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The Black Death

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The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) - Deadly Epidemic

In the 1300s the world was struck by a deadly disease called the Black Death. It was one of the worst recorded disasters in history. Over one-third of the population of Europe died.

Also known as the plague, the disease is thought to have originated in Central Asia and it swept across Europe in the late 1340s. The terrible disease caused not only massive numbers of deaths, but also caused many minority groups to be blamed and persecuted for "causing" the black death.

In these modern days when we have seen millions of deaths from AIDS and have recently threatened with a possible worldwide swine flu epidemic, it is important to glance back at the major epidemics of the past, such as the Black Death, and see how people handled them.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)

by: John Kelly

Amazon Price: $5.75 (as of 02/14/2012)Buy Now

A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and graphic detail.

Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing."

Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road."

Equivalent of a nuclear war!

"The Black death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, taking millions of lives."

-- Norman F. Cantor

The Living Hurry Past the Dead: The Black Death in Florence, Italy, 1348 (Drawing by Marcello) 

No Time for Goodbyes

[The black death victims] "ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."

-- Giovanni Boccaccio

The Symptoms

"The symptoms were the following: a bubo in the groin, where the thigh meets the trunk; or a small swelling under the armpit; sudden fever; spitting blood and saliva (and no one who spit blood survived it). It was such a frightful thing that when it got into a house, as was said, no one remained."

-- Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle (c. 1380)

The picture above shows two black death victims with buboes. (Source: Toggenburg Bible, Switzerland, of 1411.)

No Cure

"Neither physicians nor medicines were effective. Whether because these illnesses were previously unknown or because physicians had not previously studied them, there seemed to be no cure. There was such a fear that no one seemed to know what to do. (...) "

-- Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle (c. 1380)

Plague Victims Being Blessed by a Priest 

Black Death (article)

Black Death imageThe Black Death , or the Black Plague , was one of the most deadly pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis (Bubonic plague ). It probably began in Central Asia and spread to Europe by the late 1340s. The total number of deaths worldwide from the pandemic is estimated at 75 million people; there were an estimated 25-50 million deaths in Europe. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population . It may have reduced the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400.

The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. On its return in 1603, the plague killed 38,000 Londoners. Other notable 17th century outbreaks were the Italian Plague of 1629-1631 , the Great Plague of Seville (1647-1652), the Great Plague of London (1665-1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679). There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form, after the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720-1722 and the 1771 plague in Moscow it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 19th century.

The 14th century eruption of the Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church , and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews , foreigners, beggars, and lepers . The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity , influencing people to "live for the moment", as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353).

Source: Wikipedia

Society Falls Apart

"Physicians could not be found because they had died like the others. And those who could be found wanted vast sums in hand before they entered the house. (...) Child abandoned the father, husband the wife, wife the husband, one brother the other, one sister the other."

-- Marchione di Coppo Stefani

The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague (by Johannes Nohl)

The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague

The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague

by: Johannes Nohl

Amazon Price: $9.50 (as of 02/14/2012)Buy Now

Johannes Nohl wrote and compiled an interesting work entitled "The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague," which revealed eye-opening contemporary accounts of the Black Death during the Medieval Europe. With roughly 270 pages and twelve chapters, this book gives one a new and shocking perspective on the history of the Black Death: the reactions of the people to the plague.

The Black Death was one of the worst disasters in the history of humankind to which it killed off the third of the whole population, beginning in the year of 1348. And, this book brought forth the personal experiences and official documents to give the reader to deeply understand what the people of that ill-fated era were experiencing. Nohl's work is rather unique because of its degree to the aspects of historical, sociological, and geographical nature.

The book begins with the aspects of the plague, including the victims and the deaths, to the causes of the plague, to which some believed it to be of a divine origin or other forms of superstitions or beforehanded seen "fateful comets." Then, the author goes on to bring to light of the medical profession and its role during the plague, the detailed accounts that might prevent the plague, the precaution measurements by the Church and the governments, the role of the Church, and moral collapse and other elements. And, the rest of the book deals with the issue of persecutions of the Jews and their role, the issue of sexuality and the appearance of respectability where it "had disappeared after the terror of the Black Death had swept away not only all law courts and police, but had destroyed the last conventions of decency" (p. 207). Finally, the discussion of the role of flagellants and the personal accounts surrounding them during the plague, and then the author finally wrapped up the book with a brief aftermath of the plague where the "joy" returned.

