The Black Death: History's Darkest Chapter

Crimea, 1347

Following years of conflict, the Golden Horde has the port city of Caffa surrounded. Supply routes into Caffa are cut off and attacks against the city walls are launched regularly, leading to a brutal siege that lasts for two whole years. However, just when things are starting to look hopeless, the Golden Horde is suddenly hit with a wave of illness as thousands of soldiers come down with the dreaded bubonic plague. With scorching fevers, intense vomiting, and tell-tale boils erupting on their skin, the attacking forces are so devastated by the lethal sickness that they are forced to leave, and the siege is lifted.

However, before retreating, the Khan of the Golden Horde orders plague-infected corpses to be catapulted over the city walls in one final act of vengeance. The Genoese inside the city respond quickly to this early form of biological warfare, rushing to throw the corpses into the sea, but it is too late. As citizens of Caffa began showing symptoms, everyone’s fears are confirmed, the plague is inside the town.

Hoping to escape the impending epidemic, four Genoese ships fled the city, sailing across the Black Sea to Constantinople, and unwittingly carrying the plague with them in the process. It was from here, in the summer of 1347, that the plague made its way into Europe, leading to a pandemic that would kill tens of millions, decimate entire cities, and forever change the history of the world.

The Outbreak

In Constantinople, the plague spread throughout the city at a rapid pace, even taking the life of the Byzantine emperor’s young son. But it wouldn’t stop here. Once again carried aboard Genoese ships, the disease arrived in Sicily.

Once it was realized that the ships’ crews were infected, they were expelled from Sicily, but by the time they realized their mistake, the island was already engulfed in plague, and expelling the ships only propelled the death further. Outbreaks soon followed in Pisa and Venice, and by the following year they’d even made it to France as one of the galleys made landing in Marseilles. By this point, there was no stopping the disease, and it spread like wildfire, racing upwards through Western Europe, before turning east through Germany, Scandinavia, and even all the way to Russia.

Nearly the entire continent was infected, and as waves of people dropped dead in the streets, panic spread just as fast as the plague itself.

The Symptoms

The symptoms of the Black Death are nothing short of horrifying. These are usually broken up into three categories, the first of which is the most well-known, bubonic plague. Bubonic symptoms include piercing headaches, nausea, vomiting, and aching joints, accompanied by a high fever, which could reach blistering temperatures of 41 degrees Celsius or 106 degrees Fahrenheit. On the surface, this might just sound like a really bad flu, but it gets much worse.

Alongside these symptoms was the common appearance of buboes, a type of swollen lymph node that turned dark, bled, and oozed pus, commonly growing in the armpits or the edges of the groin and thighs, but often spread across the chest, face, neck, and arms. Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio described these lumps as growing to the size of eggs in some patients, and as large as apples in others. But no matter the size, shape, or color, on everyone who experienced them, these growths were a clear indication that the disease had taken full control of the body, and death was just around the corner. Left untreated, as most were during the Black Death, bubonic plague kills 80% of those infected within just 8 days of showing symptoms.

But the disease becomes even deadlier if it infects your respiratory system. This is known as pneumonic plague, which occurs as a result of the bacteria infecting your lungs and throat. Along with the previously named symptoms, those suffering from pneumonic plague will develop a cough, which will often spew blood. Pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of between 90 and 95 percent, and can kill its victims so quickly that they don’t even have time to develop the tell-tale swollen lumps.

And finally, there is septicemic plague. This is an infection of the blood, and can result in difficulty breathing, gangrene of the extremities, bleeding from the mouth, and organ failure. This is the rarest of the three types of symptoms, and if left untreated has a mortality rate of 100%.

Failed Treatments and Prevention

As these symptoms exploded across Europe, physicians had no clue how to even begin treating it. They tried bloodletting, drinking rose water, the ingestion of precious metals like gold, or even snake venom, along with some even stranger treatments, such as the Vicary Method, which involved strapping a live chicken to the patient. When the chicken began showing signs of the plague, it was removed and replaced with a fresh chicken. Their idea was that the chickens were drawing the plague out of the person, like a sponge soaking up water, but in hindsight we know that they were just unnecessarily infecting farm animals.

Without the knowledge of microbes, the transmission of the plague was another mystery to doctors at the time, and they took some interesting efforts to prevent its spread. The most iconic of these are the long robes and plague doctor masks with the long beaks. The ends of these beaks would be filled with scented herbs and perfumes, which not only masked the stench of rotting corpses and infected open wounds, but was also believed to help prevent the wearer from catching the plague at all.

But none of this really helped, and those who treated the sick had some of the highest rates of infection due to exposure. The black death tore through city after city, leaving millions of dead in its wake. It wasn’t uncommon for more than half of an entire city to perish in just a year from the plague, for instance, half the population of Paris died, along with 60% of Hamburg and London, and as much as 80% of Florence.

