TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Original small caps type is all capitals herein. Original italics is
_surrounded with underscores_. See also the ENDNOTE.
THE GREAT PESTILENCE.
The Great Pestilence
(A.D. 1348-9),
NOW COMMONLY KNOWN
AS
The Black Death.
BY
FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B.
London:
SIMPKIN MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LIMITED.
1893.
Lewes:
SOUTH COUNTIES PRESS LIMITED.
CONTENTS.
TO THE READER xi
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAPTER I.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC.
First reports as to the sickness — General account of the
epidemic in eastern countries — The great trade routes
between Asia and Europe — The plague in the Crimea —
Tartar siege of Caffa — Origin of the name "Black Death"
— Symptoms of the disease — Constantinople is attacked;
account of the epidemic by the Emperor Cantacuzene —
Genoese traders carry the infection to Sicily — Effect in
Messina and Catania 1-15
CHAPTER II.
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY.
Date of the arrival of the infected ships at Genoa —
Striking sameness in all accounts — De Mussi's account of
the beginning of the plague in Italy, specially in Genoa
and Piacenza — Boccaccio's description of it in Florence —
This confirmed by the historian Villani — Progress of the
disease in Italy — Pisa — Padua, Siena, etc. — Petrarch's
letter on the epidemic at Parma — Venice and its doctors —
Description of the desolation by Bohemian students 16-33
CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE.
Its arrival at Marseilles — A Parisian doctor's account
of the epidemic at Montpellier — Avignon is attacked and
suffers terribly — Contemporary account of its ravages by
a Canon of the Low Countries — Gui de Chauliac, the Pope's
physician — Spread of the infection in every direction —
William of Nargis' description of the mortality in Paris
— Philip VI. consults the medical faculty — Normandy —
Amiens — Account of Gilles Le Muisis, Abbot of Tournay —
M. Siméon Luce on the conditions of popular life in France
in the Fourteenth century — Agrarian troubles follow the
epidemic 34-57
CHAPTER IV.
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
From Sicily the pestilence is carried to the Balearic
islands — Majorca — The scourge in Spain — The shores of
the Adriatic are visited — From Venice the wave passes
into Austria and Hungary — It passes over the Alps into
the Tyrol and Switzerland — Account of a Notary of Novara
— From Avignon the epidemic is carried up the Rhone Valley
to the Lake of Geneva — It visits Lucerne and Engelberg
— Account of its ravages at Vienna — It goes from Basle
up the valley of the Rhine — Frankfort — Bremen — From
Flanders it passes into Holland — Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden — Account of Wisby on the Island of Gotland —
Labour difficulties consequent upon the epidemic 58-70
CHAPTER V.
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND.
Jersey and Guernsey are attacked — First Rumours of the
epidemic in England — It is brought to Melcombe Regis in
Dorsetshire — Discussion as to the date — Difficulty in
dealing with figures in Middle Ages — Value of episcopal
registers in giving institutions of beneficed clergy —
Evidence of Patent Rolls — Institutions in Dorsetshire —
Letter of the Bishop of Bath and Wells — Difficulty of
obtaining clergy — Institutions in Somerset — Effect of
the disease in the religious houses — Bristol — Evidence
of the mortality in Devon and Cornwall — Institutions in
the diocese of Exeter — Spread of mortality — Religious
houses of the diocese 71-91
CHAPTER VI.
PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH.
Rapidity of the spread of the epidemic — Date of its
reaching London — The opening of new churchyards — Number
of the dead in the capital — State of the city streets —
Evidence of the wills of the Court of Hustings at this
period — Westminster and other religious houses — St.
Alban's — Institutions of clergy for Hertfordshire —
Evidence as to the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, and
Berks — Special value of the _Inquisitiones post-mortem_
— State of various manors after the Plague — Institutions
for the county of Bucks — The diocese of Canterbury
— William Dene's account of the Rochester Diocese —
Difficulty in finding priests — The diocese of Winchester
— Bishop Edyndon's letter on the pestilence — Date of the
epidemic in Hampshire — Troubles about the burying of
the dead — Institutions for Hants — Institutions for the
county of Surrey — Little information about Sussex 92-115
CHAPTER VII.
THE EPIDEMIC IN GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, AND OXFORD.
Le Baker's account of the disease — Evidence of it in
Wales — Account by Friar Clyn of the plague in Ireland —
Institutions for Worcester — New burial ground in the city
— State of the county after the plague — Institutions in
Warwickshire — The city and county of Oxford — Effect on
the university 116-127
CHAPTER VIII.
STORY OF THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND.
Dr. Jessop's account of Norfolk and Suffolk — Institutions
in the diocese of Norwich — Evidence of the court rolls
— Norwich and its population — Yarmouth — The diocese
of Ely — Preparations by the bishop — Institutions in
the diocese — Cambridge — Decay of parishes consequent
upon the mortality — Straits of the clergy — Huntingdon
— Institutions in the county of Northampton — Effect on
religious house of the county — Fall in the value of land
— Leicestershire — Knighton upon the plague in the city
of Leicester — Fall in prices — Labour difficulties —
Staffordshire — Institutions in the diocese of Hereford
— Shropshire — Evidence of _Inquisitiones post-mortem_ —
Chester — Accounts of the County Palatine — Derbyshire
— Derby — Monasteries — Wakebridge and Drakelow —
Nottinghamshire — Lincolnshire — Louth Park abbey —
Yorkshire — Archbishop Zouche — Vacant livings — Deaths
among superiors of religious houses — Meaux abbey —
Deanery of Holderness — Doncaster — Hull — Lancashire —
Amounderness — Westmoreland — Cumberland — Carlisle —
Durham — Northumberland — Alnwick 128-161
CHAPTER IX.
