THE BLACK DEATH

[Jonesie]

Black Death
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Black Death in literature

Contemporary

The spectre of the Black Death dominated art and literature throughout the generation that experienced it. Much of the most useful manifestations of the Black Death in literature, to historians, comes from the accounts of its chroniclers, often the only real way to get a sense of the horror of living through a disaster on such a scale. A few were famous writers, philosophers and rulers (like Boccaccio and Petrarch), but most were quite ordinary people who happened to work in a job requiring literacy, a rare talent. For example, Agnolo di Tura, of Siena, records his experience:

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 as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug ... And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. 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. This situation continued [from May] until September.

The scene Di Tura describes is repeated over and over again all across Europe. In Sicily, Gabriele de'Mussi, a notary, tells of the early spread from Crimea:

Alas! our ships enter the port, but of a thousand sailors hardly ten are spared. We reach our homes; our kindred…come from all parts to visit us. Woe to us for we cast at them the darts of death! …Going back to their homes, they in turn soon infected their whole families, who in three days succumbed, and were buried in one common grave. Priests and doctors visiting…from their duties ill, and soon were…dead. O death! cruel, bitter, impious death! …Lamenting our misery, we feared to fly, yet we dared not remain.

Henry Knighton tells of the plague’s coming to England:

Then the grievous plague came to the sea coasts from Southampton, and came to Bristol, and it was as if all the strength of the town had died, as if they had been hit with sudden death, for there were few who stayed in their beds more than three days, or two days, or even one half a day.

Friar John Clyn wittnessed its effects in Leinster, after its spread to Ireland in August 1348:

That disease entirely stripped vills, cities, castles and towns of inhabitaints of men, so that scarcely anyone would be able to live in them. The plague was so contagious that thous touching the dead or even the sick were immediately infected and died, and the one confessing and the confessor were together led to the grave ... many died from carbuncles and from ulcers and pustles that could be seen on shins and under the armpits; some died, as if in a frenzy, from pain of the head, others from spitting blood ... In the convent of Minors of Drogheda, twenty five, and in Dublin in the same order, twenty three died ... These cities of Dublin and Drogheda were almost destroyed and wasted of inhabitants and men so that in Dublin alone, from the beginning of August right up to Christmas, fourteen thousand men (i.e., people) died ... The pestilence gathered strength in Kilkenny during Lent, for between Christmas day and 6 March, eight Friars Preachers died. There was scarcely a house in which only one died but commonly man and wife with their children and family going one way, namely, crossing to death."

In addition to these personal accounts, many presentations of the Black Death have entered the general consciousness as great literature. For example, the major works of Boccaccio (The Decameron), Petrarch, Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales), and William Langland (Piers Plowman), which all discuss the Black Death, are generally recognized as some of the best works of their era.

La Danse Macabre, or the Dance of death, is an allegory on the universality of death, expressing the common wisdom of the time: that no matter one's station in life, the dance of death united all. It consists of the personified Death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave — typically with an emperor, king, pope, monk, youngster, beautiful girl, all in skeleton-state. They were produced under the impact of the Black Death, reminding people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life. The earliest artistic example is from the frescoed cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris (1424). There are also works by Konrad Witz in Basel (1440), Bernt Notke in Lübeck (1463) and woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger (1538). Israil Bercovici claims that the Danse Macabre originated among Sephardic Jews in fourteenth century Spain (Bercovici, 1992, p. 27).

The poem "The Rattle Bag" by the Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym (1315-1350 or 1340-1370) has many elements that suggest that it was written as a reflection of the hardships he endured during the Black Death. It also reflects his personal belief that the Black Death was the end of humanity, the Apocalypse, as suggested by his multiple biblical references, particularly the events described in Revelations.

Adieu, farewell earths blisse,
This world uncertaine is,
Fond are lifes lustful joyes,
Death proves them all but toyes,
None from his darts can flye;
I am sick, I must dye:
Lord, have mercy on us.


Thomas Nashe also wrote a sonnet about the Plague entitled "A Litany in Time of Plague" which was part of Summers last will and Testament (1592). He made countryside visits to remove himself from London in fear of the Plague.

