In all the long history of Humanity, no event has been as catastrophic as the Black Death. No tidal wave, no storm, no earthquake, no volcanic eruption, no great fire – no war even has had such a devastating impact as the Black Death. In 1966, the Rand Corporation of California was asked to outline the possible consequences of a nuclear war. They did so by writing a report on the Black Death.
The bubonic plague is endemic to certain regions. Every now and then, it bursts its boundaries and advances. In the 6th century, it was probably the plague that ravaged Europe. Recurrent exposure to it may have destroyed the Steppes population and devastated the Tartar hordes. Central Asia was certainly the birthplace of the Black Death of the Middle Ages. From thence, it swept through India, Persia and China, missing not an area round about. The death rate was so great that bodies were heaped outside towns and cities, leaving nature and the vultures to dispose of them.
European man may first have met this outbreak in 1346 at the Crimean town of Caffa where, under siege from the Tartars, an early form of biological warfare was used as the plague-stricken Tartars catapulted their dead over the town’s walls. The Tartars need not have bothered – the rats were in the town anyway.
The bacillus, Pasteurella pestis, favours the stomach of a flea as its home or, unfortunately, the blood stream of a mammal. The lucky flea chosen is Xenopsylla cheopis which, in turn, favours the hair of a small mammal to live in. Why there was such an outward migration of such mammals from Central Asia in 1346 can only be speculated upon; but there was and the black rat led it.
Rats have never been a threatened species. Even today, it has been calculated that no human is further than 20 metres from one. In the Middle Ages, they abounded. They lived in the grain of a mill, in the thatching of a roof, in the open sewers, in the dung heap – it was said you could smell a Medieval town before you could see it.
Into this world came the plague. It offered three varieties. The bubonic form was the most common and possibly accounted for over 75% of all cases. Its symptoms were comprehensive: shivering, giddiness, vomiting, headaches, racking pains, sleeplessness, delirium. In addition, both diarrhoea and constipation could be present. This form displayed itself in tumours in the armpits and groin which rapidly spread. Although there were rare cases of recovery, the inflicted generally died within days.
The second type was the pneumonic strain. This was (or is – the Black Death can still make appearances) where the plague attacks the lungs and, because it is airborne, it is the most infectious type. Victims in the Middle Ages rarely lasted more than three days.
The rarest form of the disease was septicemic plague, but it was even more deadly. The bloodstream is rapidly taken over and brain damage ensues. The victim usually died within hours.
The Black Death hit Sicily in October 1347. The people of Messina faced it first and combatted it in the only way they could. They prayed and ran. The neighbouring city of Catania also responded in a manner that was to become familiar – they tried to block out the fleeing Messinians and threatened to kill the refugees – to no avail. The plague tore through the island and from there spread like spilled water – into North Africa, Corsica, Sardinia, and Spain. By early 1348 it was in Italy – then the most populous and advanced part of Europe.
‘Oh happy posterity,’ Petrarch wrote in Florence, ‘who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as fable’. At least Petrarch did not despair of there being a posterity as many did. Another writer, Roccaccio, wrote the most detailed account of the plague in Florence. He described the vain preventative measures, the attempts to isolate the sick, the desperate supplications to the Deity and the forming of special communities dedicated to living secluded and moderate lives. He also noted that others moved in opposite directions, giving themselves over entirely to pleasure and living each day as though it were their last – which, being the plague, it often was.
Families were rent asunder as the healthy fled from the diseased. ‘Many,’ wrote Roccaccio, ‘passed from this life unheeded’. The dead were flung into communal pits. The becchini were those who collected the dead from outside the houses and carted them off. These men had a reputation as hardened drinkers and debauchers. Priests, those who were still alive and had not fled, struggled to cope: ‘Times without number it happened that, as two priests bearing the cross were on their way to perform the last office for someone, three or four biers were brought up by parties in the rear of them so that, whereas the priests thought they had but one body to bury, they discovered there were six, or seven, or more…’.
Italy was mainland Europe’s earliest victim. By the middle of 1348, the disease had swept through Greece, France, Spain and the Balkans, and by the end of the year it had progressed into England and central Europe. Everywhere, a similar story unfolded: harvests went uncollected, farm animals roamed free and untended, and flocks of opportunist ravens darkened the skies. Wolves even entered Paris and fought with dogs over the bodies of unburied dead. The black flag flew from church steeples and, in the Mediterranean, abandoned ships drifted, crewed only by the dead.
