FROM A.D. 1333 TO 1418.
Proceeding in the annals of antecedent ages, we have now to record a
series of mighty revolutions in the organism of the earth, accompanied
by general and awful commotions of the elements.
“Earthquakes, Nature’s agonizing pangs,
Oft shake th’ astonish’d isles;--the Solfaterre
Or sends forth thick, blue, suffocating streams,
Or shoots to temporary flame. A din
Wild through the mountains’ quivering rocky caves,
Like the dread crash of tumbling planets, roars.
When tremble thus the pillars of the globe,
Like the tall cocoa by the fierce north blown,
Can the poor brittle tenements of man
Withstand the dread convulsion? Their dear homes
(Which, shaking, tottering, crashing, bursting, fall)
The boldest fly; and on the open plain
Appall’d, in agony the moment wait
When, with disrupture vast, the waving earth
Shall ‘whelm them in her sea-disgorging womb.
Nor less affrighted are the bestial kind:
The bold steed quivers in each panting vein,
And staggers bathed in deluges of sweat;
The lowing herds forsake their grassy food,
And send forth frighted, woeful, hollow sounds;
The dog, thy trusty sentinel of night,
Deserts his post assign’d, and piteous howls.
Wide ocean feels
The mountain waves, passing their custom’d bounds,
Make direful, loud incursions on the land,
All-overwhelming: sudden they retreat,
With their whole troubled waters; but anon
Sudden return, with louder, mightier force.
The black rocks whiten, the vex’d shores resound;
And yet more rapid, distant they retire.
Vast coruscations lighten all the sky
With volumed flames; while thunder’s voice
From forth his shrine, by night and horror girt,
Astounds the guilty, and appals the good.”
The great events to which we allude began, in the year 1333, first
in China. Here parching drought, succeeded by famine, laid waste the
tract of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai. Rain, about this
period, fell in torrents in and about Kingsai, destroying, it is said,
by the floods more than 400,000 persons. The mountain Tsincheou, in
falling, formed vast chasms in the earth. About this time, according
to the diary of Ramon Vila, there were experienced dire famine and
pestilence at Barcelona, which in a very short time carried off 10,000
persons.
In the succeeding year, 1334, inundations occurred in the neighbourhood
of Canton. Soon after, at Tche, after an unexampled drought, pestilence
arose and carried off 500,000 human beings. Hecker graphically
describes the unprecedented and universal commotions of this period.
An earthquake happened near Kingsai, and subsequent to the falling-in
of the mountains of Ki-ming-Chan, a lake was formed, of more than a
hundred leagues in circumference, where thousands found their grave.
In Houkouang and Ho-nan a drought prevailed for five months, and
innumerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation; famine and
pestilence, as is usually the case, following in their train. It is
remarkable, that, simultaneously with a drought and renewed floods
in China, in 1336, many uncommon atmospheric phenomena and, in the
winter-time, frequent thunderstorms were observed in the north of
France; and, so early as the eventful year 1333, an eruption of Etna
took place. According to the Chinese annals, 4,000,000 persons perished
by famine in the neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337; and deluges of rain,
swarms of locusts, and an earthquake which lasted six days, caused an
incredible devastation.
During this year, 776 of the Ejira, or 1334 of the Christian era,
Mohamed Ben Abdalla Ben Alkhatrib, a native of the city of Granada,
being a physician and a member of an illustrious family versed in
all species of cosmography, acquired considerable authority and
importance amongst many of the Moorish kings of Granada; but, towards
the termination of his valuable life, fortune became adverse; for
having been accused of treason during the reign of Ebn Alahmoz, he was
thrown into prison, and shortly afterwards died, leaving, amongst other
works on medicine and the veterinary art, one on the mode of avoiding
plague, which is cited by Casiri in his ‘Biblioteca Arábigo Hispana
Escurialense,’ tom. ii. pp. 71 and 72.
A.D. 1338, Kingsai was visited by an earthquake of ten
days’ duration; at the same time France suffered from failure in the
harvest. From this period until 1342 there was in China a succession of
inundations, earthquakes, and famines. It seemed as though everywhere
on the tops of mountains springs were made to burst forth, and dry
tracts were deluged in an inexplicable manner. Great floods also
occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine, in France, &c. In the year
following, 1343, the mountain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in; and in
Pien-tcheou and Leang-tcheou, three months after, rain followed, and
unheard-of inundations, which destroyed seven cities:
“Towers, temples, palaces
Flung from their deep foundations; roof on roof
Crush’d horrible, and pile on pile o’erturn’d,
Fall total!”
