PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE.
Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy
it obtained a foothold in the South of France. According to a
contemporary account, written at Avignon in 1348, the disease was
brought into Marseilles by one of the three Genoese ships, which
had been compelled to leave the port of Genoa when the inhabitants
discovered that by their means the dreaded plague had already
commenced its ravages in their city. It would consequently appear
most likely that the mortality began in Marseilles somewhere about
the first days of January, 1348, although one account places the
commencement of the sickness as early as All Saints' Day (November
1), 1347.[46] The number of deaths in this great southern port of
France fully equalled that of the populous cities of Italy. In
a month the sickness is said to have carried off 57,000 of the
inhabitants of Marseilles and its neighbourhood.[47] One chronicle
says that "the Bishop, with the entire chapter of the cathedral,
and nearly all the friars, Preachers and Minorites, together with
two-thirds of the inhabitants, perished" at this time; and adds that
upon the sea might be seen ships, laden with merchandise, driven
about hither and thither by the waves, the steersman and every sailor
having been carried off by the disease.[48] Another, speaking of
Marseilles after the pestilence had passed, says that "so many died
that it [p035] remained like an uninhabited place."[49] It is of
interest to record that amongst the survivors there was an English
doctor, William Grisant, of Merton College, Oxford. He had studied
medicine at the then celebrated school of Montpellier, and was in
practice at Marseilles during the visitation of the great plague of
1348, dying two years later, in 1350.[50]
At Montpellier the ravages were, if possible, even greater. Of
the twelve magistrates, or consuls, ten died, and in the numerous
monasteries scarcely one religious was spared. The Dominicans here
were very numerous, numbering some 140 members, and of these seven
only are said to have been left alive.[51] Simon de Covino, a doctor,
of Paris, who probably witnessed the course of the disease at
Montpellier, wrote an account of his experiences in a poetical form
in 1350. The moral of his verse is the same as Boccaccio's, and the
chief interest lies in the fact that, like the Italian poet, Covino
was an eye-witness of what he relates, whilst his medical training
makes his testimony as to the chief characteristics of the disease
specially important. The name he gives to the malady is the _pestis
inguinaria_, or bubonic plague of the East. He describes a burning
pain, beginning under the arms, or in the groin, and extending to the
regions of the heart. A mortal fever then spread to the vital parts;
the heart, lungs, and breathing passages were chiefly affected, the
strength fell quickly, and the person so stricken was unable to fight
any length of time against the poison.
One very singular effect of the disease is noted by the author:—"The
pestilence," he asserts, "stamped itself upon [p036] the entire
population. Faces became pale, and the doom which threatened the
people was marked upon their foreheads. It was only necessary to look
into the countenances of men and women to read there recorded the
blow which was about to fall; a marked pallor announced the approach
of the enemy, and before the fatal day the sentence of death was
written unmistakably on the face of the victims. No climate appeared
to have any effect upon the strange malady. It appeared to be stayed
neither by heat nor cold. High and healthy situations were as much
subject to it as damp and low places. It spread during the colder
season of winter as rapidly as in the heat of the summer months."
About the contagious nature of the epidemic there could be no doubt.
"It has been proved," wrote Covino, "that when it once entered a
house scarcely one of those who dwelt in it escaped." The contagion
was so great that one sick person, so to speak, would "infect the
whole world." "A touch, even a breath, was sufficient to transmit
the malady." Those who were obliged to render ordinary assistance to
the sick fell victims. "It happened also that priests, those sacred
physicians of souls, were seized by the plague whilst administering
spiritual aid; and often by a single touch, or a single breath of the
plague-stricken, they perished even before the sick person they had
come to assist." Clothes were justly regarded as infected, and even
the furniture of houses attacked was suspected. At Montpellier, at
the time of the visitation, the writer says there were more doctors
than elsewhere, but hardly one escaped the infection, and this even
although it was recognised that medical skill was of little or no
avail.
