The Black Death, 1347-1351 -- A short, researched essay by Adel.


In late 1347, a disease yet unknown to its victims struck Europe with devastating force.

It was named "The Black Death" after the black abrasions that appeared on the skin of the infected.  The disease had a 90 percent mortality rate, and caused an overall loss of nearly one-third of Europe's total population.  The disease completely destroyed at least 1,000 villages and turned man against man, father against son, and husband against wife.  Wide-spread panic overtook Europe as hundreds died daily.  With hope for the future quickly vanishing, a "dementia of despair" was created among the masses.  Where did this disease come from?  How did the people of medieval times react?  What effects of the pestilence are we still seeing today?

"The Black Death" was a widespread outbreak of Yersinia pestis (formerly named Pasturella pestis) commonly known as Bubonic Plague.  The Bubonic Plague is an infection of the lymphatic glands located in the neck, armpits, groin, and thighs.  Painful boils, termed "burn boils" during the outbreak of 1347, develop in the infected lymph nodes, or buboes (from which the disease derives its name).  These burn boils begin as red lesions on the skin approximately the size of a lentil, steadily fill with pus over the course of three to four days, and begin to turn black and protrude from the body.  The boils swell to the size of an egg and eventually burst, causing instant death.  The swellings are exceedingly painful, causing the afflicted to vomit blood continuously over the duration of the sickness, and nearing the end it becomes difficult to swallow and almost impossible to eat.  Among other symptoms are muscular pain, shivering fits, mental disorientation, and a high fever causing body temperature to rise up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.  Victims cough, sneeze, sweat heavily, and have a foul scent emanating from them.  Towards the cessation of the illness, the victim suffers an all-consuming weakness and is eventually bed-ridden, unable to move.  Back then the diseased often suffered alone because no one would come near enough to care for them, or the members of their family were also afflicted and dying along with them.

Bubonic Plague is primarily a disease carried by rodents.  It is transferred from rodent to human only by way of the flea.  A flea feeds upon an infected rat, but no blood reaches the stomach.  The plague bacteria multiply in the flea's esophagus and eventually block it.  When the rat dies as a result of the illness, the flea, alive but starving, relocates (sometimes to a human) and carries the bacteria along with it in its upper digestive tract.  When attempting to feed, a blocked stomach causes whatever blood the flea intakes to be regurgitated back into the bloodstream of it's prey--along with the plague bacteria.  Soon after being transferred to humans in this way, the disease mutated to produce the pneumonic form of the Bubonic Plague, which is contagious by respiratory transmission; meaning that the disease could be transported through the air.  This was the main cause of the rapid dispersion of the disease in the years following 1347.

There are two popular explanations as to how The Black Death arrived in Europe.  It is known, however, that the plague originated in the Gobi Desert and was carried down the Volga River to the trading station "Kaffa" in the Crimea on the Black Sea, but that's where the tale branches off.  The first opinion, held by many, is that Mongol warriors were attacking Kaffa when plague broke out among the troops and the army was forced to retreat.  Before withdrawing, the Commander of the Mongols ordered infected corpses to be loaded into catapults and hurled over the walls and into town.  The residents of Kaffa thought this act odd, but did not know that the bodies were infected with the plague.  Before the townspeople knew the relevance of the events, infected persons were already heading out to sea on tradesman ships.  The second assumption is that diseased rats were aboard vessels travelling out of Kaffa and these rats died on the journey, forcing the fleas to emigrate to the humans riding on board.  Either way, twelve ships left Kaffa on a merchant route bound for Messina, Sicily.  When they docked, many of the crew and passengers were dead or in the process of dying from the plague.  Soon after the disease began to destroy Messina, many of the city's inhabitants fled.  The rich confined themselves in their countryside homes, and many peasants sought asylum in nearby towns, two of which were Catania and Siena.  On the long stint to neighboring towns, many diseased travelers fell down by the roadsides with sickness and weakly pulled themselves into the fields and brush to die.  The stench of decaying bodies was thick along the routes into town, and any travelers who lived long enough to reach town soon yielded to the plague in hospitals.  The horrified citizens of Catania did not want the Messinian fugitives to be buried within their city for fear of the disease leaking through the soil and into drinking water, so corpses were thrown into trenches that had been dug outside the confining wall.  Nothing the community could have done would have saved its inhabitants.  The plague ran rampant in Catania from October of 1347, until April 1348, causing the loss of all inhabitants.  Peasants fell dead everywhere: in their homes, while attempting to work in the fields, and walking alongside the roads.  Crops were left unharvested and began to rot; oxen, sheep, cattle, goats, pigs, chickens, and other farm animals ran loose and also fell dead from plague.  One Catanian report states: "a person could go to sleep at night feeling fine and be dead by morning."  An excerpt from the account of Angolo di Tura of the town of Siena reflects on the plague's sweeping mortality: "Great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead...and they died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in those ditches and covered with earth."  The plague discriminated not, and none could escape its wrath.