In Egypt and in Syria violent earthquakes took place, and in China they
became from this time more and more frequent; for they recurred, in
1344, in Ven-tcheou, where the sea overflowed. A dreadful earthquake
was experienced at Lisbon, where vast numbers of the inhabitants
perished by the falling of the buildings. A.D. 1345, in
Ki-tcheou, and also in both the following years in Canton, great
commotions were experienced, especially subterraneous thunder.
Meanwhile floods and famine devastated various districts until 1347,
when the fury of the elements subsided in China.
Whilst pestilence was thus raging, China, Syria, Greece, Egypt,
Asia, and Africa suffered from it, A.D. 1346; and the year
following, 1347, a pestilence similar to that which subsequently
committed such ravages in the south of Gaul, Spain, and England (1348),
raged in Italy and Sicily.
1345. Guido de Gaullaco informs us that in Spain, in the month of
March, there broke out a pestilence, which he affirms spread all over
the world, leaving scarcely a fourth part of the human race alive.
Andres Laguna, Martinez de Leyva, Duarte Nunhez, and other medical
writers, speak with horror and astonishment of this terrific plague,
which, they say, lasted five years.
Abu Giaphar Ahmed Ebn Ali Ebn Khatemar, a native of the city of
Almeria, and one of the Arabian physicians, who, according to Casiri,
was instructed in the history of the great pestilences, which nearly
the entire world suffered from in the years of the Egira 748, 749,
and 750, or of the Christian epoch 1347–48 and 1349, quotes the
following passage: “The pestilence first broke out in Africa, whence
it extended through all parts of Egypt and Asia, and finally attacked
Italy, France, and Spain; but in the city of Almeria, where it raged
with great malignity, it lasted nearly eleven months, namely, from
the beginning of the month Rabiu, the first month of the year of the
Egira 749, and of the Christian epoch 1348, until the commencement of
the following year.” The work which contains the description of this
pestilence consists of ten chapters, and is entitled ‘Morbi in posterum
vitandi Descriptio et Remedia.’ Don Miguel Casiri makes mention of it
in his Codex of the year 1780.
Abu Abdalla Mohamed Ben Alkhatrib, a native of Granada and brother
of the other Alkhatrib, also wrote a work on the causes and cure of
the pestilence that affected the city of Granada in the year of the
Egira 749, and of our Lord 1348, entitled ‘Quæsita de morbo horribili
perutilia;’ and Casiri alludes to this work also in his Codex.
Villanius, the historian of Florence, gives an account of a pestilence
which commenced in A.D. 1346 in Upper Asia: it first appeared
in Cathay; it arose from a most filthy smelling vapour, supposed to
have proceeded from a certain fiery body, which either fell down from
the atmosphere, or was eructated from the earth. This vapour, like a
fire, consumed all that stood in its way,--animals, horses, trees, &c.,
for the space of fifteen days’ journey all around; and some most filthy
little beasts furnished with feet and tails, as also worms and a small
kind of snake in numberless multitudes, fell at the same time from
the atmosphere upon the earth; the stench and putrefaction from these
infected the very air and all the circumjacent regions. A pestilence
having arisen from them, spread around, depopulating the whole of
Asia, and subsequently Egypt, Greece, and Italy; thence it spread into
France, Spain, and England, and at length into Germany. In the city
of Florence alone, says Villanius, there perished 60,000 persons, but
St. Anthony computes the number to have been 100,000. There prevailed
about this period, or at the commencement of the year 1347, epidemic
pestilence, in the shape of pleurisies, quinsies, and spotted fevers,
which at last terminated in the real Oriental plague, with buboes and
carbuncles: it was reported that 50,000 were carried off in London
in one week, and the deaths at Norwich were almost equally numerous.
About this period, 100,000 persons perished from pestilence at Venice:
Lubeck lost 90,000, while the deaths from similar disease were computed
at 200,000 in the kingdom of Spain. This pestilence persisted in many
parts during the following year.