According to the experience of this Montpellier doctor the mortality
was greatest among the poor, because their hard lives and their
poverty rendered them more susceptible to the deadly infection, and
their condition did not enable them to combat it with the chances
of success possessed by the well-to-do classes. As to the extent of
[p037] the mortality, he says "that the number of those swept away
was greater than those left alive; cities are now (_i.e._, 1350)
depopulated, thousands of houses are locked up, thousands stand with
their doors wide open, their owners and those who dwelt in them
having been swept away." Lastly, this writer bears testimony to the
baneful effect the scourge had upon the morals of those who had been
spared. Such visitations, he thinks, must always exercise the most
lowering influence upon the general virtue of the world.[52]
From Marseilles the epidemic quickly spread northwards up the Rhone
valley, and in a westerly direction through Languedoc. Montpellier,
too, quickly passed on the infection. It commenced at Narbonne in
the first week of Lent, 1348, and is said to have carried off 30,000
of the inhabitants. Indeed, so fearful was the visitation, that this
ancient city is reported never to have recovered from the desolation
it caused.[53]
At Arles, which was attacked very shortly after the disease
had gained a footing on French soil, most of the inhabitants
perished.[54] It reached Avignon as early as January, 1348. In this
city Pope Clement VI., then in the sixth year of his pontificate,
held his court. Before the arrival of the dreaded visitant was
publicly recognised sixty-six religious of the convent of Carmelites
had been carried off, and in the first three days 1,800 people are
reported to have died. In the seven months during which the scourge
lasted the vast roll of the dead in the territory of Avignon had
mounted up to 150,000 persons, amongst whom was the friend of
Petrarch, Laura de Noves, who died on Good Friday, March 27th,
1348.[55] Even in England at the time the excessive mortality at
Avignon [p038] was noted and remarked upon.[56] Great numbers of
Jews are said to have been carried off because of the unsanitary
conditions in which they lived, and an equally great number of
Spaniards resident in the city, whose propensity for good living
rendered them most susceptible to the infection.[57]
The alarming mortality quickly caused a panic. "For such terror,"
writes an author of the lives of the Popes at Avignon, "took
possession of nearly everyone, that as soon as the ulcer or boil
appeared on anyone he was deserted by all, no matter how nearly
they might be related to him. For the father left his son, the son
his father, on his sick bed. In any house when a person became sick
with the infirmity and died it generally happened that all others
there were attacked and quickly followed him to the grave; yea, even
the animals in the place, such as dogs, cats, cocks, and hens also
died. Hence those who had strength fled for fear of what had taken
place, and, as a consequence, many who might otherwise have recovered
perished through want of care. Many, too, who were seized with the
sickness, being considered certain to die and without any hope of
recovery, were carried off at once to the pit and buried. And in this
way many were buried alive."
The same writer notices the charity of the Pope at this terrible
time, in causing doctors to visit and assist the sick poor. "And
since the ordinary cemeteries did not suffice to hold the bodies
of the dead, the Pope purchased a large field and caused it to be
consecrated as a cemetery where anyone might be buried. And here an
infinite number of people were then interred."[58] [p039]
The most important and particular account of the pestilence at
Avignon, however, is that of a certain Canon of the Low Countries,
who wrote at the time from the city to his friends in Bruges. He
was in the train of a Cardinal on a visit to the Roman Curia when
the plague broke out. "The disease," he writes, "is threefold in
its infection; that is to say, firstly, men suffer in their lungs
and breathing, and whoever have these corrupted, or even slightly
attacked, cannot by any means escape nor live beyond two days.
Examinations have been made by doctors in many cities of Italy, and
also in Avignon, by order of the Pope, in order to discover the
origin of this disease. Many dead bodies have been thus opened and
dissected, and it is found that all who have died thus suddenly have
had their lungs infected and have spat blood. The contagious nature
of the disease is indeed the most terrible of all the terrors (of the
time), for when anyone who is infected by it dies, all who see him
in his sickness, or visit him, or do any business with him, or even
carry him to the grave, quickly follow him thither, and there is no
known means of protection.
"There is another form of the sickness, however, at present running
its course concurrently with the first; that is, certain aposthumes
appear under both arms, and by these also people quickly die. A third
form of the disease—like the two former, running its course at this
same time with them—is that from which people of both sexes suffer
from aposthumes in the groin. This, likewise, is quickly fatal. The
sickness has already grown to such proportions that, from fear of
contagion, no doctor will visit a sick man, even if the invalid would
gladly give him everything he possessed; neither does a father visit
his son, nor a mother her daughter, nor a brother his brother, nor
a son his father, nor a friend his friend, nor an acquaintance his
acquaintance, nor, in fact, does anyone go to another, no matter
how closely he may be allied to him by blood, unless he is prepared
to die with him or [p040] quickly to follow after him. Still, a
large number of persons have died merely through their affection for
others; for they might have escaped had they not, moved by piety and
Christian charity, visited the sick at the time.
"To put the matter shortly, one-half, or more than a half, of the
people at Avignon are already dead. Within the walls of the city
there are now more than 7,000 houses shut up; in these no one is
living, and all who have inhabited them are departed; the suburbs
hardly contain any people at all. A field near 'Our Lady of Miracles'
has been bought by the Pope and consecrated as a cemetery. In
this, from the 13th of March,[59] 11,000 corpses have been buried.
This number does not include those interred in the cemetery of the
hospital of St. Anthony, in cemeteries belonging to the religious
bodies, and in the many others which exist in Avignon. Nor must I be
silent about the neighbouring parts, for at Marseilles all the gates
of the city, with the exception of two small ones, are now closed,
for there four-fifths of the inhabitants are dead.
"The like account I can give of all the cities and towns of Provence.