Additionally see Aleksandr Pushkin's verse play, "Feast in the Time of the Plague", and Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)—some consider this possibly fictional because it was published nearly fifty years after the event, others argue that books took a long time to get to press in those days and he could have used a lot of firsthand source material in its writing.

The Black Death quickly entered common folklore in many European countries. In Northern Europe, the plague was personalized as an old, bent woman covered and hooded in black, carrying a broom and a rake. Norwegians told that if she used the rake, some of the population involved might survive, escaping through the teeth of the rake. If she on the other hand used the broom, then the entire population in the area were doomed. The Plague-hag, or Pesta, were vividly drawn by the painter Theodor Kittelsen.


Modern

The Black Death has been used as a subject or as a setting in modern literature and media. This may be due to the era's resounding impact on ancient and modern history, and its symbolism and connotations.

Alessandro Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) is also noted for the extraordinary description of the plague that struck Milan in 1630.

Albert Camus's novel La Peste deals with the coming of a plague to Algeria.

Roger Zelazny's novel Nine Princes in Amber has his protagonist abducted from his birthland and taken to plague-torn England to die.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Masque of the Red Death (1842) is set in an unnamed country during a fictional plague that bears strong resemblance to the Black Death.

Connie Willis's Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Doomsday Book imagines a future in which historians do field work by travelling into the past as observers. The protagonist, a historian, is sent to the wrong year, arriving in England just as the Black Death is starting. Likewise, Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt presents a future dramatically changed by the Black Death, in which Christian Europe was almost completely destroyed and played no major role in future history. Also in Michael Crichton's book Timeline, a character is transported through time to a city that is apparently affected by the Black Death.

Temple of the Winds, the fourth book in the fantasy series The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, centers around a plague that is very similar to the Black Death.

It has been alleged (since 1961) that the Black Death inspired one of the most enduring nursery rhymes in the English language, Ring a Ring O'Roses, a pocket full of posies, / Ashes, ashes (or ah-tishoo ah-tishoo), we all fall down. However, this seems to be a myth. There are no written records of the rhyme before the late 19th century and not all of its many variants refer to ashes, sneezing, falling down or anything else that could be connected to the Black Death.

The relatively new medium of film has given writers and film producers an opportunity to portray the plague with more visual realism. One of the best known and most expansive depictions of the black plague as art is the movie classic The Seventh Seal, a 1957 film directed by Ingmar Bergman. The knight returns from the Crusades and finds that his home country is ravaged by the Black Death. To his dismay, he discovers that Death has come for him too. The final scene of The Seventh Seal depicts a kind of Danse Macabre. The 1988 science fiction film The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey portrayed a group of 14th-century English villagers who dig a tunnel to 20th-century New Zealand, with the aid of a boy's vision, to escape the Black Death.

The Black Metal band 1349 is named after the year the Black Death spread through Norway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Causes

[sharon sanders]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH

"..reminding people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life..."


We all can take a lesson from the past.

[Jonesie]

THE BLACK DEATH - BSU

History of Western Civilization
E.L. Skip Knox
Boise State University

The Black Death

Introduction

The Black Death serves as a convenient divider between the central and the late Middle Ages. The changes between the two periods are numerous; they include the introduction of gunpowder, increased importance of cities, economic and demographic crises, political dislocation and realignment, and powerful new currents in culture and religion. Overall, the later Middle Ages are usually characterized as a period of crisis and trouble. The portrait should not be painted unrelievedly bleak, but the tone is accurate enough and echoes voices from the era itself.