In the beginning of 1348 pestilence universally prevailed over Europe
and in other quarters of the globe; it commenced in Syria, spread along
the shores of the Pontic Sea, and of Greece and Illyria, passed into
Italy and Sicily, and thence to the island of Mallorca: according to
Zurita, it almost depopulated that island in less than a month, more
than 5000 persons having been carried off by it. In the same year,
continues Zurita, a general pestilence extended from the East to the
ultimate boundaries of the West, comprising in its ravages the kingdom
of Valencia and the principalities of Catalonia. In the month of June
it broke out in the city of Valencia, and its virulence was such,
especially in the maritime parts, that, as before noticed, scarcely
any part of Europe escaped,--persons died suddenly; from Italy it
passed into Sicily, Sardinia, and so on to Mallorca. So great was the
mortality at Barcelona, that in the month of June, during the usual
annual solemn procession, which caused a number of priests, &c., from
Scio to be present, thousands died, and amongst them four magistrates
and almost all the Council of Ciento. During this period, says another
author, the signs of terrestrial commotions were exhibited in Europe.
During the reign of Edward III. it rained in England from Midsummer
unto Christmas, when a pestilential period commenced. A disease termed
‘Sorte Diod,’--the black pestilence, or death,--committed the most
terrific ravages; the lungs were principally affected. Fracastorius, in
his ‘Syphilis,’ describes the malady. The translation runs thus:
“A hundred years twice told have took their flight
Since Saturn mix’d with Mars his hated light,
Who, with their baleful influence, did infest
The rich and potent nations of the East:
Hence raged a dreadful pest before unknown,
Which seized the lungs, and made the breast its throne;
Four days it tyrannized with dreadful sway,
When life in purple streams broke out and fled away.”
This malady was accompanied by fever, difficulty of breathing, and
spitting of blood; the respiration was so laborious that the sick were
obliged to be always in an upright posture; deglutition was difficult,
attended with flushed countenance and great restlessness: at the
onset the cough was violent, but without loss of blood; after a short
time, the expectoration becoming bloody, hemorrhage succeeded, when
death ensued in three days: spots and abscesses sometimes formed when
the disease was protracted unto the fifth day. After the disease had
persisted for some months, the lungs were no longer affected, but the
glands of the axillæ and of the groins, and the parotids, swelled and
suppurated. In England it lasted nine years. There were 50,000 buried
in one year in the Charterhouse churchyard in London. A murrain among
the cattle succeeded this pestilence, and there was a great scarcity
of all sorts of provisions. Greenland was entirely depopulated by this
pestilence.
During the year 1348, the island of Cyprus was also visited by a most
terrific pestilence; a tremendous earthquake shook the foundations of
the island, and was accompanied by so frightful a hurricane, that the
inhabitants who had slain the Mahometan slaves, in order that they
might not themselves be subjugated by them, fled in dismay in all
directions. The sea overflowed,--the ships were dashed to pieces on the
rocks, and few outlived the dreadful event, whereby this fertile and
blooming island was converted into a desert. Before the earthquake,
it is recorded by Deguignes (p. 225) that a pestiferous wind spread
so poisonous an odour, that many, being overpowered by it, fell down
suddenly and expired in dreadful agonies. This phenomenon resembles
many such noticed by ancient authors. This peculiar condition of the
atmosphere was evident to the senses; borne by the winds, it spread
from land to land, carrying disease over whole portions of the earth.
It has been further recorded that, during this period, 1348, an
unexampled earthquake, on the 25th of January, shook Greece, Italy,
and the neighbouring countries. Naples, Rome, Pisa, Bologna, Padua,
Venice, and many other cities suffered considerably; whole villages
were swallowed up; castles, houses, and churches were overthrown, and
thousands of people were buried under their ruins. In Carinthia, thirty
villages, together with all the churches, were demolished; more than a
thousand corpses were drawn from under the rubbish: the city of Villach
was completely destroyed, and very few of its inhabitants were saved;
when the earth ceased to tremble, it was found that mountains had been
moved from their position, and that many hamlets were left in ruins.
