The Black Death: The Spread of the Disease
Coffins for the victims of the Black Death which struck across Europe in the 1300s. One-third of Europeans died and it killed an estimated 40% of the English population.
In October, 1347, a strange disease entered Europe through a port in Sicily, traveling on the merchant ships from the Eastern Mediterranean. The ships docked long enough for rats, which were carrying infected fleas, to get ashore. As the rats died, the fleas had to find new carriers, many of whom were humans. Within days, hundreds of people were dying each day from the illness. People fled to the countryside, only to spread the disease even further. By November, the island of Sicily had submitted, and by December, the plague had reached the mainland of Italy and much of Southern Europe. This infection was called the Black Death.
Within the next year, the plague engulfed all of Europe, spreading from Italy to Marseilles to Spain. It spread east to Bavaria in June and north to Paris and Normandy in July and August. From there it crossed the English Channel and struck southern England and London in September, 1348. Henry Knighton, a canon from a parish in Leicester, gives this account of the arrival of the plague: “Then the dreadful pestilence made its way along the coast by Southampton and reached Bristol, where almost the whole strength of the town perished, as it was surprised by sudden death; for few kept their beds more than two or three days, or even half a day. Then this cruel death spread on all sides, following the course of the sun. And there died a Leicester, in the small parish of Holy Cross,, 400; in the parish of St. Margaret’s, Leicester, 700; and so in every parish, in a great multitude.”
When the plague reached England, the Scots to the north rejoiced at seeing their enemy suffering so badly from the attack of the Black Death. They took the opportunity to plan an invasion in the summer of 1349, and raised an army to prepare. But the army never reached England. By July, the plague had hit Scotland, killing most of the army and unsettling the survivors.
------------------------------------------------------
The Black Death: The Effects on England
But England had more to worry about than just the Scots. The plague hit England particularly harshly, as it entered the country at several of its many ports. When the disease reached London it September, it met a city of 50,000 people, all crowded into an area of only one square mile. In the early 1300’s a breakdown in sanitation and public health systems had been caused by overcrowding, nut by 1348, the situation had improved slightly. The Thames was used a waste dump, overflowing with sludge, garbage, and animal and human waste to the point that water barely flowed. However, with the Tower and the Thames surrounding much of the city, London could have been isolated from the surrounding countryside. Apparently, city officials put into effect new quarantine laws which could have helped prevent spread of the disease. Unfortunately, this didn’t help at all. From June through September of 1349, civic reports averaged 290 deaths a day. Some 40% of Londoners were killed within a period of 18 months. The city did not fully recover its population until the sixteenth century.
Cities were not the only places the disease could easily take control. In monasteries, the people lived so close together that when one fell ill, the others soon followed. At the monastery of St. Albans, the Abbot Michael of Mentmore was the first to die. According to chronicler William of Deves, the Abbot began to feel ill on Maundy Thursday, but celebrated High Mass anyways. The next day, he made his last confession and took to his bed. On Easter Sunday, three days after the first symptoms, he died. Within weeks of the Abbot’s death, 47 monks dies, including the new Abbot, and the monastery was abandoned.
Throughout the prosperous West Midlands, manors experienced labor shortages due to the high number of deaths. Chronicler Henry Knighton states, “So few servants and laborers were left that no one knew where to turn for help.” The manor managers could not escape, either. The manager of Cuxham Manor held his post from 1311 until he died of the plague in March, 1349. His successor died in April, a third manager in June, and a fourth in July. Finally, the manor lands were leased or sold. The source of livelihood died out as well. Wool was one of England’s main exports, until high amounts of sheep died out across the countryside. In one field, over 5,000 sheep died.
-----------------------------------
The Black Death: The Medical Response
One reason the plague was so devastating was that medieval medicine had no answers to what it was caused by or how to fight it. The plague appeared in two forms. The bubonic form caused buboes under the arms and around the groin and neck, and usually spread during the warm summers, when fleas were more active. The pneumonic variety spread during cold weather, when people were more vulnerable to colds and pneumonia. It attacked the weakened respiratory systems of the ill, and spread much like a cold, from person to person through coughing. It was much more deadly than the bubonic plague, killing 95% of its victims within a few days after reception. It spread so quickly that people believed you could become sick just by looking into the eyes of an infected person.
Many theories developed about how to combat the Black Death. People were told to avoid low, marshy areas and coastal areas where poisonous air could settle or drift in. Doctors told people to leave the cities and remain secluded from others. Some suggested purifying the air by burning fragrant woods or flowers and herbs. Bathing was discouraged because it would open pores to the diseased air, however, the bathing of hands and feet with vinegar and rosewater was encouraged. A moderate diet free of easily spoiled food was advisable, along with spices such as myrrh, saffron, and pepper or vegetables like onions, leeks, and garlic to be eaten in the evening. The correct sleeping position was important: sleeping on the back meant that the “corrupt” air could enter through the nostrils to the lungs. It was best to shift from side to side during the night to keep a balance.