The number of bodies was so extreme that in some places they couldn’t even be buried, and in others they were hastily piled into mass graves containing thousands of corpses. Unfortunately, many of these mass graves were too shallow, allowing dogs to dig out infected bodies and drag them around the city, only spreading the bacteria further. Bocaccio wrote that there were so many victims that most died without ever even being seen by a doctor, only alerting their neighbors to their affliction when the stench of their rotting corpse began seeping from their house.

“They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ship’s hold and covered with a little earth”

One can only imagine the horror at this time, hearing rumors for months about a mysterious illness only to watch with fear as those around you begin showing symptoms and dying within days. The hopelessness of the whole situation was described in vivid detail by Italian shoemaker Agnolo di Tura, who wrote:

“Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices … great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead.

And they died by the hundreds both day and night … And I, Agnolo di Tura … buried my five children with my own hands. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.”

Almost every corner of Europe was hit with the disease at one point or another, with the only places being fully spared including some remote parts of modern-day Spain and Hungary, along with small, scattered mountain settlements. Essentially, if your population center had any sort of contact with other cities, the plague would inevitably reach you. Normally, you’d expect the countryside to be much safer during such an event, but even farms were hit hard since the plague had the ability to infect and spread through livestock, which had the added effect of making food even scarcer than it already was.

The Black Death ravaged Europe for about seven years before finally tapering off. The plague wouldn’t return in strong form for a few decades, and would never again come close to this level of devastation.

The Death Toll

As for how many total deaths occurred during these few years, the estimates vary wildly. Some historians believe that 30% of the population of Europe was killed, while others assert that the number is as high as 60%. Taking the averages of most estimates, the death toll in Europe was likely somewhere in the ballpark of 30 to 40 million.

But remember, while Europe was the continent that was hit the hardest by the plague, and is generally considered to be the geographical region associated with the Black Death, the bubonic plague was also actively spreading in other parts of the world at this time. Cairo, for instance, lost an estimated 250,000 lives to the plague in less than a year, with Egypt as a whole losing about 40% of its population, and the middle east and much of North Africa falling not far behind at an estimated loss of 30% of their populations.

Census records were not very reliable at the time, especially in rural areas, but estimates for the total number of deaths from Europe to China, and everything in between, range from 75 million all the way to the high-end estimates reaching the jaw-dropping figure of 200 million.

Pointing the Blame

The Black Death was not only a time of historically catastrophic levels of death, but also confusion. The people at the time had absolutely no clue what could be causing the disease, how to treat it, or how it spread. Thanks to modern science, we know that the culprit is the bacterium Yersinia Pestis, who got passed around through a few different vectors. The most well-known method of transmission are infected fleas that hitch a ride on animals, such as rats, and leap onto new hosts, but the disease could also be passed directly from person to person through physical contact or through respiratory droplets.

One thing that really primed urban Europe to be smashed by the plague was the general lack of hygiene. Obviously, they didn’t know about bacteria, so they weren’t regularly washing and disinfecting their hands, but it’s much worse than this. Densely populated cities at the time were nothing short of filthy, with animals wandering the streets, human waste being dumped wherever it was convenient, and well, let’s just say that bathing was far from an everyday occurrence. In fact, in some places in France, the streets were so nasty that a few were even named after merde, the French word for ‘shit’, including rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, and many more. Essentially, these cities were just massive petri dishes, ideal for propagating Yersinia Pestis at a rapid pace. On top of this, the immune systems of many people were quite poor, due to a lack of proper nutrition, making it even easier for the infection to take hold and turn lethal.

But again, people at the time didn’t know any of this, and so they looked elsewhere to point the blame. One commonly held belief was that the Black Death was a punishment sent from God to destroy the wicked, and could be cured through sufficient repentance. The most extreme of these believers were called flagellants, people who would wander from town to town whipping themselves to atone for the world’s sins, hoping to speed up the process of forgiveness and end the plague a little bit sooner. Ironically though, their travels between cities only served to spread the bacteria further.

Others turned to astrological forces, hoping to find some sort of mystical solution in the stars. Then, there were others, who pinned the blame on minorities. All across the continent, the arrival of the plague was blamed on various groups, such as Romani, and their communities began to be violently targeted.

As is often seen throughout history, Jews were especially blamed, with many believing that they had been poisoning wells in an attempt to wipe out other ethnicities and take over Europe. As a result, several massacres erupted across the continent, including the Strassbourg Massacre, where more than 2,000 Jews were publicly burned to death. Though ethnic groups weren’t the only ones to take some of the blame, as people with skin conditions were also targeted, such as lepers, or people with severe acne.