It is recorded that during this earthquake the wine in casks became
turbid,--a statement which may be considered as furnishing a proof that
changes causing a decomposition of the atmosphere had taken place;
similar destructive earthquakes extended as far as the neighbourhood of
Basle, and recurred from time to time until 1360 throughout Germany,
France, Silesia, Poland, England, and Denmark also, much further north.
In the month of August, 1349, says Walsingham, black death broke out
at Southampton, destroying half the population. According to another
estimate, (Rymer, Fœdera,) A.D. 1348–49, and 1350, one-tenth
part of the people did not survive. In a royal edict, issued December,
1349, it is said, “Non modica pars populi est defuncta;” in another,
1350, “Magna pars populi est defuncta.” This pestilence spread over
France and Germany, and invaded the northern parts of Europe in the
year 1349.
In the years of our Lord 1350 and 1351 sore disease prevailed in
Ireland, Holland, and in England; its infallible signs were, a great
fever, vomiting, and spitting of blood, hemorrhage from the nose,
mouth, ears, eyes, stomach, and bowels, indicating an universal
disorganization of the system. Here we have the worst symptoms
observable in the bilious remittent or yellow fever of the West Indies
and other parts. It traversed all Germany, Russia, Hungary, Spain,
and Gaul. In Denmark it spread terror and dismay, and it decimated
Iceland; it persisted during the summer, autumn, winter, and spring of
those years; and for several years after, violent peripneumoniæ raged
in Asia, Egypt, and various other parts of the globe.--A.D.
1352. During this year scarcely one-fourth part of the Oxford students
survived the plague. (A. Wood, Ath. Oxon., A.D. 1349–52.) It
fell with redoubled violence on workmen and servants. The same year
great numbers were carried off by pestilence in Montpelier. A great
many of the lower orders of society died of the plague in England.
This disease caused great ravages in Denmark, and also in Iceland; the
Greenland merchants were all destroyed by it: it seized the monks and
regular clergy of all descriptions; 133 out of 140 members died of one
society in Montpelier. A similar mortality happened in the Magdalen
Society; not one out of 140 in Marseilles survived; 66 Carmelites
perished in Avignon. This plague began in a monastery of crowded, idle,
voluptuous monks. Cattle suffered greatly in many countries; 6000 sheep
died in one pasture in England. Pestilence and famine, it is supposed,
carried off in China, about this period, at least 900,000 of its
inhabitants: in London, 50,000 bodies were interred in one graveyard.
The following estimate of deaths during the above awful period was
considered below the actual number of victims: in Venice 100,000 died;
Basle, 14,000; Erfurt, 16,000; Strasburgh, about the same number;
Paris, 50,000; Norwich, in England, 50,000; Marseilles, in one month,
56,000! Florence, 60,000; Avignon, 62,000; London, 100,000; in Lubeck,
90,000; in Spain, two-thirds of the population were destroyed; and
Ireland was nearly depopulated.
A.D. 1355, a peculiar kind of madness was epidemic in England;
those affected fled into the woods, and wandered about the fields.
(Hecker.) Three years after, epidemic pestilence ravaged England,
Africa, Cyprus, and also Italy and Florence, which last city, says
Petrarch, lost 100,000 citizens. The same kind of pestilence also
afflicted Gaul, Ireland, and Scotland. Stow, in his Chronicle, gives
a very graphic description of the foregoing pestilential period from
1348 up to 1357. The pestilence he describes as a new disease. He
says: “There began amongst the East Indians and Tartarians a certain
pestilence, which at length waxed so general, infecting the middle
regions of the air so greatly, that it destroyed the Saracens, Turks,
Syrians, Palestinians, and the Grecians with a wonderful or rather
incredible death; insomuch that those people being exceedingly dismayed
with the terror thereof, consulted among themselves, and thought it
good to receive the Christian faith and sacraments; for they had
intelligence that the Christians which dwelt on this side of the Greek
Sea were not so greatly troubled with sickness and mortality more than
common.” “At length this terrible slaughter passed over into those
countries which are on this side the Alps, and thence to the parts
of France which are called Hesperia, and so on, by order, along into
Germany and Dutchland; and the seventh year after it began, it came