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY.
Vacant livings in diocese of Salisbury — In Dorset and
Wilts — Ivychurch priory — Manors ruined by plague —
Somerset parsonages — Court roll of Gillingham, Dorset
— Stockton, Wilts — Chedzoy, Bridgwater — Carthusians
of Hinton and Witham — Exeter diocese — Lydford — North
Cornwall — The Black Prince and his tenants — Essex
benefices — Lands vacant — Rents lowered — Colchester
wills — Talkeley priory — Chesthunt nunnery — Anglesey
priory — Kent — Sussex — Hants — Isle of Wight — Surrey
— Winchester cathedral priory — Hyde abbey — Nuns of St.
Mary's abbey — of Romsey — Decrease among the mendicant
friars of Winchester diocese — Debts at the cathedral —
At Christchurch — Sandown hospital — Shireborne priory —
Hayling Island — Taxation — Gloucester — Lantony priory —
Horsleigh cell — Warwickshire — Wappenbury — Whitchurch
— Bruerne abbey — St. Frideswide's at Oxford — Barlings 162-193
CHAPTER X.
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY.
Estimate of population of England in 1377, and before the
great pestilence — Social revolution — Dearth of labourers
and artisans — The tenantry swept off — Rise in prices —
State efforts to depress the working classes — A third
of the land falls out of cultivation — Leasehold farming
— Serfdom declines — Popular rising of 1381 practically
emancipates the labourer — Growth of large landowners —
English language spreads as French declines — Effects on
architecture — Great works left unfinished — Statistics
of clerical mortality — Effects on the Church — Old
traditions perished — Decline of public liturgical worship
— Young and aged, and inexperienced persons ordained
priests — Curious examples of this — Great falling off in
number of candidates for ordination at Winchester, Ely,
Hereford — Decline of the universities — False views about
the preponderance of regular clergy — After the Black
Death their number relatively greater — Pluralities —
Depopulation of monasteries — Instances cited — Wadding's
explanation of Franciscan decadence — The Black Death, a
calamity sudden, overwhelming, and of widespread effect 194-219
TO THE READER.
In publishing this story of a great and overwhelming calamity, which
fell upon England in common with the rest of Europe, in the middle
of the fourteenth century, I desire to record my grateful thanks
to those who have in any way assisted me in gathering together my
material, or in weaving it into a connected narrative. Amongst these
many kind friends I may specially name Mr. F. Bickley, of the British
Museum, Mr. F.J. Baigent, the Rev. Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph,
and, above all, Mr. Edmund Bishop, to whom I am greatly indebted
for advice, criticism, and ever-patient assistance in revising the
proof-sheets.
[p-xiii]
INTRODUCTION.
The story of the Great Pestilence of 1348-9 has never been fully
told. In fact, until comparatively recent times, little attention was
paid to an event which, nevertheless, whether viewed in the magnitude
of the catastrophe, or in regard to its far-reaching results, is
certainly one of the most important in the history of our country.
Judged by the ordinary manuals, the middle of the fourteenth century
appears as the time of England's greatest glory. Edward III. was
at the very height of his renown. The crushing defeat of France at
Crecy, in 1346, followed the next year by the taking of Calais, had
raised him to the height of his fame. When, wearing the laurels of
the most brilliant victory of the age, he landed at Sandwich, on
October 14th, 1347, the country, or at least the English courtiers,
seemed intoxicated by the success of his arms. "A new sun," says the
chronicler Walsingham, "seemed to have arisen over the people, in
the perfect peace, in the plenty of all things, and in the glory of
such victories. [p-xiv] There was hardly a woman of any name who did
not possess spoils of Caen, Calais and other French towns across the
sea;" and the English matrons proudly decked themselves with the rich
dresses and costly ornaments carried off from foreign households.
This was, moreover, the golden era of chivalry, and here and there
throughout the country tournaments celebrated with exceptional pomp
the establishment of the Order of the Garter, instituted by King
Edward to perpetuate the memory of his martial successes. It is
little wonder, then, that the Great Pestilence, now known as the
"Black Death," coming as it does between Crecy and Poitiers, and at
the very time of the creation of the first Knights of the Garter,
should seem to fall aside from the general narrative as though
something apart from, and not consonant with, the natural course of
events.
It is accordingly no matter for wonder that a classic like Hume,
in common with our older writers on English history, should have
dismissed the calamity in a few lines; but a reader may well feel
surprise at finding that the late Mr. J. R. Green, who saw deeper
into causes and effects than his predecessors, deals with the great
epidemic in a scanty notice only as a mere episode in his account
of the agricultural changes in the fourteenth century. Although he
speaks generally of the death of one-half the population through the
disease, he evidently has not realised the enormous effects, social
and religious, which are directly traceable to the catastrophe.