Already the sickness has crossed the Rhone, and ravaged many cities
and villages as far as Toulouse, and it ever increases in violence
as it proceeds. On account of this great mortality there is such
a fear of death that people do not dare even to speak with anyone
whose relative has died, because it is frequently remarked that in
a family where one dies nearly all the relations follow him, and
this is commonly believed among the people. Neither are the sick now
served by their kindred, except as dogs would be; food is put near
the bed for them to eat and drink, and then those still in health fly
and leave the house. When a man dies some rough countrymen, called
_gavoti_, come to the house, and, after receiving a sufficiently
large reward, carry the corpse to the grave. Neither relatives
nor friends go to the sick, nor do priests even hear their [p041]
confessions nor give them the Sacraments; but everyone whilst still
in health looks after himself. It daily happens that some rich man
dying is borne to the grave by these ruffians without lights, and
without a soul to follow him, except these hired mourners. When
a corpse is carried by all fly through the streets and get into
their houses. Nor do these said wretched _gavoti_, strong as they
are, escape; but most of them after a time become infected by this
contagion and die. All the poor who were wont to receive bread from
the rich are dead; that is to say, briefly, where daily in ordinary
times there were distributed sixty-four measures of wheat for bread,
fifty loaves being made from each measure, now only one measure is
given away, and sometimes even a half is found to be sufficient.
"And it is said that altogether in three months—that is from January
25th to the present day (April 27th)—62,000 bodies have been buried
in Avignon. The Pope, however, about the middle of March last past,
after mature deliberation, gave plenary absolution till Easter, as
far as the keys of the Church extended, to all those who, having
confessed and being contrite, should happen to die of the sickness.
He ordered likewise devout processions, singing the Litanies, to be
made on certain days each week, and to these, it is said, people
sometimes come from the neighbouring districts to the number of
2,000; amongst them many of both sexes are barefooted, some are in
sackcloth, some with ashes, walking with tears and tearing their
hair, and beating themselves with scourges even to the drawing of
blood. The Pope was personally present at some of these processions,
but they were then within the precincts of his palace. What will
be the end, or whence all this has had its beginning, God alone
knows. . . .
"Some wretched men have been caught with certain dust, and, whether
justly or unjustly God only knows, they are accused of having
poisoned the water, and men in fear do not drink the water from
wells; for this many have been burnt and daily are burnt. [p042]
"Fish, even sea fish, is commonly not eaten, as people say they have
been infected by the bad air. Moreover, people do not eat, nor even
touch spices, which have not been kept a year, since they fear they
may have lately arrived in the aforesaid ships. And, indeed, it has
many times been observed that those who have eaten these new spices
and even some kinds of sea fish have suddenly been taken ill.
"I write this to you, my friends, that you may know the dangers in
which we live. And if you desire to preserve yourselves, the best
advice is to eat and drink temperately, to avoid cold, not to commit
excess of any kind, and, above all, to converse little with others,
at this time especially, except with the few whose breath is sweet.
But it is best to remain at home until this epidemic has passed. . . .
"Know, also, that the Pope has lately left Avignon, as is reported,
and has gone to the castle called Stella, near Valence on the
Rhone, two leagues off, to remain there till times change. The
Curia, however, preferred to remain at Avignon, (but) vacations
have been proclaimed till the feast of St. Michael. All the
auditors, advocates, and procurators have either left, intend to
leave immediately, or are dead. I am in the hands of God, to whom I
commend myself. My master will follow the Pope, so they say, and I
with him, for there are some castles near the airy mountains where
the mortality has not yet appeared, and it is thought that the best
chance is there. To choose and to do what is best may the Omnipotent
and merciful God grant us all. Amen."[60]
From another source some corroboration of the mortality, described by
the writer of this letter, can be obtained. The 11,000, stated by the
anonymous canon to have been buried in the Pope's new cemetery from
March 13th to April 27th may appear excessive; still more, the 62,000
reported to have died in the three months between the [p043] first
outbreak, on January 25th, and the date when the letter was written.
The statements of the writer are, however, so circumstantial and
given with such detail, that, allowing for the tendency in all such
catastrophes to exaggerate rather than minimise the number of the
victims, it is probable that his estimate of the terrible destruction
of life at Avignon and in the neighbourhood is substantially
accurate. Writing, as he does, on the Sunday after Easter, 1348, he
evidently points to the time of Lent as the period during which the
epidemic was at its height. This is borne out by a statement in a
German chronicle, which says: "In Venice, in the whole of Italy and
Provence, especially in cities on the sea-coast, there died countless
numbers. And at Avignon, where the Roman Curia then was, in the first
three days after mid-Lent Sunday, 1,400 people were computed to have
been buried."[61] Mid-Lent Sunday, in 1348, fell upon March 30th,
and, consequently, according to this authority, on the last day of
March and the first two days of April the death-rate was over 450 a
day.
No account of the plague at Avignon would be complete without some
notice of Gui de Chauliac, and some quotations from the work he has
left to posterity upon this particular outbreak. De Chauliac was
the medical attendant of Pope Clement VI. He devoted himself to the
service of the sick during the time of the epidemic, and, although
he himself caught the infection, his life was happily spared to the
service of others, and to enable him to write an account of the
sickness. The mortality, he says, commenced in the month of January,
1348, and lasted for the space of seven months. "It was of two kinds;
the first lasted two months, with constant fever and blood-spitting,
and of this people died in three days.