into England, and first began in the towns and ports joining on the
sea-coasts, Dorsetshire, where, even as in other countries, it made
the country quite void of inhabitants, so that there were almost none
left alive. Thence it passed into Devonshire and Somersetshire, and
even into Bristol, and raged in such sort that the Gloucestershire men
would not suffer persons from Bristol to have any access unto them or
into their country by any means; but at length it came to Gloucester,
yea, and to Oxford and London, and finally it spread over all England,
and so wasted and spoiled the people, that scarce the tenth person of
all sorts was left alive; churchyards were not sufficient and large
enough to bury their dead in: they chose certain fields appointed for
the purpose, amongst which was the piece of ground denominated the
Churchyard of the Holy Trinity, near East Smithfield, opened by one
John Cory. One Walter Manny also purchased a piece of ground called
Spital Croft, containing thirteen acres, in which were interred during
the next year 50,000 bodies; in Norwich, no less than 37,104 persons,
besides Mendicants and Dominicans, and in Yarmouth 7502; so that the
living which was previously worth 700 marks was reduced to £40 per
year.” “What time this pestilence had wasted all England, the Scots,
greatly rejoicing, mocked and swore ofttimes, ‘By the vile death of the
Englishmen;’ but the sword of God’s wrath slew and consumed the Scots
in no less numbers than it did the other. It also wasted the Welshmen,
and within a while passed over into Ireland, where it destroyed a great
number of English people that dwelt there; but such as were right
Irish-born, that dwelt in the hilly country, it scarcely touched, so
that few of them died thereof.”
A.D. 1360. Thunder-storms, accompanied by heavy rains and
lightning, did much damage in various parts of England; houses were set
on fire, crops and cattle were destroyed, and pestilence, in the shape
of fevers and disorder of the bowels, carried off numbers.
On the 21st of January, two years after, A.D. 1362, a feast
was instituted, and a solemn mass celebrated in Scio, with divine
worship in all the churches, convents, and other public places, at
which all the clergy of the place assisted; and on the 15th of February
a papal jubilee was published for the repose of the souls of all those
who had perished by the pestilence, which had recently carried off vast
numbers.
A.D. 1363, a dreadfully severe winter presaged noxious seasons
in Europe. Andalusia was afflicted with a terrible pestilence, which
having seized an almost incredible number of its inhabitants, is
marked among the ancient writings as the second mortality, in order to
distinguish it from the first of 1350, during which King Don Alonso
died in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar. This pestilence made such
an impression on the minds of all Spaniards, that in a sepulchral
inscription in the church of St. Pablo, we read that it was erected
during the second mortality, A.D. 1363. Two years after,
A.D. 1365, pestilence carried off 20,000 of the inhabitants of
Cologne and its vicinity.
From the year 1368 unto 1370, epidemic pestilence ravaged England and
Ireland; four years after, it continued to lay England waste. A similar
pestilence, about the same time, prevailed with great mortality in
Italy and in Gaul.
A.D. 1371, pestilence was rife at Barcelona; and on the
13th of June, imprecatory processions were instituted in each of the
parishes of that place on account of the pestilence, which lasted for
one year. A comet was seen this year.
A.D. 1372, pestilence invaded Germany, Egypt, Greece, and all
the East. Lubeck lost 90,000 of its inhabitants.
A.D. 1373, the use of coals was forbidden by Act of
Parliament, under the idea that the smoke in London corrupted the air.
In the year of our Lord 1374, the epidemic dancing disease of St.
Guy and St. John prevailed in Holland and in the Rhenish provinces,
and an analogous malady, called ‘Tarantisme’ and ‘Tigretier,’ among
the Abyssinians; a similar disease also prevailed in the Shetland
Islands, where it had existed from time to time, as it is said,
for one hundred years previously. The disease also prevailed in
France, and the sufferers were called ‘Convulsionnaires;’ it was
evidently the malady which we now term St. Vitus’ Dance or Chorea,
but prevailing epidemically. Hecker gives the following account of
this strange malady, as it occurred about this period also in Germany;
it was evidently a disease similar to that which broke out, A.D.
