THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
In following the great pestilence through Europe, according to the
historical sequence of events, its course in England should be now
described. Inasmuch, however, as the story of the ravages caused
by the disease in England will be told in greater detail, it may
conveniently be left till the last. Here a brief account may be
interposed of the mortality in other European countries, although it
will take the reader to the year 1351.
From Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica the plague was carried to the
Balearic Islands. The three streams of infection met with destructive
force at Majorca. The historian Zurita declares that in less than
a month 15,000 persons had perished on the island. Another writer
estimates the total loss of life during the epidemic at double
that number, and some ancient records have been quoted as stating
that in the island eight out of every ten people must have died, a
proportion, of course, exaggerated, but sufficient to show local
tradition as to the extent of the misfortune. In the monasteries and
convents, according to this authority, not one religious was left;
and the Dominicans are said to have been obliged to recruit their
numbers by enrolling quite young children.[85]
The scourge fell upon Spain in the early part of the year 1348. It is
supposed to have first appeared at Almeira, and in Barcelona whole
quarters of the city were depopulated and rendered desolate by it.
In May, 1348, it was already raging in Valencia, and by midsummer
300 persons a day are reported to have been buried in the city. At
[p059] Saragossa, where Pedro IV. then was, the malady was at its
height in September. The people here, as elsewhere, became hardened,
and charity died out in the presence of the terrors of death. They
fled from the sick, leaving them to die alone, and abandoned the
corpses of the dead in the streets. Most of the cities and villages
of Spain suffered more or less severely, and the sickness appears to
have lingered longer here than in most other countries. The new Queen
of Aragon had been one of the earliest victims; Alphonsus XI. was one
of the last. In March, 1350, he was laying siege to Gibraltar, when
the plague broke out suddenly with great violence amongst his troops.
He refused to retire, as his officers desired him to do, and fell a
victim to the epidemic on Good Friday, March 26th, 1350.[86]
An interesting account of Northern Spain during the plague is given
in the chronicle of Li Muisis, Abbot of St. Martin's, Tournay, from
which much was cited in the previous chapter. The writer says that
he learnt the details from "a pilgrim, who, in going to St. James'
(of Compostella), passed by Notre Dame de Roc Amadour[87] and by
Toulouse, because by reason of the wars he could not travel the
usual way." This pilgrim to Compostella, in the middle of the 14th
century, would consequently have crossed the Pyrenees by one of
the passes into Navarre, and so travelled along the north of Spain
to Santiago. Having performed his pilgrimage, Li Muisis informs us
that he returned through Galicia, and "with his companion, reached a
town named Salvaterra," probably the place now called Salvatierra,
situated below the Pyrenees, and just above the Sierra de la Pena.
This town, as the traveller reported, "was so depopulated by the
mortality that not one person out of ten had been left alive. The
city itself was fairly large. The said pilgrim related," says Li
Muisis, "that after supping with the host (who, with two daughters
and [p060] one servant, had alone so far survived of his entire
family, and who was not then conscious of any sickness upon him), he
settled with him for his entertainment, intending to start on his
journey at daybreak, and went to bed. Next morning rising and wanting
something from those with whom they had supped, the travellers could
make no one hear. Then they learnt from an old woman they found in
bed that the host, his two daughters, and servant had died in the
night. On hearing this the pilgrims made all haste to leave the
place."[88]
From North Italy the pestilence soon spread to the country across the
Adriatic, if indeed it had not already been infected independently,
as seems more than probable, by ships from the East. The port of
Ragusa, in Dalmatia, is said to have been attacked as early as
January 13th, 1348, and more than 7,000 are reported as having been
swept away by it. A letter sent in April to the authorities "condoles
with them on the terrible mortality, by which the population had been
so greatly diminished."[89] At Spalatro, on March 22nd, 1348, the
Archbishop Dominic de Lucaris died of the disease, and it is known
to have raged for some months in the city. An anonymous chronicler
of Spalatro in the 15th century, who professed to take his account
of this period from ancient records, declares that it is impossible
to picture "the terrors and miseries of these unhappy days." To
add to the horror of the situation, as he declares, wolves and
other wild animals came down from the mountains and fell upon the
plague-stricken city and boldly attacked the survivors. The same
writer notes the rapidity with which the disease carried off those it
attacked. According to him, when swellings or carbuncles appeared on
any part of the body all hope of saving the life of the patient was
abandoned. As a rule, those stricken in this way died in three or at
most four days, and so great was the general mortality that bodies
were left lying unburied [p061] in the streets because there were
none to carry them to the grave.[90]
Further north again, Sebenico, through intercourse with which, very
possibly, the plague was carried into Hungary, was attacked in
the spring of the same year, 1348. By the 8th of May the Count of
Sebenico had written a description of the wretched condition and
state of the city, by reason of the great mortality in those parts,
through which it had been left almost without inhabitants.[91]
Istria, on August 27th, 1348, was declared in a Venetian State paper
to have suffered greatly. The people left, especially in the city
of Pola, were very few, so many having been swept away "by the late
pestilence."[92]
From Venice the epidemic spread northwards into Austria and Hungary.