Excellent articles, indeed, such as those from the pen of [p-xv]
Professor Seebohm and Dr. Jessop, and chance pages in books on
political and social economy, like those of the late Professor
Thorold Rogers and Dr. Cunningham, have done much in our time to draw
attention to the importance of the subject. Still, so far as I am
aware, no writer has yet treated the plague as a whole, or, indeed,
has utilised the material available for forming a fairly accurate
estimate of its ravages. The collections for the present study had
been entirely made when a book on the _Epidemics in Britain_, by Dr.
Creighton, was announced, and, as a consequence, the work was set
aside. On the appearance of Dr. Creighton's volume, however, it was
found that, whilst treating this pestilence at considerable length
as a portion of his general subject, not merely had it not entered
into his design to utilise the great bulk of material to be found in
the various records of the period, but the author had dealt with the
matter from a wholly different point of view.
It is proper, therefore, to state why a detailed treatment of a
subject, in itself so uninviting, is here undertaken. The pestilence
of 1348-49, for its own sake, must necessarily be treated by the
professional writer as an item in the general series of epidemics;
but there are many reasons why it has never been dealt with in
detail from the mere point of view of the historian. Yet an adequate
realisation of its effects is of the first importance for the right
understanding of the history of England in the later [p-xvi]
Middle Ages. The "Black Death" inflicted what can only be called
a wound deep in the social body, and produced nothing less than a
revolution of feeling and practice, especially of religious feeling
and practice. Unless this is understood, from the very circumstances
of the case, we shall go astray in our interpretation of the later
history of England. In truth, this great pestilence was a turning
point in the national life. It formed the real close of the Mediæval
period and the beginning of our Modern age. It produced a break with
the past, and was the dawn of a new era. The sudden sweeping away of
the population and the consequent scarcity of labourers, raised, it
is well recognised, new and extravagant expectations in the minds of
the lower classes; or, to use a modern expression, labour began then
to understand its value and assert its power.
But there is another and yet more important result of the pestilence
which, it would seem, is not sufficiently recognised. To most people,
looking back into the past, the history of the Church during the
Middle Ages in England appears one continuous and stately progress.
It is much nearer to the truth to say that in 1351 the whole
ecclesiastical system was wholly disorganised, or, indeed, more than
half ruined, and that everything had to be built up anew. As regards
education, the effect of the catastrophe on the body of the clergy
was prejudicial beyond the power of calculation. To secure the most
necessary public ministrations of the rites of religion the most
inadequately-prepared subjects had to be accepted, and even [p-xvii]
these could be obtained only in insufficient numbers. The immediate
effect on the people was a religious paralysis. Instead of turning
men to God the scourge turned them to despair, and this not only in
England, but in all parts of Europe. Writers of every nation describe
the same dissoluteness of manners consequent upon the epidemic. In
time the religious sense and feeling revived, but in many respects
it took a new tone, and its manifestations ran in new channels.
If the change is to be described in brief, I should say that the
religion of Englishmen, as it now manifested itself on the recovery
of religion, and as it existed from that time to the Reformation,
was characterised by a devotional and more self-reflective cast
than previously. This is evidenced in particular by the rise of a
whole school of spiritual writers, the beginnings of which had been
already manifested in the writings of Hampole, himself a victim
of the plague. It was subsequently developed by such writers as
Walter Hilton and the authors of a mass of anonymous tracts, still
in manuscript, which, in so far as they have attracted notice at
all, have been commonly set down under the general designation of
_Wycliffite_. The reason for this misleading classification is not
difficult to understand. Finding on the one hand that these tracts
are pervaded by a deeply religious spirit, and on the other being
convinced that the religion of those days was little better than a
mere formalism, the few persons who have hitherto paid attention to
the subject have not hesitated to attribute them to the [p-xviii]
"religious revival of the Lollards," and were naturally unable to
believe them to be inspired by the teaching of "a Church shrivelled
into a self-seeking secular priesthood."[1] The reader, who has a
practical and personal experience of the tone, spirit, and teaching
of works of Catholic piety, will, however, at once recognise that
these tracts are perfect Catholic in tone, spirit, and doctrine, and
differ essentially from those of men inspired by the teaching of
Wycliffe.
The new religious spirit found outward expression in the multitude of
guilds which sprang into existence at this time, in the remarkable
and almost, as it may seem to some, extravagant development of
certain pious practices, in the singular spread of a more personal
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, to the Blessed Virgin, to the Five
Wounds, to the Holy Name, and other such manifestations of a more
tender or more familiar piety. Even the very adornment and enrichment
of the churches, so distinctive of this period, bears witness to the
change. At the close of the fourteenth century and during the course
of the fifteenth the supply of ornaments, furniture, plate, statues
painted or in highly decked "coats," with which the churches were
literally encumbered as time went on, proved a striking contrast
to the comparative simplicity which characterised former days, as
witnessed by a comparison of inventories. Moreover, the source of all
this wealth and elaboration is [p-xvix] another indication of the
change that had come over the country. Benefactions to the Church are
no longer contributed entirely, or at least chiefly, by the great
nobles, but they are now the gifts of the burgher folk and middle
classes, and this very profusion corresponds, according to the ideas
and feelings of those days, to the abundant material comfort which
from the early years of the last century to the present has specially
characterised the English homes of modern times. In fact, the
fifteenth century witnessed the beginnings of a great middle-class
movement, which can be distinctly traced to the effect of the great
pestilence, and which, whether for good or for evil, was checked by
the change of religion in the sixteenth century.