In Siena in Tuscany, Agnola di Tura could not get anyone to bury the dead. He finally interred his five children himself. In Ireland, after making copious notes on the emptying villages and on confessors dying before the confessed, John Clyn met his own end, leaving some blank parchment for others to continue his tale, ‘If Haply any man survive’. St Bridget of Sweden had her own formula for survival: ‘Abolish earthly vanity in the shape of extravagant clothes, give freely alms to the poor and order all parish priests to celebrate Mass once a month in honour of the Holy Trinity’. It was as sound advice as any. The medical faculty of the University of Paris, the most prestigious and advanced medical body in Europe, could do no better than blame a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Sadly, when the plague reached Middle Europe, another cause was vouchsafed which foreshadowed, in chilling outline, Hitler’s Third Reich. As the Black Death swept triumphantly through cities, the Jews were blamed. They were easy targets. In much of Europe they carried out the role of pawnbrokers and money-lenders – these being amongst the few business outlets they were allowed – and the very nature of these activities had made them enemies. Equally, the image of the Jew being secretive and anti-Christ was widespread. In 1267, the Council of Vienna had proclaimed a ban on the purchasing of meat from Jews on the grounds that it was likely to be poisoned.
The historian, Philip Ziegler, has suggested that the Jewish habit of taking their water only from running streams rather than wells also aroused suspicion and gave rise to the stories current at the time that the Jews poisoned wells. In addition, it was routinely believed that all missing children were victims of kidnapping by Jews. Given this background, the mobs soon turned upon the Jews as perpetrators of the plague. The fact that Jews were dying like flies as the plague lashed their ghettos does not appear to have been an assuaging factor. In Strasbourg, a total of 16,000 Jewish people were killed; in Mainz, 12,000. In Basle, special wooden houses were constructed where hundreds of Jews were burnt alive.
Eventually the slaughter petered out – possibly the high losses the Jews were suffering as a result of the plague finally convinced they could not have caused it. Also there were many responsible authorities, notably Pope Clement, taking a strong stand against the massacres. Not all rulers responded as intelligently – Frederic of Thurungia wrote to the Council of Nordhausen telling them he had burnt Jews for the honour of God and encouraging them to do likewise.
Amongst the most determined of Jewish persecutors were the flagellants. The so-called ‘Brethren of the Cross’ was a pan-European movement that stemmed from the Germanic lands. Scourging oneself for one’s sins was not unknown prior to the Black Death, but the Black Death encouraged tens of thousands to the practice. The logic was simple. If you could be seen to be punishing yourself sufficiently, God would be satisfied with your suffering and spare you the plague. Leaving aside the view implicit in this as to God’s nature, it is hard to imagine any punishment as vicious as the Black Death.
The flagellants traipsed in long strings, two by two, as they wended their way through the countryside. Usually a group of them numbered a few hundred, all garbed in sombre, hooded outfits. Gathering in a public place they would strip to the waist and begin to beat each other with lashes made of knotted leather, sometimes interlaced with iron spikes. It is unlikely that all the flagellants of a group would participate in every performance – nevertheless, it is known that some died during such, and the poor and ignorant amongst Europe’s frightened population venerated them as martyrs and saints.
But as the movement grew it became ever more orgiastic in its frenzies and more politically demanding. Inevitably, it conflicted with the Church, and the Pope finally outlawed it: some of its ‘masters’ were even executed and the movement disappeared as swiftly as it had grown. The main reason for the demise, however, was that it simply did not work: as they stomped from town to town, flagellant after flagellant dropped from the plague. Indeed, their very wanderings helped spread the virus and the enthusiastic crowds that greeted them may well have been welcoming their own death.
As to how many of Europe’s anguished population died, this has long been a matter of debate. In some fortunate areas, the death rate was almost nil, whereas in others it was 100%. The death rate was highest in the warmer countries and in the more densely populated areas. Florence lost as much as 50%, possibly even up to 75%, whereas Milan, similar to Florence, lost ‘only’ 15%. In Milan, the civil council had taken brutal anti-plague measures. Victims were simply bricked up in their houses along with anyone else who happened to be there at the time. In fact, it is unlikely that this approach had anything to do with Milan’s good fortune – but it is equally unlikely the council would have been convinced of that at the time.