The Black Death did not cause the crisis, for evidence of the changes can be seen well before 1347. But the plague exacerbated problems and added new ones, and the tone of crisis is graver in the second half than in the first half of the century. Standing at the century's mid-point, the plague serves as a convenient demarcation.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/01.shtml

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Origins of the Plague

The Black Death erupted in the Gobi Desert in the late 1320s. No one really knows why. The plague bacillus was alive and active long before that; indeed Europe itself had suffered an epidemic in the 6th century. But the disease had lain relatively dormant in the succeeding centuries. We know that the climate of Earth began to cool in the 14th century, and perhaps this so-called little Ice Age had something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, we know that the outbreak began there and spread outward. While it did go west, it spread in every direction, and the Asian nations suffered as cruelly as anywhere. In China, for example, the population dropped from around 125 million to 90 million over the course of the 14thc.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/02.shtml

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The Plague Approaches Europe

The plague moved along the caravan routes toward the West. By 1345 the plague was on the lower Volga River. By 1346 it was in the Caucasus and the Crimea. By 1347 it was in Constantinople.

It hit Alexandria in the autumn of that year, and by spring 1348, a thousand people a day were dying there. In Cairo the count was seven times that.

The disease travelled by ship as readily as by land ?more readily? and it was no sooner in the eastern Mediterranean than it was in the western end as well. Already in 1347, the plague had hit Sicily.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/03.shtml

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Arrival in the West

It reached Cyprus late in summer 1347. In Oct. 1347, a Genoese fleet landed at Messina, Sicily. By winter it was in Italy.

January 1348, the plague was in Marseilles. It reached Paris in the spring 1348 and England in September 1348.

Moving along the Rhine trade routes, the plague reached Germany in 1348, and the Low Countries the same year. 1348 was the worst of the plague years.

It took longer to reach the periphery of Europe. Norway was hit in May 1349. The eastern European countries were not reached until 1350, and Russia not until 1351.

Because the disease tended to follow trade routes, and to concentrate in cities, it followed a circuitous route: the Near East, the western Mediterranean, then into northern Europe and finally back into Russia. The progress of the plague very neatly describes the geography of medieval trade.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/04.shtml

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About the Disease

What was this disease? Bubonic plague is the medical term. It is a bacillus, an organism, most usually carried by rodents. Fleas infest the animal (rats, but other rodents as well), and these fleas move freely over to human hosts.

The flea then regurgitates the blood from the rat into the human, infecting the human. The rat dies. The human dies. The flea's stomach gets blocked and it eventually dies of starvation. It's a grim disease for everyone.

Symptoms include high fevers and aching limbs and vomiting of blood. Most characteristic is a swelling of the lymph nodes. These glands can be found in the neck, armpits and groin. The swelling protrudes and is easily visible; its blackish coloring gives the disease its name: the Black Death.

The swellings continue to expand until they eventually burst, with death following soon after. The whole process, from first symptoms of fever and aches, to final expiration, lasts only three or four days. The swiftness of the disease, the terrible pain, the grotesque appearance of the victims, all served to make the plague especially terrifying.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/05.shtml

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Forms of the Disease

Bubonic plague is usually fatal, though not inevitably so. Today, we have drugs that can cure it, if administered in time. But if the victim is already at risk, through malnutrition or other illness, it is more deadly. There were plenty of people in the 1340s who were at risk.

Even so, historians have been hard pressed to explain the extraordinary mortality of the 1348 outbreak. Our best guess is that there was more than one variety of plague at work in Europe.

There are two other varieties of plague: septicaemic plague, which attacks the blood, and pneumonic plague, which attacks the lungs. The latter is especially dangerous as it can be transmitted through the air. Both these two are nearly 100% fatal.

It seems likely that some form of pneumonic plague was at work alongside the bubonic plague in those awful years. But the many accounts we have describe mainly the bubonic form. The next two pages are two contemporary accounts of the plague.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/06.shtml

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A Description of the Plague

This first account is from Messina, and it described the arrival and initial progress of the disease.