It is sufficient here to have indicated in the most general way the
change which took place in the religious life of the English people
and the new tendencies which manifested themselves. If the later
religious history of the country is to be understood it is necessary
to take this catastrophe, social and religious, as a starting-point,
and to bring home to the mind the part the Black Death really played
in the national history.
Merely to report what is said of England would tend to raise in the
mind of the reader a certain incredulity. A short and rapid review
has accordingly been made of the progress of the pestilence from
Eastern Europe to these Western shores, and by this means the very
distressing unanimity, even to definite forms of language, of writers
[p-xx] who recorded events hundreds and even thousands of miles
apart, brings home the reality of the catastrophe with irresistible
force. The story, so far as England is concerned, is told at greater
length, and the progress of the disease is followed as it swept from
south to north and passed on to higher latitudes. The state of the
country after the pestilence was over is then briefly described, and
attention is called to some of the immediate results of the great
plague, especially as bearing upon the Church life of the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Green, _Short History of the English People_, p. 216.
[p001]
THE GREAT PESTILENCE.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC.
The Great Pestilence, which first reached Europe in the autumn of
1347, is said to have originated in the East some three or four years
previously. So far as actual history goes, however, the progress of
the disease can be traced only from the ports of the Black Sea and
possibly from those of the Mediterranean, to which traders along
the main roads of commerce with Asiatic countries brought their
merchandise for conveyance to the Western world. Reports at the
time spoke of great earthquakes and other physical disturbances as
having taken place in the far East, and these were said to have been
accompanied by peculiar conditions of the atmosphere, and followed by
a great mortality among the teeming populations of India and China.
Pope Clement VI. was informed that the pestilence then raging at
Avignon had had its origin in the East, and that, in the countries
included under that vague name, the infection had spread so rapidly,
and had proved to be so deadly, that the victims were calculated
at the enormous, and no doubt exaggerated, number of nearly
four-and-twenty millions.
A Prague chronicle speaks of the epidemic in the kingdoms of China,
India, and Persia, and the contemporary historian, Matteo Villani,
reports its conveyance to Europe by Italian traders, who had fled
before it from the ports on the eastern shores of the Black Sea. The
same authority [p002] corroborates, by the testimony of one who had
been an eye-witness in Asia, the reports of certain Genoese merchants
as to earthquakes devastating the continent and pestilential fogs
covering the land. "A venerable friar minor of Florence, now a
bishop, declared," so says Villani, "that he was then in that part of
the country at the city of Lamech, where by the violence of the shock
part of the temple of Mahomet was thrown down."[2]
A quotation from Hecker's "Epidemics of the Middle Ages" will be a
sufficient summary of what was reported of the plague in eastern
countries before its arrival in Europe. "Cairo lost daily, when the
plague was raging with its greatest violence, from 10 to 15,000,
being as many as, in modern times, great plagues have carried off
during their whole course. In China more than thirteen millions
are said to have died, and this is in correspondence with the
certainly exaggerated accounts from the rest of Asia. India was
depopulated. Tartary, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia were covered with
dead bodies; the Kurds fled in vain to the mountains. In Caramania
and Cæsarea none were left alive. On the roads, in the camps, in the
caravansaries unburied bodies were alone to be seen. . . . In Aleppo
500 died daily; 22,000 people and most of the animals were carried
off in Gaza within six weeks. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants;
and ships without crews were often seen in the Mediterranean, as
afterwards in the North Sea, driving about and spreading the plague
wherever they went ashore."[3]
There can be little doubt that the contagion was first spread by
means of the great trade routes of the East. The lines of commerce of
European countries with India, China, and Asiatic countries generally
are first definitely described in 1321 by Marino Sanudo, a Venetian,
in a work addressed to Pope John XXI., not thirty years before the
outbreak of [p003] the pestilence.[4] His object was to indicate
the difficulties and dangers which then beset the traffic of the
mercantile world with the East. In so doing he pointed out that the
ancient centre of all trade with the far East was Bagdad. To and from
this great depôt of Oriental merchandise all the caravan routes led;
but, at the time when Sanudo wrote, the incursion of barbarian hordes
into Central Asia had rendered trade along these roads difficult and
unsafe. Two trading tracts are in particular named by the author
as the chief lines of communication. One ran from Bagdad over the
plains of Mesopotamia and Syria to Lycia,[5] where the goods were
purchased by the Italian merchants. This, the best known route,
was the shortest by which the produce of China and India could be
conveyed to the European markets; but in the fourteenth century it
was the most perilous. The second route also started from Bagdad,
and having followed the Tigris to its sources in Armenia, passed on
either to Trebizond and other ports of the Black Sea, or taking the
road from the Caspian, upon the other side of the Caucasus, passed to
the Genoese and other flourishing Italian settlements in the Crimea.
A third route was, however, according to Sanudo, the most used in his
day because the least dangerous. By it the produce of eastern lands
was brought to Alexandria, whence, after having been heavily taxed
by the Sultan, it was transported to Europe. Merchandise coming to
Italy and other countries by this route from India was, according to
the same authority, shipped from two ports of the peninsula, which he
calls Mahabar[6] and Cambeth.[7] Thence it was conveyed to ports in
the Persian Gulf, to the river Tigris, or to Aden, at the entrance
of the Red Sea. From this last point a journey of nine days across
the desert [p004] brought the caravans to a city called Chus[8] on
the Nile. Fifteen days more of river carriage, however, was required
before the produce of the Eastern marts reached Cairo, or Babylon,
as it was called by mediæval writers. From Cairo it was conveyed to
Alexandria by canal.