Attacking on its way Padua and Verona, it passed up the valley of the
Etsch and was already at Trent on June 2nd, 1348. Thence it spread
quickly through Botzen up the Brenner Pass, in the Tyrolese Alps,
and was at Muhldorf on the Inn, in Bavaria on June 29th, 1348.[93]
Here it seems to have lasted for a considerable time. One chronicler,
writing of the subsequent year, 1349, says "that from the feast of
St. Michael, 1348, there perished in Muhldorf 1,400 of the better
class of inhabitants."[94] Another, speaking of the plague generally,
says "that it raged so terribly in Carinthia, Austria, and Bavaria
that many cities were depopulated, and in some towns which it visited
many families were destroyed so completely that not a member was
found to have survived."[95]
In November of the same year, 1348, the epidemic is found in Styria,
at Neuberg, in the valley of the Mürz. [p062] The Neuberg Chronicle,
giving an account of it, says, "Since this deadly pestilence raged
everywhere, cities became desolate which up to this had been
populous. Their inhabitants were swept off in such numbers that
such as were left, with closed gates, strenuously watched that no
one should steal the property of those departed." After speaking of
Venice, it continues, "The pest in its wanderings came to Carinthia,
and then so completely took possession of Styria, that people,
rendered desperate, walked about as if mad."
"From so many sick pestilential odours proceeded, infecting those
visiting and serving them, and very frequently it happened that when
one died in a house all, one after the other, were carried off. So
certain was this that no one could be found to stop in the houses of
the sick, and relations, as if in the natural course of events, seem
to die all together. As a consequence of this overwhelming visitation
cattle were left to wander in the fields without guardians, for no
one thought of troubling himself about the future; and wolves coming
down from the mountains to attack them, against their instincts, and
as if frightened by something unseen, quickly fled into the wilds
again. Property, too, both moveable and immoveable, which sick people
leave by will, is carefully avoided by all, as if it were sure to be
infected. The sickness . . . declined about the feast of St. Martin
(November 11th), 1348, and at Neuberg it had carried off many monks
and inhabitants."[96]
It is necessary to return once again to North Italy, from
which another wave of pestilence rolled on to Switzerland. The
contemporary—but not very accurate—notary of Novara, Peter Azarius,
speaks to the fact of the plague being at Momo, Gallarete, Varese,
and Bellinzona, on[97] the great highway over the Alps through the
St. Gothard Pass, and all in the immediate neighbourhood of his
home. [p063] What Azarius says from personal experience of this
terrible time is of interest. He had left his house at Novara for
fear of the disease, and resting for a while in the town of Tortona,
he occupied himself in philosophising upon the misfortunes which had
fallen upon Lombardy, and the strange unchristian neglect of the sick
he could hardly help noticing. "I have seen," he says, "a rich man
perish, who, even by offering an immense sum of money, could get no
one to help him. Through fear of the infection I have seen a father
not caring for his son, nor a son for his father, nor a brother
for a brother, nor a friend for his friend, nor a neighbour for
his neighbour. And what was worse than this, I have seen a family,
although one of high position, miserably perish, not being able to
get any help or assistance. Medicine being useless, the strong and
the young, men and women, were struck down in a moment, and all
the infected were so shunned that none dared even to enter their
houses."[98]
From the pass of St. Gothard the epidemic passed down the Rhine
Valley, and before the close of 1348 was in the neighbourhood
of Dissentis; whilst by May, 1349, the district round about the
monastery of Pfäffers, half way between the pass of St. Gothard
and Lake Constance, had been attacked. Shortly afterwards the
country near the celebrated Abbey of St. Gall was likewise greatly
afflicted.[99]
Meanwhile another wave of pestilence passed into Switzerland from
the side of France. Avignon had been attacked, as it has been shown,
in the early part of 1348, and thence the infection was carried up
the Rhone Valley to the Lake of Geneva. Thence one stream passed in
a north-easterly direction over Switzerland, and a second followed
the course of the river Rhone. By the 17th of March, 1349, the plague
was at Ruswyl, in the neighbourhood of Lucerne, having passed through
Berne on its way.[100] At Lucerne alone 3,000 people are said to
have died of the [p064] disease. It must have remained about the
neighbourhood of this lake for some months, for it was not until
September, 1349, that it is known to have manifested its presence
in the high and healthy valley of Engelberg. "This year (1349),"
says the chronicler of the Abbey of Engelberg, "the pestilence or
mortality was great, and, indeed, most great, in this valley, so that
more than twenty houses were left empty without an inhabitant. In
the same year from the feast of Our Lady's nativity, September 8th,
to the feast of the Epiphany 116 of our nuns died in the cloister.