1027, in Bernburg, prevailed A.D. 1237 at Erfurt among children, and
subsequently among adults, A.D. 1278, at Utrecht. He says “that the
effects of the ‘Black Death’ had not yet subsided, and the graves of
millions of its victims were scarcely closed when a strange delusion
arose in Germany, which took possession of the minds of men, and,
in spite of the divinity of our nature, hurried away body and soul
into the magic circle of hellish superstition. It was a convulsion
which, in the most extraordinary manner, infuriated the human frame,
and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than two
centuries, since which time it has never re-appeared. It was called
the Dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic
leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected,
whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming with
fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It did not remain
confined to particular localities, but was propagated by the sight of
the sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany
and the neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already
prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinion of the times.
“So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were seen
at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had come out of Germany, and who, united by
one common delusion, exhibited to the public, both in the streets
and in the churches, the following strange spectacle. They formed
circles hand-in-hand, and, appearing to have lost all control over
their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the by-standers, for
hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell down to
the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme
oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they
were swathed in cloths bound tightly round their waists, upon which
they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next
attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the
tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings, but the by-standers
frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner by thumping
and trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing, they neither saw
nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses,
but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits, whose
names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they
felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged
them to leap so high. Others during the paroxysm saw the heavens open
and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the
religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in
their imaginations.
“Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced with
epileptic convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless,
panting and labouring for breath; they foamed at the mouth, and
suddenly springing up, began their dance amidst strange contortions.
Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was
modified by temporary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical
contemporaries but imperfectly noted the essential particulars,
accustomed as they were to confound their observations of natural
events with their notions of the world of spirits.
“It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from
Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighbouring
Netherlands. In Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of
Belgium, the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their
waists girt with cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm
was over, receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany.
This bandage was, by the insertion of a stick, easily twisted tight;
many, however, obtained more relief from kicks and blows, which they
found numbers of persons ready to administer; for where the dancers
appeared, the people assembled in crowds to gratify their curiosity
with the frightful spectacle. At length the increasing number of the
affected excited no less anxiety than the attention that was paid to
them. In towns and villages they took possession of the religious
houses; processions were everywhere instituted on their account, and
masses were said, and hymns were sung, while the disease itself, of the
demoniacal origin of which no one entertained the least doubt, excited
everywhere astonishment and horror. In Liege the priests had recourse
to exorcisms, and endeavoured by every means in their power to allay an
evil which threatened so much danger to themselves; for the possessed,
assembling in multitudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against
them and menaced their destruction. They intimidated the people also
to such a degree that there was an express ordinance issued, that no
one should make any but square-toed shoes, because these fanatics had
manifested a morbid dislike to the pointed shoes which had come into
fashion immediately after the great mortality in 1350. They were still
more irritated at the sight of red colours, the influence of which
on the disordered nerves might lead us to imagine an extraordinary
accordance between this spasmodic malady and the condition of
infuriated animals; but in the St. John’s dancers this excitement was
probably connected with apparitions, consequent on their convulsions.
There were likewise some of them who were unable to endure the sight
of persons weeping.” “A few months after this dancing malady had made
its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the
number of those possessed amounted to more than five hundred; and about
the same time at Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been
filled with eleven hundred dancers. * * * * * Girls and boys quitted
their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the
dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental
infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about, in
consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon
perceived. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate
to the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected,
roved from place to place, seeking maintenance and adventures, and
thus wherever they went spread this disgusting spasmodic disease like
a plague; for in maladies of this kind the susceptible are infected
as easily by the appearance as by the reality. At last it was found
necessary to drive away these mischievous guests, who were equally
inaccessible to the exorcisms of the priests and the remedies of the
physicians. It was not, however, until after four months that the
Rhenish cities were able to suppress these impostures, which had so
alarmingly increased the original evil.”
A.D. 1375, on the 20th of June, an imprecatory procession
was instituted at Scio, on account of the dreadful pestilence which
broke out there, and which raged more than twelve months. (_Vide_
Capmany, ‘Historical and Chronological Compendium of Plagues,’ p. 66.)
A.D. 1379, epidemic pestilence prevailed in England,
especially in the northern parts of the island. A.D. 1380,
there was a general inundation in Spain, from which resulted epidemic
pestilence, characteristic of an atmosphere surcharged with moisture.
Three years after, 1383, was a period most fatal to Seville, in
consequence of a pestilence having broken out there, which extended
through its entire length and breadth. This terrible infliction was
called by the old inhabitants the third mortality: it was preceded by
inundations and extraordinary showers, which act unquestionably as
predisposing causes of disease. A severe earthquake destroyed several
churches A.D. 1382.