At the beginning of October, in the year of the incarnation of the Son of God 1347, twelve Genoese galleys . . . entered the harbor of Messina. In their bones they bore so virulent a disease that anyone who only spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could evade death. The infection spread to everyone who had any contact with the diseased. Those infected felt themselves penetrated by a pain throughout their whole bodies and, so to say, undermined. Then there developed on the thighs or upper arms a boil about the size of a lentil which the people called "burn boil". This infected the whole body, and penetrated it so that the patient violently vomited blood. This vomiting of blood continued without intermission for three days, there being no means of healing it, and then the patient expired.
Not only all those who had speech with them died, but also those who had touched or used any of their things. When the inhabitants of Messina discovered that this sudden death emanated from the Genoese ships they hurriedly ordered them out of the harbor and town. But the evil remained and caused a fearful outbreak of death. Soon men hated each other so much that if a son was attacked by the disease his father would not tend him. If, in spite of all, he dared to approach him, he was immediately infected and was bound to die within three days. Nor was this all; all those dwelling in the same house with him, even the cats and other domestic animals, followed him in death. As the number of deaths increased in Messina many desired to confess their sins to the priests and to draw up their last will and testament. But ecclesiastics, lawyers and notaries refused to enter the houses of the diseased.

Soon the corpses were lying forsaken in the houses. No ecclesiastic, no son, no father and no relation dared to enter, but they hired servants with high wages to bury the dead. The houses of the deceased remained open with all their valuables, gold and jewels. . . . When the catastrophe had reached its climax the Messinians resolved to emigrate. One portion of them settled in the vineyards and fields, but a larger portion sought refuge in the town of Catania. The disease clung to the fugitives and accompanied them everywhere where they turned in search of help. Many of the fleeing fell down by the roadside and dragged themselves into the fields and bushes to expire. Those who reached Catania breathed their last in the hospitals there. The terrified citizens would not permit the burying of fugitives from Messina within the town, and so they were all thrown into deep trenches outside the walls.

Thus the people of Messina dispersed over the whole island of Sicily and with them the disease, so that innumerable people died. The town of Catania lost all its inhabitants, and ultimately sank into complete oblivion. Here not only the "burn blisters" appeared, but there developed gland boils on the groin, the thighs, the arms, or on the neck. At first these were of the size of a hazel nut, and developed accompanied by violent shivering fits, which soon rendered those attacked so weak that they could not stand up, but were forced to lie in their beds consumed by violent fever. Soon the boils grew to the size of a walnut, then to that of a hen's egg or a goose's egg, and they were exceedingly painful, and irritated the body, causing the sufferer to vomit blood. The sickness lasted three days, and on the fourth, at the latest, the patient succumbed. As soon as anyone in Catania was seized with a headache and shivering, he knew that he was bound to pass away within the specified time. . . . When the plague had attained its height in Catania, the patriarch endowed all ecclesiastics, even the youngest, with all priestly powers for the absolution of sin which he himself possessed as bishop and patriarch. But the pestilence raged from October 1347 to April 1348. The patriarch himself was one of the last to be carried off. He died fulfilling his duty. At the same time, Duke Giovanni, who had carefully avoided every infected house and every patient, died.

This account is from Michael Platiensis (1357), quoted in Johannes Nohl, The Black Death, trans. C.H. Clarke (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1926), pp. 18-20.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/07.shtml

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Another Description
From Agnolo di Tura, of Siena:

"The mortality in Siena began in May. It was a cruel and horrible thing. . . . It seemed that almost everyone became stupefied seeing the pain. It is impossible for the human tongue to recount the awful truth. Indeed, one who did not see such horribleness can be called blessed. The victims died almost immediately. They would swell beneath the armpits and in the groin, and fall over while talking. Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through breath and sight. And so they died. 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. In many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in those ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug. I, Agnolo di Tura . . . buried my five children with my own hands. . . . And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world."

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/08.shtml

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Official Reactions

Contrary to what you might think, the reaction from public officials, and from many churchmen, was that this calamity was not the vengeance of God upon a sinful world but was a disease. Authorities took what steps they could to deal with it, but of course their effectiveness was limited.

Cities were hardest hit and tried to take measures to control an epidemic no one understood. In Milan, to take one of the most successful examples, city officials immediately walled up houses found to have the plague, isolating the healthy in them along with the sick.

Venice took sophisticated and stringent quarantine and health measures, including isolating all incoming ships on a separate island. But people died anyway, though fewer in Milan and Venice than in cities that took no such measures.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/09.shtml

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Medical Measures

When the government acts to prevent or control a calamity, but the calamity persists, people turn to other cures. Many believed that the disease was transmitted upon the air, probably because the smell from the dead and dying was so awful. So, the living turned to scents to ward off the deadly vapors.

