It was thought that awful smells would prevent the disease. Strange acts were performed in the hope of not contracting the illness. It was common for people to drink and bathe in urine and to have farm animals live in their homes to give off strong odors. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer explains some of the unusual behaviors that people performed to prevent the plague. The Black Death lasted until around 1351 and claimed the lives of approximately seventy five million people …show more content…
Since a large number of workers died from the plague, there was an inadequate amount of working hands to complete all the work that had to be done. To make up for the loss of workers, windmills and watermills were built in England, France, and the Netherlands. However, these advances could not keep up with the supply, so new technology had to be invented to save time. One of the biggest inventions of this time period was the printing press. William Caxton created the first printing press in England. It was used to take the place of the people, who used to hand write all