Random Ways Black Death Directly Shaped Way We Live Now (14 items)

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  (#5) It Gave Us The Basis Of Our Current Property Laws

  The Black Death killed millions of people and tore families apart, which made it extremely difficult for survivors to figure out inheritances and who exactly owned pieces of property (especially when all the male heirs were wiped out). Family squabbles over such issues lead to litigation on a level unheard of prior to the plague, which lead to further litigation that set precedents in property law that still stand today.

  One historian notes that barristers from the time would function just fine in today's courts. Here's Norman Cantor on the matter: “A barrister of 1350 deep frozen and thawed out today would need only a six-month refresher course at a first-rate American law school to practice property or real estate law.”
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  (#9) It Gave Us The Word 'Quarantine'

  Quarantine is a common term generally used to mean a period of time when the sick need to stay isolated from the healthy. But where does the term come from? "Quarantine" comes from quarantino, which is derived from the Italian word quaranta, meaning "forty."

  During the Black Death, the Italians devised a 40-day isolation period for the sick, likely inspired by biblical events that lasted 40 days (the great flood, Lent, etc.). The concept of isolating the sick pre-dates the Black Death, but the term "quarantine" originates from that time.
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  (#12) It Lowered Genetic Diversity In England

  England would be a more genetically diverse place if it wasn't for the Black Death. That's right: England was actually more diverse in the 11th century, prior to the plague, than it is today. "Random genetic drift" is partially to blame, but population crashes like those that occurred after the Black Death are likely the main cause.

  One theory to help explain it is that England didn't quarantine the sick like the Italians did (for just one example), leading to less variable DNA sequences for the English.
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  (#14) It Helped Revolutionize Hospitals

  Prior to the Black Death, hospitals were focused more on offering hospitality than medical care. Like modern day motels and hotels, hospitals at the time provided lodging and food for pilgrims as well as the poor. The "medicalization of the medieval hospital" can be traced to the 1330s and 1340s when more hospitals were founded in Florence, Italy, than in any other time.

  During the Renaissance, hospitals became more specialized, with different wards for different types of illnesses.
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  (#7) It Helped Create A Culture Of Anti-Semitic Intolerance In Europe

  Jewish people were blamed by many for the Black Death, especially in Germany. People were desperate for answers, so they created stories about Jewish people poisoning wells to satisfy their need for a scapegoat.

  Germans killed Jewish communities in riots called "pogroms" to eliminate the non-existent threat, nurturing a culture of anti-Semitism that ultimately lead to the Holocaust in the 20th century. A study in 2011 showed that villages where Black Death-era pogroms took place were more likely to demonstrate a violent hatred of Jews more than 600 years later.
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  (#10) It Hastened The Dominance Of The English Language

  It would be a stretch to say that we would all still be speaking Latin if it wasn't for the Black Death, but historians do think that the plague hastened the dominance of English. The Black Death killed a "disproportionate number of the clergy," meaning it killed a lot of men who were literate in Latin.

  Who replaced them? A lot of laymen barely literate in Latin, who also just so happened to be barely literate in English.

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