These were the three chief routes by which communication between
Asiatic countries and Europe was kept up, and the markets of the
Western world supplied with the spices, gums, and silks of the East.
It is more than probable that the great pestilence was conveyed to
Europe by the trading caravans coming from the East by all these
roads and by other similar lines of commerce. In the country along
one of the trade routes, by which caravans reached the Italian
ports established on the Crimea, it is certain that the plague was
raging with great virulence in 1346, the year before its appearance
in Europe. Moreover, Gabriele de' Mussi, a notary of Piacenza, and
an eye-witness of the first outbreak of the plague in Upper Italy,
has described the way in which the infection was conveyed in the
ships of traders from Caffa,[9] a Genoese settlement in the Crimea.
This account will be found in the next chapter; and here it is only
necessary to report what he gathered from the survivors about the
outbreak of the plague among the Tartar tribes and its appearance at
Caffa.[10] [p005]
"In the year 1346," he writes, "in eastern parts an immense
number of Tartars and Saracens fell victims to a mysterious and
sudden death. In these regions vast districts, numerous provinces,
magnificent kingdoms, cities, castles, and villages, peopled by a
great multitude, were suddenly attacked by the mortality, and in
a brief space were depopulated. A place in the East called Tana,
situated in a northerly direction from Constantinople and under
the rule of the Tartars, to which Italian merchants much resorted,
was besieged by a vast horde of Tartars and was in a short time
taken."[11] The Christian merchants violently expelled from the city
were then received for the protection of their persons and property
within the walls of Caffa, which the Genoese had built in that
country.
"The Tartars followed these fugitive Italian merchants, and,
surrounding the city of Caffa, besieged it likewise.[12] Completely
encircled by this vast army of enemies, the inhabitants were hardly
able to obtain the necessaries of life, and their only hope lay in
the fleet which brought them provisions. Suddenly 'the death,' as it
was called, broke out in the Tartar host, and thousands were daily
carried off by the disease, as if "arrows from heaven were striking
at them and beating down their pride."
"At first the Tartars were paralysed with fear at the ravages of
the disease, and at the prospect that sooner or later all must fall
victims to it. Then they turned their vengeance on the besieged,
and in the hope of communicating the infection to their Christian
enemies, by the aid of the engines of war, they projected the bodies
of the [p006] dead over the walls into the city. The Christian
defenders, however, held their ground, and committed as many of these
plague-infected bodies as possible to the waters of the sea.
"Soon, as might be supposed, the air became tainted and the wells of
water poisoned, and in this way the disease spread so rapidly in the
city that few of the inhabitants had strength sufficient to fly from
it."[13]
The further account of Gabriele de' Mussi describing how a ship from
Caffa conveyed the infection to Genoa, from which it spread to other
districts and cities of Italy, must be deferred to the next chapter.
Here a short space may be usefully devoted to a consideration of the
disease itself, which proved so destructive to human life in every
European country in the years 1348-1350. And, in the first place,
it may be well to state that the name _Black Death_, by which the
great pestilence is now generally known, not only in England, but
elsewhere, is of comparatively modern origin.[14] In no contemporary
account of the epidemic is it called by that ominous title; at the
time people spoke of it as "the pestilence," "the great mortality,"
"the death," "the plague of Florence," etc., and, apparently, not
until some centuries later was it given the name of "the Black
Death." This it seems to have first received in Denmark or Sweden,
although it is doubtful whether the _atra mors_ of Pontanus is
equivalent to the English _Black Death_.[15] It is hard to resist the
impression that in England, at least, it was used as the recognised
name for the epidemic of 1349 only after the pestilence of the 17th
century had assumed to itself the title of the _Great Plague_.
Whether the name _Black Death_ was first adopted to express the
universal state of mourning to which the disease reduced the people
of all [p007] countries, or to mark the special characteristic
symptoms of this epidemic, is, under the circumstances of its late
origin, unimportant to determine.
The epidemic would appear to have been some form of the ordinary
Eastern or bubonic plague. Together, however, with the usual
characteristic marks of the common plague, there were certain
peculiar and very marked symptoms, which, although not universal, are
recorded very generally in European countries.
In its common form the disease showed itself in swellings and
carbuncles under the arm and in the groin. These were either few
and large—being at times as large as a hen's egg—or smaller and
distributed over the body of the sufferer. In this the disease does
not appear to have been different from the ordinary bubonic plague,
which ravaged Europe during many centuries, and which is perhaps best
known in England as so destructive to human life in the great plague
of London in 1665. In this ordinary form it still exists in Eastern
countries, and its origin is commonly traced to the method of burying
the dead in vogue there.
The special symptoms characteristic of the plague of 1348-9 were four
in number:—
(1) Gangrenous inflammation of the throat and lungs;
(2) Violent pains in the region of the chest;
(3) The vomiting and spitting of blood; and
(4) The pestilential odour coming from the bodies and breath of the
sick.