"The second lasted for the rest of the time. In this, together with
constant fever, there were external carbuncles, or buboes, under
the arm or in the groin, and the [p044] disease ran its course in
five days. The contagion was so great (especially when there was
blood-spitting) that not only by remaining (with the sick) but even
by looking (at them) people seemed to take it; so much so, that many
died without any to serve them, and were buried without priests to
pray over their graves.
"A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. Charity was
dead. The mortality was so great that it left hardly a fourth part
of the population. Even the doctors did not dare to visit the sick
from fear of infection, and when they did visit them they attempted
nothing to heal them, and thus almost all those who were taken
ill died, except towards the end of the epidemic, when some few
recovered."
"As for me, to avoid infamy, I did not dare to absent myself, but
still I was in continual fear." Towards the end of the sickness de
Chauliac took the infection, and was in great danger for six weeks,
but in the end recovered.[62]
It was according to the advice of this same Gui de Chauliac that
Pope Clement VI. isolated himself and kept large fires always
alight in his apartments, just as Pope Nicholas IV. had done in a
previous epidemic. In the whole district of Provence the mortality
appears to have been very great. In the Lent of 1348 no fewer than
358 Dominicans are said to have died.[63] Even by the close of the
November of this year the terror of the time had not passed away
from Avignon and the Papal Court. Writing to King Louis of Hungary,
on the 23rd of that month, the Pope excused himself for not having
sent before, "as the deadly plague, which has devastated these and
other parts of the world by an unknown and terrible mortality, has
not only, by God's will, carried off some of our brethren, but caused
others to fly from the Roman Curia to avoid death."[64] [p045]
In the early summer of the same year, 1348, just as the plague was
lessening its ravages at Avignon, the Pope addressed a letter to the
General Chapter of the Friars Minor then being held at Verona. He
laments the misery into which the world has been plunged, chiefly
"by the mortal sickness which is carrying off from us old and young,
rich and poor, in one common, sudden and unforeseen death." He urges
them to unite in prayer that the plague may cease, and grants special
indulgences "to such among you as, during this Chapter, or whilst
returning to your homes, may chance to die."[65] Of these Franciscans
it is said that, in Italy alone, 30,000 died in this sickness.
From its first entry into France in the early days of 1348, the
plague was ever spreading far and wide. The letter from Avignon,
already given, speaks of the ravages of the mortality in the whole
of Provence, and of its having, before the end of April, reached
Toulouse on its journey westward. In the August of this year (1348)
Bordeaux was apparently suffering from it, since in that month the
Princess Joan, daughter of Edward III., who was on her way to be
married to Pedro, son of the King of Castille, died suddenly in that
city.
In a northerly direction the epidemic spread with equal virulence.
At Lyons evidence of the pestilence is afforded by an inscription
preserved in the town museum. It relates to the construction of a
chapel in 1352 by a citizen, "Michael Pancsus," in which Mass should
be said for the souls of several members of his family "who died in
the time of the mortality, 1348."[66] The anonymous cleric of Bruges,
who preserved the Avignon letter, writing probably at the time, gives
the following account of its progress: "In the year of our Lord 1348,
that plague, epidemic, and mortality, which we have mentioned before,
by the will of God has [p046] not ceased; but from day to day
grows and descends upon other parts. For in Burgundy, Normandy, and
elsewhere it has consumed, and is consuming, many thousands of men,
animals, and sheep."[67]
It arrived in Normandy probably about the feast of St. James (July
25th), 1348. A contemporary note in a manuscript, which certainly
came from the Abbey of Foucarmont, gives the following account: "In
the year of grace 1348, about the feast of St. James, the great
mortality entered into Normandy. And it came into Gascony, and
Poitou, and Brittany, and then passed into Picardy. And it was so
horrible that in the towns it attacked more than two-thirds of the
population died. And a father did not dare to go and visit his son,
nor a brother his sister, and people could not be found to nurse one
another, because, when the person breathed the breath of another he
could not escape. It came to such a pass that no one could be found
even to carry the corpses (to the tomb). People said that the end
of the world had come."[68] In another manuscript, M. Delisle has
found a further note, or portion of a note, referring to the terrible
nature of the malady in Normandy. It never entered a city or town
without carrying off the greater part of the inhabitants. "And in
that time the mortality was so great among the people of Normandy
that those in Picardy mocked them."[69]
Paris was, of course, visited by the disease. Apparently, it was some
time in the early summer of 1348 when it first manifested itself.
In the chronicle of St. Denis it is recorded that "in the year of
grace 1348 the said mortality commenced in the Kingdom of France and
lasted about a year and a half, more or less. In this way there died
in Paris, one day with another, 800 persons. . . . In the space of
the said year and a half, as some declare, the number of the dead
in Paris rose to more than 50,000, and [p047] in the town of St.