One of the first to die was the Superior Catherine; about the middle
(of the epidemic) the venerable Mother Beatrix, Countess of Arberg,
formerly Superior; and on the morrow of Holy Innocents, Mechtilde of
Wolfenschiessen, the new Superior likewise passed away. And of our
own numbers (there died) two priests and five scholars."[101] Basle
was attacked, and is said to have lost some 14,000 people about the
middle of the year; Zurich about September 11th; and Constance some
time during the winter.
It is unnecessary to follow the wanderings of the great mortality in
detail further through Europe. The annals of almost every country
prove incontestably that most places were in turn visited, and more
or less depopulated, by the epidemic. By April 4th, 1349, it was
reported in Venice that the pestilence was raging in Hungary, and
by June 7th the King could declare "that by Divine mercy it had now
ceased in our kingdom." It must consequently have commenced in the
country in the early part of the year, although there is evidence
that it was still to be found in some parts in October of the same
year. Poland was attacked about the same time as Hungary. Here it is
said many of the nobility died. There seemed no help for the daily
misfortunes. The sickness rendered desolate not alone numberless
houses, but even towns and villages.[102] [p065]
It has been already pointed out that the pestilence had reached
Neuberg, in Styria, by the autumn of the year 1348. It was only the
following year, about the feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24th,
1349, that such a plague as never before was either heard or seen was
raging in Vienna.
It commenced seemingly about Easter time, and lasted till St.
Michael's, and a third part of the population was carried off by
it.[103] Each day there died 500 or 600, and one day 960.[104]
The dead were buried in trenches, each of which, according to one
chronicle, contained some 6,000 corpses. The parish of St. Stephen
lost 54 ecclesiastics during the course of the epidemic, and when it
passed some 70 families were found to be entirely extinct, whilst
the property of many more had passed into the hands of very distant
relations.
Another account declares that in the city and neighbourhood barely a
third of the population survived. "Because of the odour, and horror
inspired by the dead bodies, burials in the church cemeteries were
not allowed; but as soon as life was extinct the corpses were carried
out of the city to a common burial-place (called) 'God's acre.' There
the deep and broad pits were quickly filled to the top with the dead.
And this plague lasted from Pentecost to St. Michael's; and not alone
in Vienna, but in the surrounding country it raged with great fury.
It spared not the monks and the nuns, for in (the Cistercian Abbey
of) Heiligenkreuz 53 religious at the same time passed out of this
life."[105]
In Bohemia the winter cold apparently put a stop to the sickness at
its commencement. "The mortality commenced to be severe in Bohemia,
but the recent cold and snow stayed it." However, "in the year 1350
the plague again [p066] devastated various countries, and then in
Bohemia likewise it was to be found."[106]
The wave of pestilence which passed up the Rhine Valley and attacked
Basle passed on to Colmar, and appeared in Strasburg in July,
1349.[107] At the end of the same year, about December 18th, it had
reached Cologne. "In the first year of archbishop William von Gennep
(who succeeded to the See of that city on the above date) there
was," says the chronicle, "a great pestilence in Cologne and its
neighbourhood."[108]
Meanwhile the wave had divided lower down the valley of the Rhine,
for in the summer of 1349 the plague was raging at Frankfort. "In
that year," writes Caspar Camentz, "from the feast of St. Mary
Magdalene (June 22nd) to the feast of the Purification following
(February 2nd, 1350) the universal pestilence was at Frankfort. In
the space of 72 days more than 2,000 people died. Every second hour
they were buried without bell, priest, or candle. On one day 35 were
buried at one time."[109]
During 1349 and 1350 the pestilence was rife in the towns and country
places of Prussia. In the latter year it attacked Bremen in the far
north, and in the following year the authorities of the city took a
census of the numbers that had been carried off by it. "In the year
of our Lord 1350," the account says, "the plague had gone round the
world and had visited Bremen, and the Council determined to take the
number of the dead, and it was found that of known and named people
there were (entered on the list) in the parish of St. Mary 1,816;
in that of St. Martin, 1,415; in St. Anschar's, 1,922; and in St.