Once someone came down with the plague, there was little that the doctors could do. An Italian doctor, Chalin de Vinario, admitted that “Every pronounced case of the plague is incurable.” The doctors realized the huge risks they were taking by exposing themselves to the disease, and so charged expensive fees for treating patients. Some doctors even fled from the victims, afraid that they would contract the disease.
The most popular treatment was bleeding. The physicians believed that blood carried the plague through the body, and so by cutting the veins leading to infected areas, they were removing the infection from the body. Sometimes doctors would treat the buboes directly, by applying a plaster or poultice or lancing the buboes and then applying the mixtures. Other treatments included potions, pills, or compounds. One even included making a mixture of expensive spices and powdered pearls or emeralds. Although this probably did not help, it may have had a “placebo” effect, as patients believed that the more expensive the treatment, the more effective it must be. Most of these concoctions were harmless, and even soothing, but did not aid in fighting the plague.
---------------------------------
The Black Death: The Impact
By late 1351, the plague had completed its destruction of Europe. A third of the population had died in only four years. The plague did not judge people’s station in life; it took the poor as well as the nobles, including the Queen of Navarre, two successive Archbishops of Canterbury, and the daughter of the King of England. The horrors that the survivors had lived though changed their psychological views on life and human behavior. “They forgot the past as though it had never been and gave themselves up to a more disordered and shameful life than they had led before,” wrote Italian chronicler Villani. The homicide rate in England between 1349 and 1369 was double that of 1320-1340, despite the enormous decrease in population. Greedy people married the young survivors who had inherited their family’s wealth. Peasants took over the possessions of their dead masters, including moving into their houses and taking over their livestock and tools. There was an abundance of goods, but few people left to buy them. Prices fell, but so many people had died that everyone had extra money. Survivors bought luxury goods which could never have dreamed of owning before the plague.
People began to question their values. The cooperative atmosphere of the early 1300’s was replace by individualism. Hedonism became popular as people realized they didn’t know what the next day would bring. It was better to live life to its fullest. They also began to question God and the church. The clergy had always taught that humans were God’s chosen people, but who was a God who didn’t try to save his children? Traditionally, the clergy were thought to be the intermediaries between God and the people, but people began to believe that they should have a personal relationship with God, rather than needing a priest to lead them. These changing beliefs did not cause the later Reformation, but they certainly hastened its arrival.
The Black Death changed the relationship between the manor lords and the laborers and ultimately, brought about the end of the manorial system. With a reduced labor force, the cost of workers rose. Peasants who freed before the plague required higher wages, and those who were not yet free demanded that they be freed by their manor lords and that they be paid more. The standard of living for the peasants quickly climbed, as landlords’ income fell 20 percent between 1347 and 1353. As the agricultural demand dropped, the landlords were forced to stop farming the land and lease it out to their former serfs. This meant that the peasants were now renters, free to farm their own land with no ties holding them to their former lords. The lords concentrated on cultivating only the most fertile land, resulting in a regrowth of grasslands and ancient forests throughout England.
A significant change in the national language also occurred. Since the Norman Conquest, French had been the official language of the government. When the plague struck and caused the deaths of many government officials who had been fluent in French and the teachers who were qualified to teach it in schools, the official language was changed back to English, the language of the commoners. The use of French died out quickly after that, and by 1385 was gone completely.
The plague affected medicine and science directly. Medieval medicine completely failed in the face of the Black Death, but this made physicians and other scientists examine new ways of fighting disease and new methods of exploring how the human body works. At the time, medical learning was based around the texts of the Ancient Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. The new generation of physicians after the plague realized the shortcomings of these teachings, which were based off other animals besides humans and were over a thousand years old, and sought a new medical belief. One of the most important changes that was brought into place was the dissection of actual human cadavers. Until this point, the mutilation of dead bodies was forbidden by the church, who thought that by cutting open a dead body, the soul was released and would never reach Heaven. Physicians began to explore the human body, and by 1380, the knowledge of anatomy was fairly accurate. These new learnings would be the basis of all medicine to come.
The plague of 1347-1351 had an immediate impact on society, and changed how that society developed into today’s English culture. From the Black Death, England gained its sense of individualism, a strong middle class, and the beginnings of the modern religion. Even though the Black Death caused horrific devastation at the time, its remnants have helped shape the country that England is today.
http://awylie.tripod.com/plague4.html
Coffins for the victims of the Black Death which struck across Europe in the 1300s. One-third of Europeans died and it killed an estimated 40% of the English population.