We have seen that the years 1350 and 1363 were denominated the years of
the first and second mortality. The precautionary measures that were
adopted to meet such evils were the formation of various hospitals
for the treatment of the sick, instituted by the bishop, dean, and
ecclesiastical and secular chapters. The physicians and surgeons not
only contributed by their science to the relief of the plague-stricken,
but also with their personal charity and the salaries which were
assigned them by the city authorities. A hospital was founded under the
protection of St. Cosmo and St. Amien in the parish of St. Salvalo, the
patronage of which was given to the city.
A.D. 1384. During this year the third plague of Mallorca
broke out; it caused considerable mortality, according to the account
given by Vincente Mut in his history of that kingdom. Numbers of the
soldiers of the army of Don Juan, the first king of Castile, who were
in garrison at Lisbon, fell sick in consequence of the severity of the
atmospheric changes, to which they were unaccustomed. The losses and
sufferings of the Castilian camp increased every day, and hundreds of
them became ill, and consequently the king was induced to change his
position and remove his armada to Seville.
At the commencement of 1386 there was in Gallicia much sickness among
the soldiers commanded by Tornas Moraix: the character of the epidemic
is but imperfectly given, but history states the mortality to have been
very great.
A.D. 1387, the army of the King of Portugal and of the Duke
of Lancaster suffered from severe pestilence in Benavento, and in the
towns of Matillas, Arzon, Villalobos, Rales, and Valderas, owing to the
scarcity of provisions. In the years 1388 and 1389, violent tempests,
preceded by great drought, happened; a famine ensued, when anginas and
dysenteries prevailed in England and in other parts of the world. The
disease affected children principally, and continued unto 1400. During
this period, 1391, the disease was especially mortal in England, being
felt most severely in Norfolk and at York. The year previously, 1390,
when King Edward was on his march and within two leagues of Chartres, a
violent storm arose, with thunder and lightning, which killed 6000 of
his horses and upwards of 1000 of his best troops.
A.D. 1394, a great mortality occurred from epidemic pestilence
in the kingdom of Valencia and in the principality of Catalonia,
arising from great heat; nearly 10,000 persons, a greater part of
whom were young, died in the city of Valencia alone. This pestilence
occurred during the reign of King Don Juan.--A.D. 1396. On the
9th of December of this year, King Don Martin retired to the city of
Perpignan in consequence of Barcelona being visited by pestilence.
A.D. 1400. The continued heavy rains and sterility having
induced famine in Seville, caused also great mortality and pestilence,
which diminished the population wonderfully. The author of the Annals
of Seville mentions that this plague occurred at centenary periods.
A.D. 1401. A comet was seen. Pestilence broke out at Florence.
30,000 persons died of epidemic disease this year in London. Five
years after, London was revisited by deadly pestilence. In Bourdeaux
a malignant dysentery destroyed 14,000 persons, and a similar disease
was equally fatal in Aquitaine and Gascony. A.D. 1407, the
Mediterranean was frozen over for fifteen weeks.--A.D. 1411.
Two diseases, very similar, appeared in France this year, and were
equally general; the first was called ‘Tac,’ the second ‘Ladendo:’
both were accompanied by severe cough. In the Ladendo there seems to
have been some affection of the kidney of an inflammatory nature:
the pain was as severe as in a fit of the stone, and was followed by
fever, loss of appetite, and incessant cough, which terminated very
frequently in unpleasant eruptions about the nose and mouth; the
disease ran its course generally in fifteen days, and was unattended
by danger, notwithstanding the severity of the symptoms. Three years
after, an epidemic disease of a similar nature re-appeared in France,
when it received the name of ‘Coqueluche:’ it was attended with severe
hoarseness, and was so general that all public business in Paris was
interrupted by it.
A.D. 1410. Epidemic pestilence broke out at Seville this year;
it commenced in Niebla, Gibraleon, and Trigueros, and extended thence
to Seville, where it raged from March unto August. On the 30th of May
and on the 5th of August an earthquake was felt at Barcelona, and
epidemic pestilence prevailed, which lasted until the anniversary of
the Nativity.