People burned all manner of incense: juniper, laurel, pine, beech, lemon leaves, rosemary, camphor, sulpher and others Handkerchiefs were dipped in aromatic oils, to cover the face when going out.

The cure of sound was another remedy. Towns rang church bells to drive the plague away, for the ringing of town bells was done in crises of all kinds. Other towns fired cannons, which were new and which made comfortingly loud din.

And there was to end of talismans, charms and spells that could be purchased from the local wise woman or apothecary. People were desperate for a cure and would try anything, no matter how outlandish or strange.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/10.shtml

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Learned Opinion

The cause of the disease was a matter of concern to many. Popular opinion did view the plague as a scourge from God, for the times were indeed out of joint. This was mere vulgar opinion, however, and the learned knew better than to believe it. But what, then, was the source of the plague?

The pope sent to Paris to obtain the opinions of the medical faculty there in 1348. They studied the problem for a time and returned a report. The good professors opined that the disaster was caused by a particularly unfortunate conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the sign of Aquarius that had occurred in 1345. This conjunction cause hot, moist conditions, which cause the earth to exhale poisonous vapors.

The report went on to recommend steps to keep safe from the disease. This, in part, was their prescription:

No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. . . . It is injurious to sleep during the daytime. . . . Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious . . . and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly. . . . Bathing is dangerous. . . .
In time, other writings appeared from the pens of educated men on the best ways to avoid the plague. From Italy came this advice:
In the first instance, no man should think of death. . . . Nothing should distress him, but all his thoughts should be directed to pleasing, agreeable and delicious things. . . . Beautiful landscapes, fine gardens should be visited, particularly when aromatic plants are flowering. . . . Listening to beautiful, melodious songs is wholesome. . . . The contemplating of gold and silver and other precious stones is comforting to the heart.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/11.shtml

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Avoidance

In truth, about the only action that was effective was quarantine--simply staying far enough away that no fleas could reach you. Avoiding the sick was a natural enough instinct.

In Germany, there was a bishop who during mass offered the host at the end of a pole or on a long-handled spoon. The wealthy would flee to the countryside. Pope Clement VI, living at Avignon, sat between two large fires to breath pure air. The plague bacillus actually is destroyed by heat, so this was one of the few truly effective measures taken.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/12.shtml

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The Flagellants

If the plague was a manifestation of divine anger, then Christians should do all they could to assuage that anger. From this simple impulse came the flagellants: bands of people who wandered through towns and countryside doing penance in public. They inflicted all sort of punishments upon themselves, trying to atone for the evil of the world, sacrificing themselves for the world's sins in imitation of Jesus.

Society generally wondered at them and did not approve. The flagellants showed a tendency to kill Jews they encountered, and even killed clergymen who spoke against them. In October 1349 the pope condemned them and ordered all authorities to suppress them. But flagellants reappeared in times of plague well into the fifteenth century.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/13.shtml

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Descriptions of the Flagellants

Here are a couple of descriptions of the flagellants from contemporary chroniclers. The first is from Jean de Venette.

While the plague was still active and spreading from town to town, men in Germany, Flanders, Hainault and Lorraine uprose and began a new sect on their own authority. Stripped to the waist, they gathered in large groups and bands and marched in procession throught the crossroads and squares of cities and good towns. They formed circles and beat upon their backs with weighted scourges, rejoicing as they did so in loud voices and singing hymns suitable to their rite and newly composed for it. Thus, for 33 days they marched through many towns doing penance and affording a great spectacle to the wondering people. They flogged their shoulders and arms, scourged with iron points so zealously as to draw blood."

This second account is from the medieval historian Jean Froissart, from his history of the Hundred Years' War.