Denis the number was as high as 16,000."[70] The chronicle of the
Carmelites at Rheims places the total of deaths in Paris at the
larger number of 80,000,[71] amongst whom were two Queens, Joan of
Navarre, daughter of Louis X., and Joan of Burgundy, wife of King
Philip of Valois.
The most circumstantial account of the plague in France at the time
when the capital was attacked is given in the continuation of the
chronicle of William of Nangis, which was written probably before
1368. "In the same year" (1348), it says, "both in Paris in the
kingdom of France, and not less, as is reported, in different parts
of the world, and also in the following year, there was so great
a mortality of people of both sexes, and of the young rather than
the old, that they could hardly be buried. Further they were ill
scarcely more than two or three days, and some often died suddenly,
so that a man to-day in good health, to-morrow was carried a corpse
to the grave. Lumps suddenly appeared under the arm-pits or in
the groin, and the appearance of these was an infallible sign of
death. This sickness, or pestilence, was called by the doctors the
epidemic. And the multitude of people who died in the years 1348 and
1349, was so large that nothing like it was ever heard, read of,
or witnessed in past ages. And the said death and sickness often
sprung from the imagination, or from the society and (consequent)
contagion of another, for a healthy man visiting one sick hardly
ever escaped death. So that in many towns, small and great, priests
retired through fear, leaving the administration of the Sacraments to
religious, who were more bold. Briefly, in many places, there did not
remain two alive out of every twenty.
"So great was the mortality in the Hotel-Dieu of Paris that for a
long time more than fifty corpses were carried [p048] away from it
each day in carts to be buried.[72] And the devout sisters of the
Hotel-Dieu, not fearing death, worked piously and humbly, not out of
regard for any worldly honour. A great number of these said sisters
were very frequently summoned to their reward by death, and rest in
peace with Christ, as is piously believed."
After saying that the plague had passed through Gascony and Spain,
the chronicler speaks of it as going "from town to town, village
to village, from house to house, and even from person to person;
and coming into the country of France, passed into Germany, where,
however, it was less severe than amongst us."
"It lasted in France," the writer says, "the greater part of 1348
and 1349, and afterwards there were to be seen many towns, country
places, and houses in good cities remaining empty and without
inhabitants."
The writer concludes by declaring that nature soon began to make
up for losses. "But, alas! the world by this renovation is not
changed for the better. For people were afterwards more avaricious
and grasping, even when they possessed more of the goods of this
world, than before. They were more covetous, vexing themselves by
contentious quarrels, strifes, and law suits." Moreover, all things
were much dearer; furniture, food, merchandise, of all sorts doubled
in price, and servants would work only for higher wages. "Charity,
too, from that time began to grow cold, and wickedness with its
attendant, ignorance, was rampant, and few were found who could or
would teach children the rudiments of grammar in houses, cities, or
villages."[73] [p049]
Whilst the plague was at its height King Philip VI. requested the
medical faculty of Paris to consult together and to report upon the
best methods by which the deadly nature of the disease could be
combated. The result of their consultation was published, probably
in June, 1348.[74] Unfortunately, adhering closely to the text of
the question addressed to them, their reply does not furnish any
historical details. They broadly state their views as to the probable
origin of the epidemic, and confine themselves to suggestions as to
its treatment, and to the means by which contagion is to be avoided.
They are clear as to the infectious nature of the disease, and
earnest in their recommendations that all who were able should have
nothing to do with the sick. "It is chiefly the people of one house,
and above all those of the same family, who are close together," they
say, "who die, for they are always near to those who are sick. We
advise them to depart, for it is in this way that a great number have
been infected by the plague."[75]
Meanwhile the epidemic was spreading northward. At Amiens, where
17,000 are said to have been carried off by the sickness, it seems
probable that the malady was not at its height before the summer of
the following year, 1349. The wave of pestilence from Paris seems to
have divided. One stream swept on through Normandy towards the coast,
which it probably reached, in the regions round Calais, about July
or August of the year 1348. The other stream, checked probably by
the autumn and winter, made its way more slowly towards Belgium and
Holland.
In the June of 1349 the King granted a petition from the Mayor of
Amiens for a new cemetery. In the document the plague in the city
is described as having been then so terrible that the cemeteries
are full, and no more corpses could safely be buried in them.
"The mortality in the said town," says the King's letter, "is so
marvellously great [p050] that people are dying there suddenly, as
quickly, as from one evening to the following morning, and often
even quicker than that."[76] This was in June, 1349, and already
by September of the same year the authorities were called upon
to deal with a combination of workmen at a tannery to secure for
themselves excessive wages "to the great hurt of the people at
large." The promptness of the action of the Mayor, and the tone of
the proclamation establishing a rate of wages, is a sufficient proof
that the crisis was regarded as serious.[77] This trouble at Amiens
is an indication of difficulties which will be seen to have existed
elsewhere in France, in Germany, and in England, which had their
origin in the dearth of labourers after the scourge had passed.
