1884.] there have come to us tidings of a visitation of pestilence
which have seemed to some men very disquieting, and to some heavy with
menace. From Italy, the land beyond the Alps; from Spain, the land
beyond the Pyrenees; from seaports in France and cities of the plain,
we hear that the cholera has been striking down its victims. The
Phantom with the deadly breath has shown strange caprice in his coming
and going; but when he has been suspected to be nigh at hand, wild-eyed
Panic has shown herself as of old. It is sad and discouraging to find
that, spite of all our boasted progress--all that science has taught
us, and all that we are supposed to have learnt--the attitude of the
multitude when certain dangers threaten, appears to be as it was, and
that we still hear of shuddering wretches trying to fight a dreaded
enemy by letting off old muskets and drenching portmanteaus with
Condy's fluid.
Such things have been before. Must they recur again? Philosophers
comfort us with the assurance that our brains are larger than those of
our forefathers. Nay, that the convolutions of the said brains are more
complex. How about the _moral fibre?_ Are we never to have stouter
hearts or more "bowels and mercies?" In the face of the same
circumstances, will men for ever show themselves the same? Or is it
that all these stories of mad stampedes and of chaotic anarchy breaking
loose here and there--anarchy gibbering, blind, profligate and
senselessly cruel--are true only of exceptional communities, as yet
unaffected by the great lift which optimists confidently believe in,
and which they unhesitatingly assure us is steadily going on?
The cholera has abated, we are told; as we were told it would. Thus far
we in England have escaped its ravages. Experts--and experts are the
people whose vocation it is to speak without doubt or hesitation
whenever they speak--experts assure us that London was never more free
from cholera than during this present summer. Other experts--they too
speaking with authority--confidently affirm that our time is coming,
that a severe visitation is impending; that all we have heard of
hitherto of the ravages of the epidemic elsewhere, will prove but
child's play in comparison with that which we shall hear of by and by.
"And then, sir, you'll see!" That is a comforting assurance--at any
rate, _some_ of us will survive.
But what do we know of the march of any mysterious form of death that
has ever appeared in bygone ages, suddenly starting up and striding
over the earth--"the land as a garden of Eden before him, and behind
him a desolate wilderness?" We have most of us read of such frightful
visitations in Thucydides, in Ovid, in Virgil, in Lucretius, not to
mention the moderns; but if any of us were to write down the sum and
substance of his knowledge, and attempt to discover from any
trustworthy evidence the nature, the course, and the intensity of any
great plague that has ever proved a real scourge upon any large section
of the human race, what would his summing-up amount to? How long would
it take to write; or rather, when it was written, how long would it
take to read?
This island of Great Britain has more than once been visited by
pestilence. De Foe has left us an inimitable romance, which he calls
"The History of the Plague in London in 1665." How much or how little
of sober fact there may be in those thrilling incidents, worked up so
marvellously by the great novelist, it is impossible to say. That there
is at least as much of fiction as of fact in the book none can doubt.
The author was a child when the plague was raging--a child of two
years' old, toddling about the butcher's shop. The plague of 1665 did
not travel far; out of London its incidence was comparatively trifling.
The cholera has visited us again and again, but never on a scale to
demoralize the people at large. Only once in our history has the
destroyer passed over England, leaving probably no shire unvisited by
his awful presence, and no parish in which there was not one dead. It
is never fair to draw inferences from the silence of historians; but it
is at least significant that among all contemporary writers who have
made mention of the Black Death--as it has been agreed to call it--the
Black Death in the reign of Edward III.--there is little mention of any
panic, few ugly tales of desertion of the dying, no flagrant instances
of miserable creatures crying that the wells were poisoned. On the
contrary, we have proof that as a rule men died at their posts during
all that trying time, that those in authority never lost their heads,
and that though there must, of course, have been isolated cases of
abject fear, expressing itself in the maddest extravagances of despair,
yet we have to look long and look far and wide to find such cases--and
after all our search may be fruitless.
As yet the history of the Black Death can hardly be said to have been
investigated at all; and until specialists can be prevailed upon to
examine the evidence ready at hand, we shall continue to be put off
with mere generalities when we ask for more light upon a calamity which
was the most stupendous that ever befell this island.