In almost every detailed account by contemporary writers these
characteristics are noted. And, although not all who were stricken
with the disease manifested it in this special form, it is clear
that, not only were many, and indeed vast numbers, carried off by
rapid corruption of the lungs and blood-spitting, without any signs
of swellings or carbuncles, but also that the disease was at the
time regarded as most deadly and fatal in this special form. "From
the carbuncles and glandular swellings," says a contemporary writer,
"many recovered; from the [p008] blood-spitting none."[16] Matteo
Villani, one of the most exact writers about this plague at Florence,
says that the sick "who began to vomit blood quickly died;"[17]
whilst Gui de Chauliac, the Pope's physician at Avignon, who watched
the course of the disease there and left the most valuable medical
account of his observations, says that the epidemic was of two kinds.
The first was marked by "constant fever and blood-spitting, and from
this the patient died in three days;" the second was the well-known
and less fatal bubonic plague.
The characteristic symptoms of this epidemic, noted in numerous
contemporary accounts, appear to be identical with those of the
disease known as malignant pustule of the lung; and it would appear
probable that this outbreak of the plague must be distinguished from
every other of which there is any record. "I express my profound
conviction," writes an eminent French physician, "that the Black
Death stands apart from all those which preceded or followed it. It
ought to be classed among the great and new popular maladies."[18]
Be that as it may, the disease, as will be subsequently seen in the
accounts of those who lived at the time, showed itself in various
ways. Some were struck suddenly, and died within a few hours; others
fell into a deep sleep, from [p009] which they could not be roused;
whilst others, again, were racked with a sleepless fever, and
tormented with a burning thirst. The usual course of the sickness,
when it first made its appearance, was from three to five days; but
towards the close of the epidemic the recovery of those suffering
from the carbuncular swellings was extended, as in the case of
ordinary Eastern plague, over many months.[19]
Such is a brief account of the disease which devastated the world
in the middle of the fourteenth century. Before following the
course of the epidemic in Italy, to which it was conveyed, as
De' Mussi relates, from the Crimea, some account of its ravages
in Constantinople and in Sicily may be given. From the Crimea
Constantinople lay upon the highway to the west. Italian ships
crossing the Black Sea [p010] would naturally touch at this city,
then the great centre of communication between the Eastern and
Western Worlds. From the relation of De' Mussi it appears that
Caffa, the plague-stricken Genoese city in the Crimea, besieged by
the Tartars, was in communication by ship with countries from which
it received supplies. To Constantinople, therefore, it seems not
unlikely that the dreaded disease was conveyed by a ship coming from
this plague centre in the Crimea. An account of the pestilence at the
Imperial city has come from the pen of the Emperor John Cantacuzene,
who was an eye-witness of what he reports. And although he adopted
the language of Thucydides, about the plague of Athens, to describe
his own experiences at Constantinople, he could hardly have done so
had the description not been fairly faithful to the reality. "The
epidemic which then (1347) raged in northern Scythia," he writes,
"traversed almost the entire sea-coasts, whence it was carried over
the world. For it invaded not only Pontus, Thrace, and Macedonia, but
Greece, Italy, the Islands, Egypt, Lybia, Judea, Syria, and almost
the entire universe."
The disease according to his account was incurable. Neither
regularity of life nor bodily strength was any preservation against
it. The strong and the weak were equally struck down; and death
spared not those of whom care was taken, any more than the poor,
destitute of all help. No other illness of any sort showed itself
in this year; all sickness took the form of the prevalent disease.
Medical science recognised that it was powerless before the foe.
The course of the malady was not in all cases the same. Some people
died suddenly, others during the course of a day, and some after
but an hour's suffering. In the case of those who lingered for two
or three days the attack commenced with a violent fever. Soon the
poison mounted to the brain, and the sufferer lost the use of speech,
became insensible to what was taking place about him, and appeared
sunk in a deep sleep. If by chance he came to himself and tried to
speak [p011] his tongue refused to move, and only a few inarticulate
sounds could be uttered, as the nerves had been paralysed; then he
died suddenly.
Others who fell sick under the disease were attacked first, not in
the head, but in the lungs. The organs of respiration became quickly
inflamed, sharp pains were experienced in the chest, blood was
vomited, and the breath became fetid. The throat and tongue, burnt up
by the excessive fever, became black and congested with blood. "Those
who drank copiously experienced no more relief than those who drank
but little."
Then, after describing the terrible sleeplessness and restlessness
of some sufferers, and the plague spots which broke out over the
body in most cases, the Emperor proceeds:—"The few who recovered
had no second attack, or at least not of a serious nature." Even
some of those who manifested all the symptoms recovered against
every expectation. It is certain that no efficacious remedy has been
discovered. What had been useful to one appeared a real poison to
another. People who nursed the sick took their malady, and on this
account the deaths multiplied to such an extent that many houses
remained deserted, after all who had lived in them—even the domestic
animals—had been carried off by the plague.
The profound discouragement of the sick was specially sad to behold.
On the first symptoms of the attack men lost all hope of recovery,
and gave themselves up as lost. This moral prostration quickly made
them worse and accelerated the hour of their death.
It is impossible in words to give an idea of this malady. All that
can be said is that it had nothing in common with the ills to which
man is naturally subject, and that it was a chastisement sent by God
Himself. By this belief many turned to better things and resolved
to change their lives. I do not speak only of those who were swept
away by the epidemic, but of those also who recovered and endeavoured
to correct their vicious tendencies and devote themselves [p012]
to the practice of virtue. A large number, too, before they were
attacked distributed their goods to the poor, and there were none so
insensible or hard-hearted when attacked as not to show a profound
sorrow for their faults so as to appear before the judgment seat of
God with the best chances of salvation.