In Cairo, the sultan was told that the plague was “punishment for the sin of fornication” and in response a law was implemented banning women from appearing in public as to not tempt men. This law was soon lifted, however, when nobles complained that their servants, primarily women, could no longer shop for them.

Of course, none of this had any effect on the spread of the disease, and after each eruption, communities simply turned to the next scapegoat, desperate to find anyone or anything to blame for what must have felt like the end of the world.

Humanity in Ruins

It would take decades, or even centuries in some places, for the population of affected areas to recover to their pre-plague levels. Many small villages were completely wiped out and reclaimed by nature, not to be rediscovered for many years.

However, these weren’t the only consequences of such a world-changing event. Monarchs across the continent struggled to keep their economies in balance during the plague, and began instituting various laws such as a complete ban on grain exports. However, this didn’t have the desired effects, only forcing pirates and looters to smuggle food into ports, and led to places like England facing a grain shortage and added hunger problems.

All of this meant that nations were dipping into their treasuries, causing rapid inflation. These harsh economic conditions likely contributed to many of the wars that would soon follow after the plague had left.

But as strange as it may sound, there were some who ultimately found some benefits in this dark time, primarily the peasants and working class. The massive population loss saw land open up all across Europe, with many land and business owners dying, abandoning their property, or paying remarkably higher wages, desperate to replenish their workers. The poorer classes of society suddenly found themselves in a more favorable position, with more negotiating power in terms of living conditions. And as more farmland was taken by new owners and livestock, the average consumption of meat and dairy skyrocketed, improving health and earning solid wages.

However, the wealthy weren’t about to let their power slip away so easily. Laws were soon passed around Europe to keep the poor in their place, such as banning them from certain styles of clothing to keep the rich distinct in appearance, and fixing their wages to keep them from having such sudden social mobility. In England, this came in the form of the 1351 Statute of Labourers, which forbade any peasant from asking for wages higher than they had received in 1346, before the Black Death. Ultimately, this led to a Peasant’s Revolt in which the Tower of London was sacked.

But while the wealthy did their best to stay in power, living conditions in general did start to improve once everyone had recovered. Recurrent waves of the plague would arrive over the coming decades, but increased immunity in the population meant that these later waves had far less of an effect. Slowly but surely, the world recovered.

But Yersinia Pestis never went away for good. Cases of the plague are still regularly reported in places like the Congo and Madagascar, and while these are generally treatable with antibiotics if caught soon enough, there have been documented cases of antibiotic resistant Yersinia Pestis, leading many to label it as a reemerging disease, one that still may pose a serious threat to our world in the modern age if we don’t take it seriously.

Key Takeaways

• The Black Death originated in Crimea in 1347, spreading to Europe via Genoese ships.
• The plague had three main forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic, each with high mortality rates.
• Medieval treatments for the plague were ineffective, including bloodletting and using live chickens.
• The Black Death killed an estimated 30-40 million people in Europe, with global deaths up to 200 million.
• The plague led to significant social and economic changes, including labor shortages and increased wages.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the initial location of the Black Death outbreak?

The Black Death initially started in Crimea in 1347, where the Golden Horde besieged the port city of Caffa.

How did the Black Death spread to Europe?

The Black Death spread to Europe via Genoese ships that fled from Caffa to Constantinople, carrying the plague with them.

What are the three main types of plague symptoms described?

The three main types of plague symptoms are bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague.

What were some of the ineffective treatments tried during the Black Death?

Some ineffective treatments included bloodletting, drinking rose water, ingesting precious metals like gold, snake venom, and the Vicary Method involving live chickens.

How did the Black Death affect the population of Europe?

The Black Death is estimated to have killed between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population, with estimates ranging from 30 to 40 million deaths.

What were some of the misconceptions about the cause of the Black Death?

Some misconceptions included the belief that the plague was a punishment from God, astrological influences, and the blame placed on minorities such as Romani and Jews.

How did the Black Death impact the economy and social structure?

The Black Death led to economic instability, inflation, and social unrest. However, it also provided opportunities for the working class to improve their living conditions and wages.

What was the long-term impact of the Black Death on Europe?

The Black Death took decades or even centuries for affected areas to recover their pre-plague population levels. It also led to improved living conditions and recurrent waves of the plague with less severe effects due to increased immunity.

Is the Black Death still a threat today?

Cases of the plague are still reported in places like the Congo and Madagascar. While treatable with antibiotics, there have been documented cases of antibiotic-resistant Yersinia Pestis, making it a reemerging disease.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: The Black Death: History’s Darkest Chapter
• Hero image source by Qypchak / openverse, by-sa.

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