* * * * * * *
We have all heard of Boccaccio's _Decameron_--only naughty people have
_read it_--and how it was written when the plague was raging at
Florence, the great plague that carried off Petrarch's Laura, and those
other thousands of whom the world knew nothing then and knows nothing
now. Some, too, have heard that the plague swept over
Europe--desolating, devastating--the spectre with the swinging scythe
mowing down broad swathes of men. Some, when they hear of it, picture
to themselves Pope Clement VI. at Avignon, sitting in that vast palace
that overlooks the Rhone, the stench of corpses mastered for him by the
fragrant smoke of aromatic logs burning in huge pyres round about him
night and day. Some have heard of Giovanne Villani, the historian of
Florence, who wrote feebly about that same pestilence in his native
city, and who doubtless would have written more, and more plainly and
more strongly, but that in the midst of his writing Azrael touched him
too, and his pen fell from his hand. [Footnote: Muratori, "Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores," vol. xiii. pp, 1-771.] Some few, again, have a
faint recollection of that Emperor of the West, John Cantacuzene, who
ruled at Constantinople when the plague was, and who wrote about it.
[Footnote: His four books of Histories are to be found in the "Corpus
Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae."] Didn't he? Nay! Hadn't he a son,
Andronicus, who died of it? How did it come to pass that Gibbon did not
so much as allude to it? Some, peradventure, think of Rome and of
Rienzi, and how it was about that time that he was potent, or was he in
hiding there among the Fraticelli? And isn't there something too about
the plague visiting Greenland, and putting back the clock that was
moving on steadily, but which suddenly stopped? How vague we are!
* * * * * * *
What was this plague? How did it strike men down?
"It showed itself," says Boccaccio, "in a sad and wonderful manner; and
_different from what it had been in the East_, where bleeding from the
nose is the fatal prognostic, here [at Florence] there appeared certain
tumours in the groin or under the armpits, some as big as an apple,
others as big as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of
the body: in some cases large and but few in number, in others less and
more numerous, both kinds the usual messengers of death... They
generally died," he adds, "the third day from the first appearance of
the symptoms, without a fever or other bad circumstance attending."
"It took men generally in the head and stomach, appearing first in the
groin," says Villani, "or under the armpits, by little knobs or
swellings called kernels, boils, blains, blisters, pimples, or
plague-sores; being generally attended with devouring fever, with
occasional spitting and vomiting of blood, whence, for the most part,
they died presently or in half a day, or within a day or two at the
most."
Less precise and minute is the description of the great surgeon, Guido
de Chauliac, who nobly stayed at Avignon for the six months during
which the visitation was at its worst; but he too mentions the
carbuncular swellings in the axillae and the groin, the purple spots,
and the violent inflammation of the lungs, attended by fatal
expectoration of blood.
As for the Emperor John Cantacuzene, his description is so flagrantly a
mere adaptation of the history of the plague at Athens by Thucydides
that it must be received with caution. It is only in what it omits and
in what it adds to the older narrative that it possesses any great
historic value. It agrees with the accounts quoted above in making
mention of the swellings, the blood-spitting, and the awful rapidity
with which the disease ran its course. It omits all mention of the
eruption on the surface of the skin, the flushed eyes, and, above all,
the swollen and inflamed condition of the larynx, the cough, the
sneezing, and the hiccough, which Dr. Collier found so significant.
Comparing, then, the several accounts which have come down to us,
meagre though they are, it ought to be possible to arrive at some
conclusions regarding the nature of the plague of the fourteenth
century which, for the pathologist, would amount to certainties. The
wonder is that such men as Dr. Hecker and his learned translator should
have shown so much reserve--not to say timidity--in pronouncing
judgment upon the question.
A layman runs a risk of incurring withering scorn at his presumption,
and ridicule at his ignorance who ventures to express an opinion--or to
have one--on any subject which the medical profession claims as within
its own domain; and I should not dare to speak otherwise than as a very
humble inquirer when the learned are silent. There are, however, some
conclusions which may be accepted without hesitation and which will be
admitted by all.
I. The Black Death was _not_ scarlatina maligna, as the plague at
Athens undoubtedly was. [Footnote: "The History of the Plague of
Athens," translated from Thucydides by C. Collier, M.D., London, 1857.]
II. It was _not_ small-pox.
III. It was _not_ cholera.
IV. It probably _was_ a variety of the Oriental plague, which has
reappeared in Europe in more modern times, and regarding which they who
wish to know more must seek their information where it is to be found.
The next question usually asked is, Where did the new plague come from?
And here the answer is even more uncertain than that to the other
question--What the great plague was.
In fact, a careful comparison of such testimony as comes to hand leaves
the inquirer in a very perplexed condition, and inclines him rather to
accept than reject the old-fashioned theory of a "general corruption of
the atmosphere" as the only working hypothesis whereby to account for
the startling spontaneity of the outbreak and its appearance at so many
and such distant points at the same time.