In October, 1347, a strange disease entered Europe through a port in Sicily, traveling on the merchant ships from the Eastern Mediterranean. The ships docked long enough for rats, which were carrying infected fleas, to get ashore. As the rats died, the fleas had to find new carriers, many of whom were humans. Within days, hundreds of people were dying each day from the illness. People fled to the countryside, only to spread the disease even further. By November, the island of Sicily had submitted, and by December, the plague had reached the mainland of Italy and much of Southern Europe. This infection was called the Black Death.
Within the next year, the plague engulfed all of Europe, spreading from Italy to Marseilles to Spain. It spread east to Bavaria in June and north to Paris and Normandy in July and August. From there it crossed the English Channel and struck southern England and London in September, 1348. Henry Knighton, a canon from a parish in Leicester, gives this account of the arrival of the plague: “Then the dreadful pestilence made its way along the coast by Southampton and reached Bristol, where almost the whole strength of the town perished, as it was surprised by sudden death; for few kept their beds more than two or three days, or even half a day. Then this cruel death spread on all sides, following the course of the sun. And there died a Leicester, in the small parish of Holy Cross,, 400; in the parish of St. Margaret’s, Leicester, 700; and so in every parish, in a great multitude.”
When the plague reached England, the Scots to the north rejoiced at seeing their enemy suffering so badly from the attack of the Black Death. They took the opportunity to plan an invasion in the summer of 1349, and raised an army to prepare. But the army never reached England. By July, the plague had hit Scotland, killing most of the army and unsettling the survivors.
------------------------------------------------------
The Black Death: The Effects on England
But England had more to worry about than just the Scots. The plague hit England particularly harshly, as it entered the country at several of its many ports. When the disease reached London it September, it met a city of 50,000 people, all crowded into an area of only one square mile. In the early 1300’s a breakdown in sanitation and public health systems had been caused by overcrowding, nut by 1348, the situation had improved slightly. The Thames was used a waste dump, overflowing with sludge, garbage, and animal and human waste to the point that water barely flowed. However, with the Tower and the Thames surrounding much of the city, London could have been isolated from the surrounding countryside. Apparently, city officials put into effect new quarantine laws which could have helped prevent spread of the disease. Unfortunately, this didn’t help at all. From June through September of 1349, civic reports averaged 290 deaths a day. Some 40% of Londoners were killed within a period of 18 months. The city did not fully recover its population until the sixteenth century.
Cities were not the only places the disease could easily take control. In monasteries, the people lived so close together that when one fell ill, the others soon followed. At the monastery of St. Albans, the Abbot Michael of Mentmore was the first to die. According to chronicler William of Deves, the Abbot began to feel ill on Maundy Thursday, but celebrated High Mass anyways. The next day, he made his last confession and took to his bed. On Easter Sunday, three days after the first symptoms, he died. Within weeks of the Abbot’s death, 47 monks dies, including the new Abbot, and the monastery was abandoned.
Throughout the prosperous West Midlands, manors experienced labor shortages due to the high number of deaths. Chronicler Henry Knighton states, “So few servants and laborers were left that no one knew where to turn for help.” The manor managers could not escape, either. The manager of Cuxham Manor held his post from 1311 until he died of the plague in March, 1349. His successor died in April, a third manager in June, and a fourth in July. Finally, the manor lands were leased or sold. The source of livelihood died out as well. Wool was one of England’s main exports, until high amounts of sheep died out across the countryside. In one field, over 5,000 sheep died.
-----------------------------------
The Black Death: The Medical Response
One reason the plague was so devastating was that medieval medicine had no answers to what it was caused by or how to fight it. The plague appeared in two forms. The bubonic form caused buboes under the arms and around the groin and neck, and usually spread during the warm summers, when fleas were more active. The pneumonic variety spread during cold weather, when people were more vulnerable to colds and pneumonia. It attacked the weakened respiratory systems of the ill, and spread much like a cold, from person to person through coughing. It was much more deadly than the bubonic plague, killing 95% of its victims within a few days after reception. It spread so quickly that people believed you could become sick just by looking into the eyes of an infected person.
Many theories developed about how to combat the Black Death. People were told to avoid low, marshy areas and coastal areas where poisonous air could settle or drift in. Doctors told people to leave the cities and remain secluded from others. Some suggested purifying the air by burning fragrant woods or flowers and herbs. Bathing was discouraged because it would open pores to the diseased air, however, the bathing of hands and feet with vinegar and rosewater was encouraged. A moderate diet free of easily spoiled food was advisable, along with spices such as myrrh, saffron, and pepper or vegetables like onions, leeks, and garlic to be eaten in the evening. The correct sleeping position was important: sleeping on the back meant that the “corrupt” air could enter through the nostrils to the lungs. It was best to shift from side to side during the night to keep a balance.