...the penitents went about, coming first out of Germany. They were men who did public penance and scourged themselves with whips of hard knotted leather with little iron spikes. Some made themselves bleed very badly between the shoulder blades and some foolish women had cloths ready to catch the blood and smear it on their eyes, saying it was miraculous blood. While they were doing penance, they sang very mournful songs about nativity and the passion of Our Lord. The object of this penance was to put a stop to the mortality, for in that time . . . at least a third of all the people in the world died.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/14.shtml

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Population Loss

Froissart's estimate of the population loss was about right, which is ironic because Froissart wildly exaggerated numbers in almost all his accounts. But the best of many revised estimates still put the overall population loss in Europe at about one-third.

This bears re-stating. The plague came to Europe in the fall of 1347. By 1350 it had largely passed out of western Europe. In the space of two years, one out of every three people was dead. Nothing like that has happened before or since.

These general numbers disguise the uneven nature of the epidemic. Some areas suffered little, others suffered far more. Here are some examples.

Between 45% and 75% of Florence died in a single year. One-third died in the first six months. Its entire economic system collapsed for a time.

In Venice, which kept excellent records, 60% died over the course of 18 months: five hundred to six hundred a day at the height.

Certain professions suffered higher mortality, especially those whose duties brought them into contact with the sick--doctors and clergy. In Montpellier, only seven of 140 Dominican friars survived. In Perpignan, only one of nine physicians survived, and two of eighteen barber-surgeons.

The death rate at Avignon was fifty percent and was even higher among the clergy. One-third of the cardinals died. Clement VI had to consecrate the Rhone River so corpses could be sunk in it, for there was neither time nor room to bury them.

Long-term population loss is also instructive. Urban populations recovered quickly, in some cases within a couple of years, through immigration from the countryside because of increased opportunities in the cities. Rural population though, recovered itself slowly, for peasants left their farms for the cities.

Hardest hit were special groups, such as the friars, who took a couple of generations to recover. In many areas, pre-plague population levels were not reached until the 1500s; in a few, not until the 1600s.

This is one reason why the Black Death marks a dividing line between the central Middle Ages, with medieval culture in full bloom and at its greatest strength, and the later Middle Ages. The later period was one of chronically reduced population.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/15.shtml

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Economic Disruption

Cities were hit hard by the plague. Financial business was disrupted as debtors died and their creditors found themselves without recourse. Not only had the debtor died, his whole family had died with him and many of his kinsmen. There was simply no one to collect from.

Construction projects stopped for a time or were abandoned altogether. Guilds lost their craftsmen and could not replace them. Mills and other special machinery might break and the one man in town who had the skill to repair it had died in the plague. We see towns advertising for specialists, offering high wages.

The labor shortage was very severe, especially in the short term, and consequently, wages rose. Because of the mortality, there was an oversupply of goods, and so prices dropped. Between the two trends, the standard of living rose . . . for those still living.

Effects in the countryside were just as severe. Farms and entire villages died out or were abandoned as the few survivors decided not to stay on. When Norwegian sailors finally visited Greenland again in the early 15thc, they found in the settlements there only wild cattle roaming through deserted villages.

Whole families died, with no heirs, their houses standing empty. The countryside, too, faced a short-term shortage of labor, and landlords stopped freeing their serfs. They tried to get more forced labor from them, as there were fewer peasants to be had. Peasants in many areas began to demand fairer treatment or lighter burdens.

Just as there were guild revolts in the cities in the later 1300s, so we find rebellions in the countrside. The Jacquerie in 1358, the Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381, the Catalonian Rebellion in 1395, and many revolts in Germany, all serve to show how seriously the mortality had disrupted economic and social relations.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/16.shtml

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Persecution of the Jews

As ever in Europe, when a crisis arose, the Jews were easy targets of blame. They were not the only group accused of poisoning water or practising witchcraft and hence bringing on the plague, but they suffered the anger of mob violence over a wide area.

There were massacres, especially in the cities along the Rhine River, and many more cases of the Jews being expelled from the town. On one day in Strassbourg in 1349, nearly 200 Jews were burned to death by an angry mob.

These actions were outbursts of popular anger and fear, not the instigation of the Church or even of the civil authorities. Pope Clement VI issued two bulls in the summer of 1348 forbidding the plunder and slaughter of the Jews. He pointed out that Jews were suffering as severely as Christians. Yet in September 1348, Zurich closed its gates to the Jews.