The Imperial author, who appears to have done his best to gather
information, evidently found himself quite baffled in his attempt to
follow the march of the plague. It had originated among the Hyperborean
Scythians; it had passed through Pontus, and Libya, and Syria, and the
furthest East, and "in a manner all the world round about." Other
writers are just as much in the dark as Cantacuzene, and it seems mere
waste of time to endeavour to arrive at any conclusion from data so
defective and statements so void of historical basis as have come down
to us. This only seems established, that during the year 1347 there was
great atmospheric disturbance extending over a large area of Southern
Europe, and resulting in extensive failure of the harvest, and
consequent distress and famine; and that in January, 1348, one of the
most violent earthquakes in history wrought immense havoc in Italy, the
shocks being felt in the islands of the Mediterranean, and even north
of the Alps.
It is at least curious that the date of the earthquake coincides very
closely with the date which has been given by Guido de Chauliac for the
first appearance of the plague at Avignon. He tells us expressly that
it broke out in that city in January, 1348, and I think it would be
difficult to produce trustworthy evidence of any earlier outbreak than
this, at any rate, in Europe. [Footnote: One of our monastic
chroniclers states expressly that it began about St. James's Day in
1347. I _feel_ certain that the date is wrong, and that it could be
proved to be wrong without much difficulty by reference to documentary
evidence which might be consulted.] "It appeared at Florence," says
Villani, "at the beginning of April, and at Cesena, on the other side
of the Apennines, on the 1st of June." It is asserted that it reached
England at the beginning of August, is said to have lingered for some
months in the west, and to have devastated Bristol with awful severity.
There can be no doubt that in the towns of Italy and France there was a
dreadful mortality; but when we are told that 100,000 died in Venice,
and 60,000 in Florence, and 70,000 in Siena, it is impossible to accept
such round numbers as anything better than ignorant guesses. Whether
the great cities of the Low Countries were visited by the pestilence
with any severity, or how far the towns of Germany were affected, I am
unable to say, nor am I much concerned at present with such an inquiry;
that I leave to others to throw light upon. But as to the progress, the
incidence, and the effect of the Black Death in England--when it came
and where it showed itself, how long it lasted, and what effects
followed--on these questions the time has come for pointing out that we
have a body of evidence such as perhaps exists in no other
country--evidence, too, which hitherto has hardly received any
attention, its very existence entirely overlooked, forgotten, nay! not
even suspected.
* * * * * * *
Let us understand where we are, and look about us for a little while.
When King Edward III. entered London in triumph on the 14th of October,
1347, he was the foremost man in Europe, and England had reached a
height of power and glory such as she had never attained before. At the
battle of Creçi France had received a crushing blow, and by the loss of
Calais, after an eleven months' siege, she had been reduced well-nigh
to the lowest point of humiliation. David II., King of Scotland, was
now lying a prisoner in the Tower of London. Louis of Bavaria had just
been killed by a fall from his horse, the Imperial throne was vacant,
and the electors in eager haste proclaimed that they had chosen the
King of England to succeed. To their discomfiture the King of England
declined the proffered crown. He "had other views." Intoxicated by the
splendour of their sovereign and his martial renown, and the Success
which seemed to attend him wherever he showed himself, the English
people had gone mad with exultation--all except the merchant princes,
the monied men, who are not often given to lose their heads. They took
a much more sober view of the outlook than the populace did--they had
an eye to their own interests and the interests of the trade and
commerce in which they were engaged. They were very much in earnest in
asserting their rights and protesting against their wrongs, and they
presented their petitions to the King after the fashion of the
time--petitions which must have seemed rather startling protests in the
fourteenth century, betraying, as they did, some advanced opinions for
which the world at large was hardly then prepared.
Students of the manual, compendium, and popular handbook style of
literature may possibly be hardly aware that the war of protection
_versus_ free trade, and the other war concerned with the incidence of
taxation upon property, real and personal, had already begun. Even my
distinguished friend, Mr. Cadaverous, who never made a mistake in his
life, and whose memory for facts is portentous--even Mr. Cadaverous
assures me that he has never met with any mention of the above fact in
all his study of history.
History! What is history but the science which teaches us to see the
throbbing life of the present in the throbbing life of the past?
Note that these "gentlemen of the House of Commons," who made
themselves somewhat disagreeable in the Parliament of 1348, were not
the warriors who had gone out to fight the King's battles, but the
burghers who stayed at home, heaped up money, and grumbled. It was
otherwise with the roistering swash-bucklers who came back in that
glorious autumn. They are said to have returned laden with the spoils
of France, the plunder of Calais, and so on and so on. Calais must have
been rather a queer little place to afford much _plunder_ after all
that it had gone through. The swash-bucklers doubtless brought
prize-money home, but it did not all come from France--that is pretty
certain. Villani, our Florentine friend, tells us of an unexampled
commercial crisis at Florence about this time--brought about, observe,
by the English conqueror of France not paying his debts. So the Bardi
and the Peruzzi actually stopped payment; for the King owed them a
million and a half of gold florins, and there was lamentation and
distress of mind, and the level of the Arno rose by reason of the flood
of tears that fell "from tired eyelids upon tired eyes." All that made
no difference to the swash-bucklers, and up and down England there was
wild extravagance, and money seemed to burn in people's pockets.