Over Europe as a whole, probably over 50% of the population died. Certainly, the total population in the year 1400 was less than half of what it had been in 1300 and, although other factors played a part, the Black Death was the prominent cause.
The aftermath impinged upon every part of life. The feudal system effectively ended as the shortage of labour forced landowners to pay wages and compete for workforces. Larger estates were broken up and sold or rented off; cattle and sheep were encouraged in place of crops as being easier to tend and yielding meat, clothing and a cash income. The attractions of the towns meant that many peasants, now considering themselves as free, moved thither in search of paying jobs and better conditions.
Later on in the century, this new spirit of independence would lead to unrest and several peasant revolts – and the position of women improved as, with the lower population numbers, women were drawn more into social and business matters. The Church lost massively though. It was not only because the Church had no answers to the plague but, with so many of its clerics as victims, men of lower educational standards were drawn in. This, in turn, ended Latin’s long run as the universal tongue of the educated. Local languages and dialects were to be heard in the pulpit. Knowledge, so long the province of the upper classes, was spreading to the common herd and the Reformation was knocking at the door.
Another outcome, noted by the astute historian, Andrew Nikiforuk, was that the European forests, in danger of being almost wiped out to make way for farmland, slowly began to recover. By the time the population had regained its numbers (around the year 1600), farming was more scientific and the extra land was not required.
And this point suggests why the Black Death was the most effective killing machine ever. It hit a Europe that had simply outgrown itself. Some 80% of Europeans were underfed with little variety in their diet. Add to this an almost complete lack of understanding as to hygiene and waste control and, as beautifully described by Ziegler, ‘the Black Death was the nemesis that met a population which had bred too fast for too long without first providing itself with the resources needed for the extravagance’.
Significantly, it was during the Black Death that Humanity became aware of the possibility of its own collective end. It is an understanding that we share with the 14th century. We know more though. The fact that the better housed you were, the better fed you were, the better clothed you were, the more frequently you washed, the greater chance you had of escaping the plague, was not appreciated over 600 years ago. Unsurprisingly (to us), only one of the 120-odd heads of state at the time died of the plague. The unfortunate King Alfonso of Castile nobly refused to flee from his troops when the disease broke out amongst his army and he paid the highest price.
Summing it up, the Black Death was an ecological disaster. And that powerful word ‘ecological’ ensures that what happened in 1348 is not of academic interest. In that word rests a warning for today.
In modern times, Humanity has fought back hard against disease, dealing with illness as a phenomenon to be overcome and not a cross to be borne. Public hygiene standards have been raised, advances in agriculture have increased the food supply, and science and technology have provided wonderful new weapons in the treatment of ailments. But…
Partly as a result of the improved control over pestilence, the last century witnessed the most relentless growth in population. Currently, in the industrialised nations, the rate of growth is less than 1% per annum and, in the less advanced nations, around 2%. These figures do not sound large but, if unchecked, the world population will more than double in less than 100 years. It will not happen though – Horace, writing in the 1st century, said: ‘If you try to eradicate nature, she will through time silently rise and confound your foolish arrogance’.
And, as we now know well, many of Humanity’s advances have a downside. As we learned to fixate nitrogen from the atmosphere and develop new and more fertilisers, so have nitrates and nitrites spread into water supplies. As we have refrigerated food to last longer, so have chlorofluorocarbon gases that are used in the process, crept into the atmosphere and upset the balance of the ozone layer. As our great factories produce ever more, we spew more mercury and other poisons into our oceans. Worse, our wonderful invention of plastic begins to turn on us and pollute those very seas. As we have produced chemicals like DDT (dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane), we have polluted our own bodies with them. As we have over-produced antibiotics to wipe out disease bearing bacteria, so we have encouraged bacteria to evolve into superbugs capable of living off those self-same drugs. We have increased our global food supply but countered it with the ever increasing tide of Humanity.
And, finally, above all, we have encouraged global warming with our reckless and ill-thought through ways – and that may ultimately outdo the Black Death and be the end of us all.
The Fourth Rider of the Apocalypse is mounted on a pale horse. He cares not for science and technology. He is not at war with Man. He is one of the gamekeepers. Justice and fairness are not his concern. If the herd needs culling and winnowing, he does it. He has done it well in the past; he will do it well tomorrow.
for Part 1 of ‘Cometh the fourth horseman’
Bill Paterson is a writer based in Glasgow
By Bill Paterson | 6 May 2020