The account of the ravages of this great pestilence in France, as
well as its course in the city of Tournay, where it commenced in
August, 1349, is well given in the chronicle of Gilles Li Muisis,
Abbot of St. Martin's, Tournay, who was a contemporary of the events
he describes. "It is impossible," he says, "to credit the mortality
throughout the whole country. Travellers, merchants, pilgrims, and
others who have passed through it declare that they have found cattle
wandering without herdsmen in fields, towns, and waste lands; that
they have seen barns and wine-cellars standing wide open, houses
empty, and few people to be found anywhere. So much so that in many
towns, cities and villages, where there had been before 20,000
people, scarcely 2,000 are left; and in many cities and country
places, where there had been 1,500 people, hardly 100 remain. And in
many different lands (_multis climatibus_), both lands and fields are
lying uncultivated. I have heard these things from a certain knight
well skilled in the law, who was one of the members of the Paris
Parliament. He was sent, together with a certain Bishop, by Philip,
the most [p051] illustrious King of France, to the King of Aragon,
and on his return journey passed through Avignon. Both there and in
Paris, as he told me, he was informed of the foresaid things by many
people worthy of credit."
After speaking of the evidence given by a pilgrim to Santiago, Li
Muisis proceeds to relate his own experiences in Tournay in the
summer of 1349. This he does in verse and prose. The poem, after
speaking of the manifestation of God's anger, describes the plague
beginning in the East and passing through France into Flanders. Like
other writers, Li Muisis declares that he hesitates to say what he
has seen and heard, because posterity will hardly credit what he
would relate.[78] The reports of all travellers and merchants as to
the terrible state of the country generally give one and the same
sad story of universal death and distress. The particulars as to the
plague in Tournay, the writer's own city, may best be given from his
prose account.
John de Pratis, the Bishop of Tournay, was one of the first to be
carried off by the sickness. He had gone away for change of air,
and on Corpus Christi Day, June 11th, 1349, he carried the blessed
Sacrament in the procession at Arras. He left that city the next
day for Cambray, but died the day after almost suddenly.[79] He was
buried at Tournay; and "time passed on," says our author, to the
beginning of August, up to which no other person of authority died
in Tournay. But after the feast of St. John the plague began in the
parish of St. Piat, in the quarter of Merdenchor, and afterwards in
other parishes. Every day the bodies of the dead were borne to the
churches, now five, now ten, now fifteen, and in the parish of St.
Brice sometimes twenty or thirty. In all parish churches the curates,
parish clerks, and sextons to get their fees, [p052] rang morning,
evening, and night the passing bells, and by this the whole people of
the city, both men and women, began to be filled with fear.
The officials of the town consequently seeing that the Dean and
Chapter, and the clerics generally, did not care to remedy this
matter, since it was in their interest it should go on, as they made
profit out of it, having taken counsel together, issued certain
orders. Men and women who, although not married, were living together
as man and wife, were commanded either to marry or forthwith to
separate. The bodies of the dead were to be buried immediately in
graves at least six feet deep. There was to be no tolling of any bell
at funerals. The corpse was not to be taken to the church, but at the
service only a pall was to be spread on the ground, whilst after the
service there was to be no gathering together at the houses of the
deceased. Further, all work after noon on Saturdays and during the
entire Sunday was prohibited, as also was the playing of dice and
making use of profane oaths.
These ordinances having lasted for a time, and the sickness still
further increasing, it was proclaimed on St. Matthew's Day (September
24th) that there should be no more ringing of bells, that not more
than two were to meet for any funeral service, and that no one was
to dress in black. This action of the city authorities, the writer
declares to have been most beneficial. In his own knowledge, he
says, many who had hitherto been living in a state of concubinage
were married, that the practice of swearing notably diminished, and
that dice were so little used that the manufacturers turned "the
square-shaped dice" into "round objects on which people told their
_Pater Nosters_."
I have tried, says our author, to write what I know, "and let future
generations believe that in Tournay there was a marvellous mortality.
I heard from many about Christmas time who professed to know it as
a fact that more than 25,000 persons had died in Tournay, and it
was strange [p053] that the mortality was especially great among
the chief people and the rich. Of those who used wine and kept away
from the tainted air and visiting the sick few or none died. But
those visiting and frequenting the houses of the sick either became
grievously ill or died. Deaths were more numerous about the market
places and in poor narrow streets than in broader and more spacious
areas. And whenever one or two people died in any house, at once, or
at least in a short space of time, the rest of the household were
carried off. So much so, that very often in one home ten or more
ended their lives together, and in many houses the dogs and even cats
died. Hence no one, whether rich, in moderate circumstances, or poor,
was secure, but everyone from day to day waited on the will of the
Lord. And certainly great was the number of curates and chaplains
hearing confessions and administering the Sacraments, and even of
parish clerks visiting the sick with them, who died."