The outbreak of 1347, tended to concentrate in cities and travel along trade routes.  By January 1348, it had moved through Marseilles and into southern France.  By March of that year, it had spread to Spain.  In May, Rome and Florence were scourged with the pestilence.  Paris and northern France were hit in June.  In the winter of 1348, the plague had reached Germany.  Norway was soon consumed in May of 1349, but most Eastern European countries were not reached until spring 1350.  The European pandemic of The Black Death finally played itself out in Scandinavia and Russia late in the year 1351.

The worst of the plague years was 1348.  At one point Clement VI was asked to consecrate the Rhone River so that the multitude of corpses could be thrown in.  Earthly remains were buried without receiving last rites; a fate which added much terror to the lives of many God-fearing Europeans.  Farms and villages were completely decimated by the disease or vacated by the few survivors.  Universities, schools, monasteries and churches were shut down or abandoned when there was no one remaining alive to run them.  Many of the diseased wanted to confess their sins and draw up their final will in testament, but ecclesiastics, notaries, and lawyers refused to call upon the afflicted homes.  Large sections of property were left desolate with no owners; either no one survived to inherit the land or it was deserted in hopes of exodus from the plague.  Whole families died, and their bodies remained forsaken in the houses until servants were hired at high wages to bring out and bury the dead.  Ships would set out to sea and their entire crews would perish; the ships would drift unmanned for months until crashing to shore with a cargo of partially, and sometimes fully, decomposed bodies.  Wagons were drawn through towns with masked criers clanging bells and chanting loudly, "Bring out your dead!"  Families would pile their deceased loved ones onto the carriages, and the bodies were hauled to a bonfire and cremated in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading so rapidly.  Lack of organized law enforcement due to overwhelming casualties led to civil instability.  In some places, plague-infected ruffians threatened to break into homes if not paid by the residents.  Peasants were the most afflicted by the disease; the rich could move to their stone countryside manors and import food and other goods, but the poor were confined to the cities unless they wanted to take a risk and attempt to find an abandoned rural house.

The economic disruption was major, as well.  Financial institutions failed as debtors and their families died and creditors had no one to collect from.  Skilled workers died, construction projects came to a halt and some were abandoned entirely, never to be completed.  Following the dispersion of the plague, there were guild revolts in the cities and peasant revolts in the country.  Peasants in many areas demanded fair treatment and lighter work.  These revolts eventually led to the end of the feudal system, which is why The Black Death is the main divider between the central and late Middle Ages.  There was a severe labor shortage in all still-inhabited towns causing wages to rise for those who remained to hold jobs; an oversupply of goods caused prices to drop, raising the standard of living.  The quality of life in Europe began to improve following the departure of The Black Death in 1351, because depopulation allowed more wealth for fewer people.