Personally, I found this book to be quite an eye-opening and shocking to which I felt it was very important for one to read the contemporary detailed accounts, both officially and intimately, from the people who lived through or died in the Black Death. When one read the history about the Black Death, a very little can be understood about the magnitude or the impact of the plague on the people until one personally experience the detailed graphic accounts from the people who lived and died during the deadly plague.

I believe this book to be one of the most important works for the study of the Black Death because it surely brings the powerful lessons on how medieval people reacted to the plague and how the few survived such a worst disaster.

The End of the World?

"They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ... ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug. And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands ... And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world."

-- Agnolo di Tura del Grasso quoted in The Black Death: A Turning Point in History? by William M. Bowsky

Black Death: Influence on Culture and Religion

The Black Death: Influence on Culture and Religion
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Black Death Poster

The Middle Ages - The Black Death




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More Books on the Black Death and the Plague

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Websites on the Black Death and the Plague

The Plague
An interesting essay with pictures on the Black Death and other occurences of the Plague over the centuries.
The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
A short history of the Black Death.
Medieval World - Black Death
"The critical fact of the impact of the Black Death was that England from 1400 was half empty..."
Great Plague of London, 1664-65
"The total number of deaths from in that year, according to the bills of mortality was 68,596, in a population estimated at 460,000..."
The Black Death, 1347-1350
"Culprit: Oriental Rat Flea... Dead littered the streets everywhere. Cattle and livestock roamed the country unattended. Brother deserted brother..."
Plague, Weymouth, England (image)

Sign in Weymouth, England, recording the entrance of plague into that country 

Latest News on Black Death and Similar Epidemics

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Flagellants (image)

Fearing the Black Death was a Punishment from God, Roving Bands of Flagellants Lashed Themselves to Seek Divine Forgiveness 

Pogrom of Jews during Black Death (image)

Many Sought Scapegoats for their Suffering. Here Jews, Blamed for the Black Death, are being Burned Alive 

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

by: Charles Mackay

Amazon Price: $14.25 (as of 02/14/2012)Buy Now

How did people react to the Black Death?

In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit... -from the Preface

The satanic child-abuse mania of the 1980s... The dotcom craze of the 1990s... The housing bubble of the 2000s... It may seem like we today invented mass insanity, but it's always been with us, as this classic expose of the madness of humanity demonstrates in a way that's both disturbing and highly entertaining.

First published in 1841 across multiple volumes but presented here in one omnibus volume, this enlightening work explores such societal delusions and aberrations as:
* the Mississippi Scheme, in which an 18th-century Scottish financier created a stock bubble in France for land in the New World
* the infamous tulip mania that seized Holland in the 1600s
* the grip that alchemists, with their claims of turning lead to gold, held over the European imagination during the Enlightenment
* the centuries-long Crusades of the Middle Ages
* the witch hunts that plagued both sides of the Atlantic in the period 1480 to 1700
* and many more.

A powerful study of human psychology on a cultural scale, this important work is startlingly relevant today... as it's sure to still be centuries from now.

Scottish journalist CHARLES MACKAY (1814-1889) held an honorary law degree from Glasgow University, as well as a doctorate in literature. A renowned poet and songwriter, he also authored a Dictionary of Lowland Scotch.

[Thanks to David of Online Education Reporter for telling me about this book.]

One Positive Outcome: The End of Serfdom

The Peasants' Revolt (image)

The lower class workers in England had been been enduring a miserable life under the feudal system. Their life, known as serfdom, was virtual slavery. The black death reduced the number of laborers available work on the land. The workers demanded higher wages and better conditions.

The upper classes resisted this and the king (King Edward III) tried to clamp down on these demands by introducing a new law, the Statute of Labourers, in 1351. The struggle of the workers continued which culminated in the Peasants' Revolt (1381). Although the Peasants' Revolt was suppressed, the workers finally won the battle and serfdom ended around 1400.

The picture above shows King Richard II meeting the rebels during the Peasants' Revolt.

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