Once someone came down with the plague, there was little that the doctors could do. An Italian doctor, Chalin de Vinario, admitted that “Every pronounced case of the plague is incurable.” The doctors realized the huge risks they were taking by exposing themselves to the disease, and so charged expensive fees for treating patients. Some doctors even fled from the victims, afraid that they would contract the disease.
The most popular treatment was bleeding. The physicians believed that blood carried the plague through the body, and so by cutting the veins leading to infected areas, they were removing the infection from the body. Sometimes doctors would treat the buboes directly, by applying a plaster or poultice or lancing the buboes and then applying the mixtures. Other treatments included potions, pills, or compounds. One even included making a mixture of expensive spices and powdered pearls or emeralds. Although this probably did not help, it may have had a “placebo” effect, as patients believed that the more expensive the treatment, the more effective it must be. Most of these concoctions were harmless, and even soothing, but did not aid in fighting the plague.
---------------------------------
The Black Death: The Impact
By late 1351, the plague had completed its destruction of Europe. A third of the population had died in only four years. The plague did not judge people’s station in life; it took the poor as well as the nobles, including the Queen of Navarre, two successive Archbishops of Canterbury, and the daughter of the King of England. The horrors that the survivors had lived though changed their psychological views on life and human behavior. “They forgot the past as though it had never been and gave themselves up to a more disordered and shameful life than they had led before,” wrote Italian chronicler Villani. The homicide rate in England between 1349 and 1369 was double that of 1320-1340, despite the enormous decrease in population. Greedy people married the young survivors who had inherited their family’s wealth. Peasants took over the possessions of their dead masters, including moving into their houses and taking over their livestock and tools. There was an abundance of goods, but few people left to buy them. Prices fell, but so many people had died that everyone had extra money. Survivors bought luxury goods which could never have dreamed of owning before the plague.
People began to question their values. The cooperative atmosphere of the early 1300’s was replace by individualism. Hedonism became popular as people realized they didn’t know what the next day would bring. It was better to live life to its fullest. They also began to question God and the church. The clergy had always taught that humans were God’s chosen people, but who was a God who didn’t try to save his children? Traditionally, the clergy were thought to be the intermediaries between God and the people, but people began to believe that they should have a personal relationship with God, rather than needing a priest to lead them. These changing beliefs did not cause the later Reformation, but they certainly hastened its arrival.
The Black Death changed the relationship between the manor lords and the laborers and ultimately, brought about the end of the manorial system. With a reduced labor force, the cost of workers rose. Peasants who freed before the plague required higher wages, and those who were not yet free demanded that they be freed by their manor lords and that they be paid more. The standard of living for the peasants quickly climbed, as landlords’ income fell 20 percent between 1347 and 1353. As the agricultural demand dropped, the landlords were forced to stop farming the land and lease it out to their former serfs. This meant that the peasants were now renters, free to farm their own land with no ties holding them to their former lords. The lords concentrated on cultivating only the most fertile land, resulting in a regrowth of grasslands and ancient forests throughout England.
A significant change in the national language also occurred. Since the Norman Conquest, French had been the official language of the government. When the plague struck and caused the deaths of many government officials who had been fluent in French and the teachers who were qualified to teach it in schools, the official language was changed back to English, the language of the commoners. The use of French died out quickly after that, and by 1385 was gone completely.
The plague affected medicine and science directly. Medieval medicine completely failed in the face of the Black Death, but this made physicians and other scientists examine new ways of fighting disease and new methods of exploring how the human body works. At the time, medical learning was based around the texts of the Ancient Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. The new generation of physicians after the plague realized the shortcomings of these teachings, which were based off other animals besides humans and were over a thousand years old, and sought a new medical belief. One of the most important changes that was brought into place was the dissection of actual human cadavers. Until this point, the mutilation of dead bodies was forbidden by the church, who thought that by cutting open a dead body, the soul was released and would never reach Heaven. Physicians began to explore the human body, and by 1380, the knowledge of anatomy was fairly accurate. These new learnings would be the basis of all medicine to come.
The plague of 1347-1351 had an immediate impact on society, and changed how that society developed into today’s English culture. From the Black Death, England gained its sense of individualism, a strong middle class, and the beginnings of the modern religion. Even though the Black Death caused horrific devastation at the time, its remnants have helped shape the country that England is today.
http://awylie.tripod.com/plague4.html