In the parishes across the river, the mortality was as great as in
Tournay itself. Although death as a rule came so suddenly, still the
people for the most part were able to receive the Sacraments. The
rapidity of the disease, remarked upon by Petrarch and Boccaccio
in Italy, is also spoken of in the same terms by the Abbot of St.
Martin's. People that one had seen apparently well and had spoken to
one evening were reported dead next day. He specially remarks upon
the mortality among the clergy visiting the sick,[80] and speaks of
the creation of two new cemeteries outside the walls of the town.
One was in a field near the Leper House _De Valle_, the other at the
religious house of the Crutched Friars. Strange to say Li Muisis
speaks of the disfavour with which this necessary precaution of
establishing new grave-yards was regarded. People, he says, grumbled
because they were no longer [p054] allowed to be buried in their own
family vaults. The town authorities, however, were firm, and as the
pestilence increased deep pits were dug in these two common burying
places, and into them numbers of bodies were constantly being thrown
and covered up with a slight layer of earth.[81]
It has been supposed by many that the accounts given by contemporary
writers of the excessive mortality throughout the countries of Europe
must be greatly exaggerated, and that the population in the middle
of the fourteenth century was not sufficiently large to allow of the
number of deaths. On the one hand it is evident that in the majority
of cases the round figures stated can be at most nothing more than
a rough approximation of the actual deaths, and that the natural
tendency of those who have witnessed a catastrophe as great and as
universal as that of the plague of 1348 and subsequent years, is to
magnify, rather than to diminish, the disaster. On the other hand,
whilst allowing that in most cases the actual figures are little
more than guesses at the truth, and can only be taken as evidence
of the belief of the age in the magnitude of the mortality, it must
be admitted that Italy, France, and other countries of Europe were
at the time more teeming with population than is perhaps usually
understood.
M. Siméon Luce has made a special study of the conditions of French
popular life at this period,[82] and the conclusions at which he has
arrived may be here usefully stated in brief. It has been proved by
the labours of French antiquaries that the general population of
France before the great pestilence of 1348-1349, and the hundred
years' war with England, was equal to what it is in the present
century. Numerous villages were scattered over the face of the
country, every trace of which has now disappeared. The houses, or
rather huts, in which the [p055] population of rural France lived
were very seldom framed of any kind of masonry, but were for the most
part merely four mud, or clay, walls, and sometimes wickerwork lined,
and the interstices filled in, with hay and straw. As a rule there
was but one storey, although some, chiefly taverns and places of that
class, had an upper floor. The roof was thatched or covered with
wood or stone; windows were the exception, and where they did exist
they were mere slits in the clay walls closed with wooden shutters.
Even the coarse, opaque glass then made was beyond the means of the
ordinary peasant and farmer, whilst just about this time even a rich
bourgeois of Paris recommended the filling of windows with waxen
cloth or parchment. The doors were fastened with wooden latches, and
over them, according to the general arrangement, a shutter of wood
was fixed which was generally left open for air, light, and to allow
the smoke of the brushwood fire to pass out of the living room. It
will be readily understood how the condition of life in houses such
as these would not be such as to put much obstacle to the spread of
an epidemic in the rural districts; whilst if such tenements were
vacant even for a short time they would readily fall into decay and
would present the spectacle of ruin and desolation spoken of by so
many writers of the period as caused by the great pestilence.
The furniture of these houses was simple, but very much what it is
now in small country houses. The inventories of the period show that
most houses had vessels of copper, tin and glass, and that there
were few who did not possess some articles of silver. The people for
the most part lived on a soup of bread and meal; but even by the
fourteenth century white bread was by no means unknown. The principal
meat was pork fed in the forests, but most cottages possessed a spit
upon which fowls, previously larded, were occasionally roasted.
Of condiments, mustard was the chief, and it was much, if not
universally, used. Even in the humblest houses a cloth would be
spread on [p056] the table at meals. For drink there was the wine
of the country, and in Normandy cider was plentiful. With the drink,
especially in taverns, which were exceedingly numerous, a little
ginger would generally be mixed. In dress fur of various kinds was
much used, and, by the time of this pestilence, in France the use of
the linen shirt as an undergarment had become almost universal. The
sleeping places were dark, airless recesses, in which the people,
having divested themselves of all clothing, rested upon straw
mattresses, or sometimes on feather beds. Contrary to the opinion
entertained by persons of repute there is evidence to show that
bathing was common and much used especially among the lower classes,
and that even small villages had their public bath places.
This sketch of the epidemic in these regions may be concluded by one
or two instances of the agrarian difficulties which followed upon it.
