no one can get in or out without your say-so.

Even in old England there were smugglers.

Can't fight off disease

Okay so 100 percent fighting it off is asb. What about containing enough to prevent anything more than 10 percent death rate?

There were some regions in Europe that were "relatively" unaffected by the plague.
 

Deleted member 97083

Casimir III the Great of Poland quarantined the borders and Poland had the second lowest plague death rate in all of Europe, 25%. The lowest was Milan at 15%.

England had a lower population density than France, and cooler climate, so if the King of England attempted the close the borders, and limit travel between cities, the death rate could be lowered to 20-30%. Historically, 40-60% of the population of England died during the first Black Death outbreak, and 20% during the second outbreak, so this would be a significant decrease.
 

Red Orm

Banned
The people of Europe were being punished for their sins. Of course the Poles were spared, as the least egregious sinners. :p
 
They had no idea that plague was transmitted from fleas on rats, so "fighting" the plague would boil down to a long series of coincidences. Send some wool to Flanders at the wrong time and it all falls apart. (Rats get on the returning ship and the plague arrives.)
 
They had no idea that plague was transmitted from fleas on rats, so "fighting" the plague would boil down to a long series of coincidences. Send some wool to Flanders at the wrong time and it all falls apart. (Rats get on the returning ship and the plague arrives.)
Like others said, you don´t simply avoid a plague, you can drastically reduce the effects of it though.
 
Casimir III the Great of Poland quarantined the borders and Poland had the second lowest plague death rate in all of Europe, 25%. The lowest was Milan at 15%.
There were some regions in Europe that were "relatively" unaffected by the plague.

there were several locations in europe that seemed plague free oasis, but it may not have to do with quarantine, but the amount of rats/ more brown rats (since brown rats transmit the disease less than black rats), or if the rats carry a certain kind of fleas (brown rats carry less & different fleas)
 
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I can only imagine the Hundred Years' War as a disadvantage. That just means troops have to be traveling from England to France to fight, and any ships going the other way could be carrying more rats.
 
Actually a cooler climate is a disadvantage. Folks spend more time indoors, therefore closer to rats who have the fleas that go from them to humans carrying disease, and in closer proximity to other folks - again "flea exchange". If the plague manifests itself in pneumonic form, close quarters are even worse. While hygiene in the 14th century was just a word in the dictionary, whatever bathing/washing and clothes changing/washing did occur will diminish. In general the more urbanized some area was the worse the plague, although once the plague hit a village it was likely to spread rapidly like in a city.

All it takes is a few infected rates or a few infected humans to reach England, and there you go.
 
Actually a cooler climate is a disadvantage. Folks spend more time indoors, therefore closer to rats who have the fleas that go from them to humans carrying disease, and in closer proximity to other folks - again "flea exchange". If the plague manifests itself in pneumonic form, close quarters are even worse. While hygiene in the 14th century was just a word in the dictionary, whatever bathing/washing and clothes changing/washing did occur will diminish. In general the more urbanized some area was the worse the plague, although once the plague hit a village it was likely to spread rapidly like in a city.

All it takes is a few infected rates or a few infected humans to reach England, and there you go.

IIRC, Norway was devastated by the disease, one of the worst hit countries. So, ja. What you said.
 
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