Feasting and merriment, and all that appertains thereto, were the order
of the day, and all went merry as a marriage bell.
The King got all he could get out of the Parliament, but he did not
get, he could not get, all he wished. What was to be done next? The
Pope said, "Make peace!" and his Holiness did his little best to bring
about the desired end. The summer of 1348 had come, and it seems that
at Avignon the plague had by this time spent itself, people were no
longer afraid to go there now, and the Pope would peradventure come out
of his seclusion and receive an embassy. So on the 28th of July Edward
III. wrote a letter to Pope Clement, and announced his intention of
sending his ambassadors to Avignon to treat about terms. The
negotiations fell through, and on the 8th of October the King announced
by proclamation that he was once more going to make an inroad upon
France with an armed force. He did not keep his word. In November a
truce was patched up somehow; and on the first of the next month we
find the King once more at Westminster, and there he seems to have
remained over Christmas. If the dates are correctly given, the news
from the west of England about this time was not likely to have
provoked much merriment.
Are the dates correct? Gentlemen of an antiquarian turn of mind, out in
the west there, might do worse than spend some weeks in looking into
this matter.
Meanwhile, it is at this point that we get our first direct,
unquestionable proof, that the plague had reached our shores. On the
1st of January, 1349, the King wrote to the Bishop of Winchester,
informing him that although the Parliament had been summoned to meet on
the 19th of the month, yet because a _sudden visitation of deadly
pestilence had broken out at Westminster and the neighbourhood,_ which
was increasing daily, and occasioning much apprehension for the safety
of any great concourse of people, should it assemble in that place at
the time appointed; therefore it had been determined to prorogue the
Parliament to Monday, the 27th of April.
I gather from the wording of this document that the Government did not
look upon the outbreak with any very grave apprehension, that they did
not regard it as anything more than an epidemic which would be confined
to narrow limits, and one likely to pass off after a little time as the
spring advanced; and that they can hardly as yet have received any very
disturbing intelligence of its ravages, such as must have soon come in
from all points of the compass. Two months passed, and the situation
had seriously changed. On the 10th of March the King issued another
letter, in which, after referring to the previous proclamation, he
further prorogued the meeting of Parliament _sine die._ The reason for
this step is explained to be "because the deadly pestilence in
Westminster, _and in the City of London,_ and in other places
thereabouts, was increasing with extraordinary severity" _(gravius
solito invalescit)._
It is to be observed that, in the first notice of prorogation, no
mention is made of the City of London, only of Westminster and its
neighbourhood. In the second, we hear that the plague had already
extended over a wider area, and was showing no signs of abating. Nay,
by this time the King and his advisers had taken alarm--there was no
knowing where the mortality would stop.
Two days after this (12th of March, 1349) William Bateman, Bishop of
Norwich, received his letters of protection as ambassador for the King
in France. His safe conduct--for himself and his suite--was to extend
till Whitsuntide next ensuing (31st of May, 1349). The suite consisted
of eight persons, all Norfolk men; two were wealthy laymen, two were
distinguished ecclesiastics, three were country parsons, of one I know
nothing. I believe they all got back safely, but the three country
parsons returned to their several cures only to be smitten by the
plague. The Bishop had not shown himself again in his diocese many
weeks before they were all three dead. In making this last statement, I
am a little anticipating the course of events, but only a little. The
Angel of Death moves at no laggard pace when once he begins his march
with his sword drawn in his hand.
* * * * * * *
Thus far I have been quoting from, or referring to, authorities which
are accessible to any one with an adequate command of books at his
elbow--the chroniclers and the historians named, the Foedera, the Rolls
of Parliament, and such authorities as whoever chooses may consult for
himself. These printed authorities, which have all been consulted and
looked into again and again, have told us very little, but they have
given us certain notes of time--furnished us, in fact, with a _terminus
a quo_. We have learnt this, at any rate, that about Christmas, 1348,
the plague appeared at Westminster and its vicinity, and that it had
increased alarmingly in London and elsewhere by the beginning of March,
1349.
We have next to deal with that other evidence to which I have
alluded--the unprinted documentary evidence ready to our hands--I mean
the Institution Books in the various Diocesan Registries and the Rolls
of the Manor Courts, which still exist in very great abundance, though
they are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. It is
necessary that I should trespass upon my reader's attention while I
endeavour to explain the nature and the value of these two classes of
documents before proceeding to deal with their testimony.