Stephen's, 1,813; moreover, numberless people had died in the fields
beyond [p067] the walls and in cemeteries, the number of whom, as
known and described, reached almost 7,000."[110]
From Flanders, where the pestilence was at Tournay in December, 1349,
as before reported, the epidemic spread into Holland. Here in the
following year its progress was marked by the same great mortality,
especially among those who lived together in monasteries and
convents. "At this time," writes the chronicler, "the plague raged
in Holland as furiously as has ever been seen. People died walking
in the streets. In the Monastery of Fleurchamps 80 died, including
monks and lay brethren. In the Abbey of Foswert, which was a double
monastery for men and women, 207 died, including monks, nuns, lay
brethren, and lay sisters."[111]
This brief review of the progress of the plague in Europe will be
sufficient to show that the mortality and consequent distress were
universal. The northern countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
received the infection from England. As will be seen subsequently,
the northern parts of England were troubled with the epidemic in
the late summer and autumn of 1349, and either from a port on the
eastern coast, or from London, the plague was brought over in a ship.
Lagerbring, a Swedish historian of repute, says that a ship with a
cargo of woollen cloth sailed out of the port of London early in the
summer of 1349.[112] The plague had been very great in the English
capital, and all the crew died whilst the ship was at sea. Driven
about by the winds and currents the fatal bark was cast on the shore
at Bergen, in Norway. The epidemic spread quickly over the entire
country. The Archbishop of Drontheim and all his Chapter, with one
single exception, died, and the survivor was nominated Archbishop.
Most of his suffragans were also carried [p068] off.[113] Several
families who had fled from Bergen to avoid the infection died in the
mountains to which they had retired.
Another Swedish historian states that in the country of West-Gotland
alone 466 priests were swept away by the plague. In that district
then there were about 479 churches, many of which were served by
more than one priest, so that the number given may not be altogether
improbable.[114] It is stated that in Norway there long existed what
were called _Find-dale_—wildernesses—in which were unmistakable
traces of cultivation, and after the plague there is evidence of a
state of exhaustion and a dearth of inhabitants, which lasted for
several generations, so that forests grew where there had once been
churches and villages.
Some interesting particulars may be gathered about the town of Wisby,
on the Isle of Gotland. The annals of the Franciscan convent note
that the plague raged in 1350. In the necrology of the same house
are entered the names of a great number of friars and many novices
who died in this fatal year, and the comparison of one portion of
the necrology with another, in which the names are collected into
groups, shows that the worst time at Wisby was in July, August,
and September, 1350.[115] In all twenty-four friars, a very large
proportion of the convent, appear to have been carried off by the
epidemic. In [p069] the Cathedral of Wisby five sepulchral slabs are
still preserved with the date 1350, whilst of such memorials as have
escaped destruction not more than a single one remains for any other
year.
The King of Sweden, Magnus II., in 1350 addressed letters patent
to his people, wherein he says that "God for the sins of man has
struck the world with this great punishment of sudden death. By it
most of the people in the land to the west of our country (_i.e._,
Norway) are dead. It is now ravaging in Norway and Holland, and is
approaching our kingdom of Sweden." The king therefore summons them
to abstain on every Friday from all food but bread and water, or "at
most to take only bread and ale," to walk with bare feet to their
parish churches, and to go in procession round about the cemeteries
attached to them, carrying with them the holy relics.
In the capital of Sweden, when the plague burst upon the country, it
is recorded that "the streets were strewn with corpses," and among
the victims are named Hacon and Knut, two brothers of the king.
Denmark and Sleswig Holstein suffered from the pestilence at the same
time as Norway and Sweden. In one chronicle it is called "a most
grievous plague of buboes;" in another it is recorded that in the
year 1350 "a great plague and sudden death raged both in the case of
men and in that of cattle."[116] The accounts of the Bishopric of
Roskild, on the Isle of Zealand, about the year 1370, or twenty years
after this plague had passed, show the state of universal desolation
to which the country was reduced. Lands are described as lying idle
and uncultivated, villages and houses desolate and uninhabited.
