Black Death

I

Introduction

Black Death, outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Europe and the Mediterranean area from 1347 through 1351. It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the early 18th century. The last major outbreak of plague in Europe was in Marseilles in 1722. These plagues had been preceded by a cycle of ancient plagues between the 6th and 8th centuries AD; they were followed by another cycle of modern, but less deadly, plagues that began in the late 19th century and continued in the 20th century. The term “Black Death” was not used to refer to the plagues of 1347 through 1351 until much later; contemporaries usually referred to it as the Pestilence, or the Great Mortality.

Plague is a bacterial infection that can take more than one form. Victims of bubonic plague usually suffer from high fevers and swellings under the armpits or in the groin. Unless treated with modern antibiotics, usually 60 percent of the infected will die, often within the first five days. Other forms of plague include pneumonic plague and septicemic plague (see Plague). The disease is carried by a variety of rodents—rats, marmots, and prairie dogs, among others. It can pass into a human population when fleas carrying infected rodent blood attach themselves to a human host.

II

Origins of the Black Death

Scientists and historians are still unsure about the origins of plague. Medieval European writers believed that it began in China, which they considered to be a land of almost magical happenings. Chroniclers wrote that it began with earthquakes, fire falling from the sky, and plagues of vermin. Like medieval travel literature, these accounts are based on a number of myths about life in areas outside of Europe. It now seems most probable that infected rodents migrated from the Middle East into southern Russia, the region between the Black and Caspian seas. Plague was then spread west along trade routes. There were epidemics among the Tartars in southern Russia in 1346. Plague was passed from them to colonies of Italians living in towns along the Black Sea. Merchants probably carried the disease from there to Alexandria in Egypt in 1347; it then moved to Damascus and Libya in 1348, and Upper Egypt in 1349. Venetian and Genoese sailors are known to have brought the plague to Europe.

Plague moved quickly along the major trade routes. From Pisa, where it had arrived early in 1348, it traveled to Florence and then on to Rome and Bologna; from Venice it moved into southern Germany and Austria; and from Genoa it crossed the Tyrhennian Sea to Barcelona in Spain and Marseilles in France. It continued through the towns of southern France, reaching Paris by early June 1348. From there the contagion spread to England by late June 1348 and the Low Countries by the summer of 1349.

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Parts of Europe were initially spared the epidemic. Milan was almost unique among the major Italian towns. The lord of the city closed the gates to travelers coming from plague areas, and few people died. Many parts of Germany and eastern Europe also escaped the epidemic in 1348 through 1351. Probably because of their relative isolation, Bohemia, Poland, and central Germany experienced no plague before the 1360s and 1370s.

III

Beliefs about the Causes of Plague

Contemporary doctors and theologians agreed that the epidemic had both religious and physical causes. The first and most important was God’s judgment on a sinful humanity; the second was a lack of balance in the body’s humors, or fluids. As with earthquakes, floods, and fires, medieval Christians assumed illness was a call to repentance. In response, some Christians, known as flagellants, began to ritually beat themselves as penance for their own and for others’ sins. Although groups of flagellants had existed since the 10th century, the outbreak of the plague radically increased their numbers.

These new groups of flagellants appeared first in Hungary and Germany and then spread throughout the rest of northern Europe. They held processions through towns that lasted for as long as 33 days, each day representing one year in the life of Jesus Christ. These processions varied in size from just a handful of people to perhaps thousands in the largest processions. Flagellants traveled as a group and were led by a cleric. They went from town to town and at each stop, after a short sermon by the leader, the penitents would whip or flog themselves before moving on to the next town. Town officials were suspicious of these religious enthusiasts; towns in southern France and the Low Countries eventually closed their gates to these people, and the groups were forced to disband. During later plagues individuals did travel to local shrines and invoke the help of saints who they believed could aid the sick, but fewer people were involved than in the flagellants’ processions.

Medieval physicians inherited their medical ideas from the Greeks and Romans, who believed that health involved a balance of bodily humors. Imbalance caused by emotional, dietary, or external factors like noxious odors could result in sickness or even death. Contemporary writers associated plague with the influence of planets and stars, or with earthquakes, which were thought to cause the release of noxious gases from the center of the earth. Physicians thus suggested that individuals eat moderately and avoid anything that could upset the body’s delicate balance. Governments regulated trades thought to produce dangerous odors or potentially corrupt matter.

IV

Preventative Measures

The epidemics that occurred late in the 14th and 15th centuries were not as virulent as the first plagues. Contemporaries began to see patterns and to sense what they might do to limit the impact of plague. It was clear that plague was most likely to arise in summer or early autumn. Further, after initially striking everyone, observers noticed that plague most often settled in the poorest, most crowded neighborhoods. Thus when Italian Girolamo Fracastoro first explained the theory of contagious disease, he assumed it was the poor who spread the disease. It was clear that flight or avoiding contact with the sick was the best defense. Those who could moved from infected towns to country villages or towns away from the contagion. Families often hired special servants to watch their sick even as the rest of the family moved away. Or in other cases a single member of a large family might agree to take care of purchasing food and all other public activities. This had the effect of reducing the impact of plague on the well-to-do, those most likely to be able to isolate themselves; and in turn it reinforced the idea that the poor were morally and physically predisposed to sickness.

Some of the most effective measures taken against plague were the quarantines first used in 15th-century Italy. By the 16th century, quarantines were common throughout Europe. It was in response to plague that urban governments, first in Italy and then in other parts of Europe, developed systems of public health services to deal with epidemics. Towns began by simply investigating any suspicious illnesses or deaths; some created special plague hospitals to hold the ill; and almost all restricted movements of people during times of plague. Travelers were expected to carry certificates of health indicating that they had not been exposed to epidemic disease. By the 16th century it was virtually impossible to move out of areas under quarantine.

Beginning in the late 17th century, governments created a medical boundary, or cordon sanitaire, between Europe and the areas to the east from which epidemics came. Ships traveling west from the Ottoman Empire were forced to wait in quarantine before passengers and cargo could be unloaded. The Holy Roman Empire created a similarly effective medical border along the Danube River and elsewhere on its border with the Ottoman Empire to the east. Those who attempted to evade medical quarantine were shot. The cordon sanitaire seems to have been effective. While bubonic plague continued to affect the areas of the eastern Mediterranean, it disappeared in the West.

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