Naturally, people attempted to treat and cure the plague, but there was nothing in those dark ages with which to combat the infection.  Not only did the Europeans know nothing of the disease or its origin, but "medicinal treatments" in those times were often ritualistic and cruel.  The reaction of most of the public was to flee, but for those who remained behind, other precautionary measures were taken.  Popular opinion was that the plague was transmitted via the scent of the dead and dying.  Thus, many types of aromatic therapies were put into effect.  Incense (such as pine, juniper, laurel, beech, lemon leaves, rosemary, camphor and sulpher) was burned to ward off the contagious vapors.  Scarves and bits of cloth were soaked in fragrant oils for use as a facial cover when going outside.  Some people bathed in vinegar or rose water or drank elderberry juice.  The purchasing of talismans, charms, and spells from the local "high priest" was frequent.  The weapon of sound was also used; as done in many other crises, some towns rang their church bells to "scare off" the disease.  Along with these harmless treatments, more extreme measures were often taken.  There was bloodletting, cleansing with laxatives, and the severing of burn boils.  In a quest for a remedy, the public sought the advice of many scholars of the times, who actually had little-to-no knowledge of how to treat the disease.  Still, many suggested ways of avoidance: one should not consume any poultry, waterfowl, pork, old beef, fat meat of any sort, fish, or olive oil, and nothing should be cooked in rain-water.  Sleeping during the day and bathing were warned against.  As you can see, many of these things (bathing especially) could have actually been beneficial in hindrance of the disease.  The sick were instructed to direct their thoughts toward pleasing things and not to think of death or anything distressing (an obviously difficult task in such desolate and depressing times).  Visits to blooming gardens and listening to melodious music were also advised.  However, none of these means were effective; people died whether they followed bland diets or wore jade necklaces.  Truly, the only practical means of preventing the disease at the time were quarantine measures taken in Venice, among which was the isolation of all incoming ships.  Another action that may have offset the illness is the extermination of the rats and fleas, but in those times, pesticides were not yet invented.  The people never suspected that the rats, their everyday companions, may have been one of the main benefactors to their suffering.  We know now that isolation was the only weapon the people of the times could have had against the deadly force of The Black Death.  Today, studies by modern researchers show that the plague organism is susceptible to certain antibiotics (streptomycin, chloramphenicol and tetracycline) if they are administered within fifteen hours of contracting the virus.

The sudden eruption of the plague was viewed by many Europeans not as an outbreak of a highly contagious disease, but as a "scourge from God," such as the numerous biblical plagues they had been taught of since childhood.  Mega-religious bands of people known as "flagellants" roamed through towns performing acts of penance in public, hoping to save their own souls and the souls of those around them.  First appearing in Germany, these gangs would stand in a central part of town and form a circle.  They would proceed to flog their own shoulders and arms with whips of hard knotted leather tipped with small iron spikes.  Townswomen swarmed around the flagellants and caught blood dripping from their wounds, spreading it on their eyes as if it were the divine, healing blood of Christ.  At first, this movement was welcomed by the Church as open repentance and acceptance of the punishment of God; in some locations, public flagellation and penitence was ordered by Church officials.  But soon the attitude of the Church changed; the flagellants began to kill clergymen who spoke out against their practices, and Jews they came across along their travels.  In response, the Pope issued a Bull against all flagellants, and many of them were publicly beheaded for revolutionary crimes directed towards Jews, the upper class, and the Church.  Jews were a group often targeted for blame by the European population when no explanation of the disease could be found.  Jews were accused of poisoning town wells and practicing witchcraft; sometimes they were dragged from their homes and thrown into large fires.  Apart from Jews, an earthquake that struck between Naples and Venice in 1346 was also questionable.  During this quake, houses and churches crashed to the ground, entire villages were destroyed, and foul vapors seeped up from the cracks in the soil.  According to Theologians, these foul vapors were supposedly The Black Death rising up from Hell.  For an explanation, the populace once again turned to scholars, who soon proposed an astrological rationalization.  An alignment of the planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the sign of Aquarius in 1345, caused moist, hot weather conditions which caused the earth to emit poisonous gases.  As preposterous as this theory is, the desperate societies of the fourteenth century were grasping frantically at any rationale giving a reason to their suffering.  In truth, the disease thrived because the living conditions in Europe were exceedingly unsanitary.  The peasant's diet was substandard; during the winter months, there was little fresh meat, no milk or butter, and no fresh vegetables.  Fruit was considered "unwholesome" by the Church, which made the people more vulnerable to vitamin-deficiency diseases.  Housing was cramped, drafty, and more often than not infested with pests of many sorts.  Clothing was dirty, ragged, thin and worn in many layers.  A famine in the years before The Black Death had also weakened the people's immune systems.  A shortage of wood for fuel made hot water a luxury, and only the rich could afford to bathe frequently.