Property that formerly used to bring in four marks, or 48 "pund," now
produced only 18 "pund." The same story is repeated on almost every
page throughout these long accounts.[117]
A few words only need now be said of the desolation [p070] which
everywhere throughout Europe was naturally the consequence of the
great pestilence. Of North Italy John of Parma writes that "at the
time (1348) labourers could not be got, and the harvest remained
on the fields, since there was none to gather it in."[118] Twenty
years after the pestilence, in 1372, it is said of Mayence that
"it is indubitable and notorious that because of the terrible
character of the pestilence and mortality which suddenly swept away
labourers, copyholders (_parciarios_) and farmers, even the most
robust, labourers are to-day few and rare, for which reason many
fields remain uncultivated and deserted."[119] Again, in 1359, Henry,
Bishop of Constance, impropriated to the monastery of St. Gall, in
Switzerland, the Church of Marbach and others, to enable the abbey
"to keep up its hospitality, bestow alms, and fulfil its other
duties," and he assigns as a reason why it cannot now do this "that
by the epidemic or mortality of people, which by permission of God
has existed in these parts, the number of farmers and other retainers
of both sexes of this abbey, belonging by law of service to the said
monastery, which has passed from this life to the Lord (has been so
great) that many of the possessions of this monastery have remained,
on account of the said death, uncultivated, and no proper return
comes from them."[120]
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Phillippe, _Histoire de la Peste Noire_, p. 54.
[86] _Ibid._, pp. 54-56.
[87] This was a place of pilgrimage on the Amadour, not far from
Toulouse.
[88] _Chronicon majus Ægidii Li Muisis_, ii, 280.
[89] Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland_, p. 21.
[90] Farlati, _Illyricum Sacrum_, iii, p. 324.
[91] Lechner, _ut sup._, p. 22.
[92] _Ibid._
[93] _Ibid._, p. 23.
[94] _Annales Matscenses_ in _Mon. Germ._, ix, 829.
[95] _Annales Mellicenses_, _Ibid._, p. 313.
[96] _Continuatio Novimontensis_, _Ibid._, p. 675.
[97] _Chronicon_, in Muratori, xvi, 361. He places the event under
the year 1347.
[98] _Ibid._, 298.
[99] Lechner, _ut sup._, p. 27.
[100] _Ibid._
[101] _Annales Engelbergenses_, in _Mon. Germ._, xvii, 281.
[102] Dlugoss, _Historia Polonica_, in Philippe, _ut sup._, p. 94.
[103] _Kalendarium Zwetlense_, in _Mon. Germ._, ix, 692.
[104] _Annales Matscenses_, _Ibid._, 829.
[105] _Continuatio Novimontensis_, _Ibid._, 675.
[106] _Chronicon Pragense_, ed. Loserth (in _Fontes rerum
Austriacarum_, _Scriptores_, t. viii) p. 603.
[107] Lechner, _ut sup._, p. 35.
[108] _Ibid._, p. 38.
[109] Boehmer, _Fontes rerum Germ._, iv, 434.
[110] Hoeniger (R.), _Der schwarze Tod in Deutschland_ (Berlin,
1882), p. 26.
[111] Philippe, _ut sup._, p. 124.
[112] _Historia_, iii, 406.
[113] Finn Jonsson, _Hist. eccl. Islandiæ_, ii, p. 198, says that
most of the Bishops died, and that Ormus, Bishop of Holar, in
Iceland, who happened then to be in Norway, _solus fere evasit_. It
appears that the archbishopric of Nidaros, or Drontheim, at that time
comprised seven sees. Changes appear in six of these at this time,
including Drontheim and Bergen; and of Solomon, Bishop of Oslo, it
is said that "he was the only Bishop who survived the plague" (Gams,
_Series Episcoporum_, 336). The same account is given in the monastic
chronicles of Iceland (_Ftateyjarbok_, iii, p. 562).
[114] Henric Jacob Sirers, _Historisk Beskrifning om then Pesten_, p.
23.
[115] Langebeck, _Scriptores rerum Danicarum_, vi, 564. I am indebted
for much assistance in all that regards the plague in the north of
Europe to Dr. Lindstrom, of the Riksmusei, Stockholm. He kindly
examined for me the original MS. of the Franciscan Necrology at Wisby.
[116] Langebeck, _ut sup._, i, 307, 395.
[117] _Ibid._, vii, p. 2, _et seqq._
[118] Pezzana, _Storia di Parma_, i, 52.
[119] Henricus de Hervordia, _Chronicon_ ed. Potthast, 274.
[120] Lechner, _ut sup._, p. 73.
[p071]