"Amongst the innumerable victims of the epidemic in Constantinople
must be reckoned Andronicus, the Emperor's son, who died the third
day. This young man was not only remarkable for his personal
appearance, but was endowed in the highest degree with those
qualities which form the chief adornment of youth; and everything
about him testified that he would have followed nobly in the
footsteps of his ancestors."
From Constantinople the Italian trading ships passed on towards
their own country, everywhere spreading the terrible contagion.
Their destinations were Genoa and Venice, as De' Mussi relates;
but as the same authority says: "The sailors, as if accompanied by
evil spirits, as soon as they approached the land, were death to
those with whom they mingled." Thus the advent of the plague can
be traced in the ports of the Adriatic in the autumn of 1347, and
there can be little doubt that it was due to the arrival of ships
bound from the East to Venice. Of the islands of the ocean, and
particularly of Sicily, De' Mussi speaks as having been affected by
the ships that were bound from the Crimea to Genoa. Of the plague
in Sicily there exists a particular account by one who must have
been a contemporary of the events he describes.[20] "A most deadly
pestilence," he says, "sprang up over the entire island. It happened
that in the month of October, in the year of our Lord, 1347, about
the beginning of the month, twelve Genoese ships, flying from the
divine vengeance which our Lord for their sins had sent upon them,
put into the port of Messina, bringing with them such a sickness
clinging to their very bones [p013] that, did anyone speak to them,
he was directly struck with a mortal sickness from which there was
no escape." After detailing the terrible symptoms and describing the
rapid spread of the infection, how the mere breath of the strangers
poisoned those who conversed with them, how to touch or meddle with
anything that belonged to them was to contract the fatal malady, he
continues: "Seeing what a calamity of sudden death had come to them
by the arrival of the Genoese, the people of Messina drove them in
all haste from their city and port. But the sickness remained and
a terrible mortality ensued. The one thought in the mind of all
was how to avoid the infection. The father abandoned the sick son;
magistrates and notaries refused to come and make the wills of the
dying; even the priests to hear their confessions. The care of those
stricken fell to the Friars Minor, the Dominicans and members of
other orders, whose convents were in consequence soon emptied of
their inhabitants. Corpses were abandoned in empty houses, and there
was none to give them Christian burial. The houses of the dead were
left open and unguarded with their jewels, money, and valuables; if
anyone wished to enter, there was no one to prevent him. The great
pestilence came so suddenly that there was no time to organise any
measures of protection; from the very beginning the officials were
too few, and soon there were none. The population deserted the city
in crowds; fearing even to stay in the environs, they camped out
in the open air in the vineyards, whilst some managed to put up at
least a temporary shelter for their families. Others, again, trusting
in the protection of the virgin, blessed Agatha, sought refuge in
Catania, whither the Queen of Sicily had gone, and where she directed
her son, Don Frederick, to join her. The Messinese, in the month of
November, persuaded the Patriarch[21] Archbishop of Catania to allow
the relics of the Saint to be taken to their city, but the people
refused to [p014] permit them to leave their ancient resting place.
Processions and pilgrimages were organised to beg God's favour. Still
the pestilence raged and with greater fury. Everyone was in too great
a terror to aid his neighbour. Flight profited nothing, for the
sickness, already contracted and clinging to the fugitives, was only
carried wherever they sought refuge. Of those who fled some fell on
the roads and dragged themselves to die in the fields, the woods, or
the valleys. Those who reached Catania breathed their last in the
hospitals. At the demand of the terrified populace the Patriarch
forbade, under pain of excommunication, the burial of any of these
Messina refugees within the city, and their bodies were all thrown
into deep pits outside the walls.
"What shall I say more?" adds the historian. "So wicked and timid
were the Catanians that they refused even to speak to any from
Messina, or to have anything to do with them, but quickly fled at
their approach. Had it not been for secret shelter afforded by some
of their fellow citizens, resident in the town, the unfortunate
refugees would have been left destitute of all human aid." The
contagion, however, was already spread, and the plague soon became
rife. The same scenes were enacted at Catania as before in Messina.
The Patriarch, desiring to provide for the souls of the people, gave
to the priests, even the youngest, all the faculties he himself
possessed, both episcopal and patriarchal, for absolving sins. "The
pestilence raged in the city from October, 1347, to April, 1348, and
the Patriarch himself, Gerard Otho, of the Order of St. Francis, fell
a victim to his duty, and was one of the last to be carried off by
the disease. Duke John, who had sought security by avoiding every
infected house and person, died of the disease at the same time. The
plague was spread in the same way from Messina throughout Sicily;
Syracuse, Girgenti, Sciacca, and Trapani were successively attacked;
in particular it raged in the district of Trapani, in the extreme
west of the island, [p015] which," says the writer, "has remained
almost without population."[22]
Having briefly noticed the origin of the great pestilence which
ravaged Europe in the fourteenth century, and its progress towards
Italy, the story of Gabriel de' Mussi may again be taken up at the
point where he describes the flight of the Genoese traders from the
Crimea. The narrative has so far anticipated his account only by
giving the history of the epidemic in Constantinople and Sicily.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, xiv, col. 14.
[3] _The Epidemics of the Middle Ages_, translated by B. G. Babington
(Sydenham Society), p. 21.