The desperation of the times produced some of the most intriguing art of today.  The morbid scenes of the Danse Macabre, or "Dance of Death," portray skeletons co-existing with living beings during times of happiness.  Cadavers dancing with townsfolk at carnivals, skeletons receiving a child at baptism, and even corpses hiking through the forest with a band of hunters.  These works were specifically requested by churches, monasteries, and city councils, and were placed on display in public areas.  The pieces were created with the intentions of reminding the masses of the deadly disease constantly hovering around them.  Another product of The Black Death is the popular children's game-rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie."  The verse goes as follows:

                  Ring around the rosie,
                  Pocket full of posies,
                  Ashes... ashes...
                  We all fall down!

The song is chanted as the game's participants form a circle, hold hands, and dance in a rotating formation.  This dance and the "ring" from the first line of the poem represent the Danse Macabre, where diseased corpses pull healthy individuals into the ring of dancers.  The "rosie," also contained in the first line, is the diseased victim's face, with pores all saturated in blood.  "Pocket full of posies" is in reference to the bags of "medicinal" herbs and flower petals carried in a diseased person's clothing to prevent transmission to caretakers and perfume the stagnant scent of the body.  "Ashes...ashes..." has more than one translation.  It is either the sound of sneezing, a symptom associated with the dreaded plague, or a description of the ashes floating through the air, blown from the burning piles of bodies.  The last line, "All fall down," is the command to drop to the ground as if dying like the weary plague victims attempting to flee a stricken city.  The composer of this infamous sonnet is unknown.  One theory is that the author died of Bubonic Plague soon after penning the words; another is that it was developed by children as a method of mocking those afflicted with the disease.

Outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague still occur all over the world, including in the United States.  The epidemics are few and far apart, centralized in the Rocky Mountain and Southwest sections of America.  The mortality rate has diminished exponentially from its 90 percent in the fourteenth century.  With modern technology, there is a projected 75 percent survival rate if treatment is carried out promptly.  Present epidemics suggest the existence of Yersinia pestis as a chronic disease of rodents, and that a weaker strain of the virus has developed over the years.

The Italian writer Boccaccio stated, "[The Plague]'s victims often ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."  This remark sums up the rapid devastation of The Black Death of 1347-51.  In less than five years, twenty-five million people had died--one-third of Europe's total population.  The terrified victims and their surrounding friends and family knew not how to combat the disease, only that it was a continual threat waiting to overtake them whenever it liked.  Many people today do not and cannot fully understand the devastating severity of The Black Death.  Petrarch of Avignon foresaw this demeanor and wrote: "future generations would be incredulous, would be unable to imagine the empty houses, abandoned towns, the squalid countryside, the fields littered with dead, the dreadful silent solitude which seemed to hang over the whole world."

Petrarch was correct in his assumptions.  With modern medicine, we tend to underestimate the power of a disease.  Once an outbreak occurs, it is difficult to bring under control.  Perhaps if we attempted to better understand The Black Death, the deceased of the past will finally have fulfilled their woeful purpose.


Written by & Copyright 1999-2005: Adel @ grungezombie.net