On August 16th, 1349, the Emperor Charles IV. issued an order to the
tenants of the Abbey of St. Trond, in the diocese of Liège, to return
to their obedience. The document says that the holders of the Abbey
lands and other dependents are now demanding their own terms and
claiming liberty to do what they like, with the result that the Abbot
and monastery are so distressed in temporal matters that absolute
ruin is impending.[83] The second instance is that of the Abbey of
St. John at Laon. A document, addressed by the French King Charles
to the Abbot and convent, says that the monastery is so decayed in
revenues that it is impossible to keep up the fitting and proper
services of the Church. And although the letter was not written till
nearly the close of the century—1392-3—the cause assigned for this
poverty and decay is "the great mortality which took place about the
year 1349," by which the tithes and other revenues were destroyed.
And to quote but one more example: "On 5th July, [p057] 1352, relief
was granted to the inhabitants of the town of Arras because by reason
of the wars, and because of the mortality which has been universal in
the world, the said city is so greatly decayed, both as to buildings
and people, as also in revenues and temporal goods, that it is on the
high road to (absolute) desolation."[84]
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Labbe, _Nova Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum_, i, p. 343.
[47] C. Anglada, _Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes_, p. 432.
[48] Matthias Nuewenburgensis in Boehmer, _Fontes rerum
Germanicarum_, iv, p. 261.
[49] Henricus Rebdorfensis, _Ibid._, p. 560. Another account speaks
of Marseilles remaining afterwards almost "depopulated," and of
"thousands dying in the adjoining towns" (_Chronicon Pragense_, in
_Fontes rerum Austriacarum_, _Scriptores_, i, p. 395).
[50] J. Astruc, _Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier_
(Montpellier, 1862), p. 184.
[51] Anglada, _ut supra_, p. 432.
[52] _Opuscule relatif à la peste de 1348, composé par un
contemporain_ in _Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes_, 1e Sér., ii,
pp. 201-243.
[53] Martin, _Histoire de France_ (4th ed.), v, p. 109.
[54] Phillippe, _Histoire de la Peste Noire_, p. 103.
[55] Anglada, _Maladies Éteintes_, p. 431.
[56] Higden, _Polychronicon_ (ed. Rolls Series), viii, p. 344.
[57] L. Michon, _Documents inédits sur la grande peste de 1348_
(Paris, 1860), p. 22.
[58] Baluze, _Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium_, i, p. 254. In a second
life of Clement VII. (p. 274) it is said that vast pits were dug in
the public cemetery, where the dead were buried "ut pecora gregatim."
[59] The writer was sending his letter on April 27th, 1348, so that
the period would have been about six weeks.
[60] _Breve Chronicon clerici anonymi_, in De Smet, _Recueil des
Chroniques de Flandre_, iii, pp. 14-18.
[61] Henricus Rebdorfensis, in Boehmer, _Fontes_, iv, p. 560.
[62] Anglada, _Maladies Éteintes_, pp. 413-14.
[63] Barnes, _History of Edward III._, p. 435.
[64] Thiener, _Monumenta Historica Hungariæ_, i, p. 767.
[65] Wadding, _Annales Minorum_, viii, p. 25 (ed. 1723).
[66] Olivier de la Haye, _Poëme sur la grande peste de 1348_.
Introduction par G. Guigue, p. xviii, _note_.
[67] _Breve Chronicon_ in De Smet, _Recueil des Chroniques de
Flandre_, iii, p. 19.
[68] Delisle, _Cabinet des Manuscrits_, i, p. 532.
[69] _Ibid._ Here the note abruptly finishes.
[70] H. Martin, _Histoire de France_, v, p. 111.
[71] Marlot, _Histoire de Ville de Reims_, iv, p. 63.
[72] All copies of this chronicle give "_quingente_," and it has
usually been stated that the number so buried each day was 500. M.
Géraud, who edited the work for the Société de l'Histoire de France,
suggests that it is a mistake for 50, and quotes two MSS., in which
in the margin the following note is found: "L corps par jour a
l'Hostel-Dieu de Paris." As this reading is more probable it has been
adopted above.
[73] _Continuatio Chronici Guillelmi di Nangiaco, éd._ pour la
Société de l'Histoire de France par H. Géraud, ii, pp. 211-217.
[74] They speak in the document of "the 17th of the ensuing month of
July."
[75] Michon, _Documents inédits sur la Peste Noire_, p. 22.
[76] Thierry, _Recueil des Monuments inédits de l'Histoire du Tiers
Etat_, i, p. 544.
[77] _Ibid._, p. 546.
[78]
"Certe dicere timeo
Quæ vidi et quæ video
De ista pestilentia."
[79] Gams, _Series Episcoporum_, gives 13th June, 1349, as the day of
his death.
[80]
"Quia de sacerdotibus
Infirmos visitantibus
Quamplurimi defecerunt."
[81] _Chronicon majus Ægidii Li Muisis, abbatis Sti. Martini
Tornacensis_, in De Smet, _Receuil des Chroniques de Flandre_, ii,
pp. 279-281 and 361-382.
[82] S. Luce, _Bertrand du Guesclin_, i, ch. 3.
[83] Piot, _Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Trond_, i, 507.
[84] Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland_, p. 93.
[p058]