[4] Marinus Sanutus, _Liber secretorum Fidelium crucis super Terræ
Sanctæ recuperatione et conversatione_, in Bongars, _Gesta Dei per
Francos_, vol. ii.
[5] The most southern part of Asiatic Turkey.
[6] Probably Mahe, on the Malabar coast.
[7] Now Cambay, in the Baroda Dominion to the north of Bombay.
[8] Otherwise Kus, now Koos, in Upper Egypt, not far from Thebes.
[9] Sometimes known as S. Feodosia. This port was by the beginning
of the 14th century a most important trading settlement of Genoese
merchants. In 1316 Pope John XXII issued a Bull making it the
cathedral city of an extensive diocese. By the time of the outbreak
of the great plague it had become the centre of almost all commerce
between Asia and Europe (_Cf._ M. G. Canale, _Della Crimea, del suo
commercio et dei suoi dominatori_, i, p. 208 _et seq._)
[10] The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called _Ystoria de morbo seu
mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348_, was first printed by Henschel, in
Haeser's _Archiv für gesammte Medicin_ (Jena) ii, 26-59. The editor
claims that De' Mussi was actually present at Caffa during the Tartar
siege, and came to Europe in the plague-stricken ships which conveyed
the infection to Italy. Signor Tononi, who in 1884 reprinted the
_Ystoria_ in the _Giornale Ligustico_ (Genoa) vol. x (1883), p. 139
_seqq._, has proved by the acts of the notaries of Piacenza that
De' Mussi never quitted the city at this time, and his realistic
narrative must have been consequently derived from the accounts of
others. From the same source Tononi has shown that De' Mussi acted as
notary between A.D. 1300 and 1356, and was consequently born probably
somewhere about 1280. He died in the first half of the year 1356.
[11] Tana was the port on the north-western shore of the sea of Azor,
which was then known as the sea of Tana. The port is now Azor.
[12] De' Mussi says the siege lasted "three years." Tononi shows that
this is clearly a mistake, and adduces it as additional evidence that
the author was not himself at Caffa.
[13] Gabriele de' Mussi, _Ystoria de Morbo_, in Haeser, _ut supra_.
[14] K. Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland_ (Innsbruck,
Wagner, 1884), p. 8.
[15] J. J. Pontanus, _Rerum Danicarum Historia_ (1631), p. 476.
[16] See Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben_, p. 15. De' Mussi gives the
same account.
[17] "Chi cominciavano a sputare sangue, morivano chi di subito."
The contemporary chronicle of Parma by the Dominican John de
Cornazano also notes the same: "Et fuit talis quod aliqui sani, si
spuebant sanguinem, subito ibi moriebantur, nec erat ullum remedium"
(_Monumenta historica ad provincias Parmensem et Placentinam
pertinentia_, vol. v, p. 386).
[18] Anglada, _Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes_ (Paris, 1869), p.
416. The idea that this peculiar malady was altogether novel in
character is confirmed by its specially malignant nature. According
to a well-recognized law new epidemics are always most violent and
fatal. The depopulation of the Fiji Islands by the measles is an
instance of the way in which a comparatively mild disease may in its
first attack upon a people prove terribly destructive. It is commonly
thought that it has been the action of some new disease whereby the
races which built the great prehistoric cities of Africa and America
have been completely swept away.
[19] The following account of an outbreak of disease somewhat similar
to the "Black Death" appeared in the _British Medical Journal_ of
5 November, 1892:—"An official report of the Governor-General of
Turkestan, which has recently been published in St. Petersburg,
states that that province has been severely visited by an epidemic
of 'Black Death,' which followed upon the footsteps of cholera. On
September 10 (22) it appeared suddenly at Askabad, and in six days
it killed 1,303 persons in a population of 30,000. 'Black Death'
has long been known in Western Asia as a scourge more deadly than
the cholera or the plague. It comes suddenly, sweeping over a whole
district like a pestilential simoon, striking down animals as well
as men, and vanishes as suddenly as it came, before there is time
to ascertain its nature or its mode of diffusion. The visit here
referred to was no exception to this rule. After raging in Askabad
for six days the epidemic ceased, leaving no trace of its presence
but the corpses of its victims. These putrified so rapidly that
no proper post-mortem could be made. The Governor-General gives
some details as to the symptoms and course of the disease, which,
though interesting as far as they go, do not throw much light on
its pathology. The attack begins with rigors of intense severity,
the patient shivering literally from head to foot; the rigors occur
every five minutes for about an hour. Next an unendurable feeling of
heat is complained of; the arteries become tense, and the pulse more
and more rapid, while the temperature steadily rises. Unfortunately
no thermometric readings or other precise data are given. Neither
diarrhœa nor vomiting has been observed. Convulsions alternate with
syncopal attacks, and the patients suffer intense pain. Suddenly
the extremities become stiff and cold, and in from 10 to 20 minutes
the patient sinks into a comatose condition, which speedily ends in
death. Immediately after he has ceased to breathe large black bullæ
form on the body, and quickly spread over its surface. Decomposition
takes place in a few minutes."
[20] A Franciscan friar, Michael Platiensis (of Piazza).
[21] The Archbishop was a member of the Order of St. Francis, and had
been created Patriarch of Antioch.
[22] Gregorio (R.), _Bibliotheca Scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas
retulere_, tom. i, p. 562 _seqq._ The historian wrote probably not
later than A.D. 1361.
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