The Black Death

Medieval World HI127

‘Those who fell ill lasted

little more than two or three

days, but died suddenly, as if

in the midst of health – for

someone who was healthy one

day could be dead and buried

the next. Lumps suddenly

emerged in their armpits or

groin, and their appearance

was an infallible sign of

death.’

Jean de Venette, Chronicle

[France]:

Buboes

• chilly stiffness

• tingling sensation

• an extremely hard, solid boil

• an acute and putrid fever

• intolerable stench

• vomiting of blood

• drunken stupor

• majority died between the third

and fifth day

The Symptons

The Traditional Diagnosis: Bubonic Plague• A bacterial disease

(Yersinia pestis)

• Carried by rats and fleas

• Characterised by buboes

• Pneumonic form

Problems with Yersinia pestis thesis (Samuel

Cohn)

• Modern plague travels slowly. Black Death travelled extraordinarily fast

• Scale of mortality. Modern plague has not proved very infectious. Contrast with Black Death.

• No immunity to the modern plague can be acquired. People could become immune to the Black Death.

• 1331- Central Asia along the Silk Route

• 1345-6 Southern Russia

• 1347 From Black Sea to Constantinople, Italy, eastern Mediterranean, near east

• 1348 France, Bavaria, England

• 1349 Northern England, Central Germany, Low Countries, Norway

• 1350 Sweden

‘This disaster chiefly

overwhelmed the young and

strong; the elderly and

weak it generally spared...

People who one day had been

full of happiness, on the

next were found dead.‘

Geoffrey le Baker,

Chronicle [Oxfordshire]

Death Rates•Impossible to know for certain

•England c.40-55%

•Coltishall in Norfolk 80%

•San Gimignano (Tuscany) 75.9%

Moral explanations

•Divine punishment

•Penitential response

•But other moral explanations put forward – not all who die are guilty

Scientific explanations

•Corruption of the air

•Humoural theories. Avoidance of strenuous activity to prevent unnecessary intake of air

•Astrological explanations

Scapegoating

•Outsiders are sometimes blamed for spreading the disease (by, for example, poisoning wells). The poor, foreigners , travellers targeted. But main scapegoats are the Jews.

Socio-economic consequences of

plague• Michael Postan argues that effects of

Black Death have been exaggerated.

• Europe by c. 1300 is already experiencing crippling effects of a high population pressure.

• Malthusian ‘natural’ checks are causing population to shrink – delayed marriage, susceptibility to famine, soil exhaustion

• Disastrous effects of famine of 1315-1317

Causes of demographic depression

•Why does the population of Western Europe not recover until the late 16th c.?

•Deliberate changes in fertility, or renewed bouts of disease?

Effects of decrease in population•Life becomes harder for

landlords and peasants producing surplus because rents and the price of food are lower

•Labourers are generally getting higher wages. More mobility, occupational flexibility.