A few towns actually protected their Jews, with the city authorities or the bishop coming to their defense. But the Jews were being expelled generally from western Europe during the 14th century, and they were tolerated in Poland and Lithuania. So when the persecutions associated with the Black Death arose, some Jews simply migrated eastward and did not return.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/17.shtml

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Cultural Effects

As the chroniclers said, the plague touched everyone, rich and poor alike. The noted Florentine historian, Villani, wrote this: "And many lands and cities were made desolate. And the plague lasted until _____" Villani left a blank at the end of the sentence, planning to fill in a date after the plague had abated. He never did. Villani died in 1348 from the plague.

The whole community of scholars suffered as universities and schools, usually located in regions hardest hit, were closed or even abandoned. Sixteen of the forty professors at Cambridge died.

Likewise in the institutions of the Church. The priests died and no one could hear confession. Bishops died, and so did their successors and even their successors.

The loss of life in such great numbers and to so gruesome a disease, brought despair everywhere. Why would God do this? and why could not His servants in the Church avert or mitigate His wrath?

"During this great epidemic of death [in Tuscany] more than eighty died of every hundred, and the air was so infested that death overtook men everywhere, wherever they might flee. And when they saw everybody dying they no longer heeded death and believed that the end of the world was at hand."
The tone in this exerpt finds echoes throughout Europe. There were those indeed who believed this calamity marked the end of the world. Even after the crisis had passed, and the world remained, there were those who wondered why God should have so scourged the world.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/18.shtml

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Art

The tone of despair appears eventually in the art of the times, though not immediately. By the later 1300s, when many parts of Europe had been visited two or three times by the disease, there appears a strain of grisly morbidity that is still compelling.

One striking example can be seen in tomb sculptures. A great lord was buried in a sarcophagus: the body was in a coffin, which in turn was in a larger stone casing that was usually decorated. The sides might be decorated with religious carvings, but the lid of the tomb often held the likeness of the one entombed.

Where previously these sculptures showed the lord in his armor with his sword and shield, or the lady in her best clothes, and both in full bloom of health, around 1400 we begin to see a disturbing change. The sculptures of some (only some -- this was never the dominant style) show half-decomposed bodies with parts of the skeleton clearly visible. The clothes draping the body were rags, and some showed worms and snails burrowing in the rotting flesh.

It was and is a ghastly sight. The knight's tomb is a reassuring denial of death; the face composed and well-featured, the accoutrements of busy life all about. But the cardinal's tomb tells the brutal truth: all flesh is grass. Normally, we prefer to close our eyes to this, but this sculptural style will not let us. It's disturbing to see, but equally disturbing is the thought that such grimness could find a place as an artistic style.

The danse macabre

A similar brutality appeared in paintings, too. Here the style has a name: the danse macabre, the Dance of Death. The motif shows skeletons mingling with living men in daily scenes. We see peasants at a harvest festival, or workmen at a construction site, or hunters in a forests. And in each scene, mingled with the living, are skeletons: skeleton horses carry corpses to the hunt; peasant girls dance with death; a skeleton receives an infant from its baptismal font.

The juxtapositions are shocking, for they catch us at our merriest moments and remind us of horror and loss. It's a cruel sort of art. It is even more striking when you realize that these works were commissioned. These are no paintings wrung out by tortured souls in isolation. These are works specifically requested by churches or monarchs or city councils, and they were displayed in public places. Not only did artists render these frightening images, their patrons paid for them, displayed them, and ordered more.

To me, nothing demonstrates better the effect of the Black Death on Europe than these works of art.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/19.shtml

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Political Effects

The plague had no permanent effect on the course of politics, but it did take its toll. King Alfonso XI of Castile was the only reigning monarch to die of the plague, but many lesser notables died, including the queens of Aragon and France, and the son of the Byzantine emperor. Parliaments were adjourned when the plague struck, though they were reconvened. The Hundred Years' War was suspended in 1348 because so many soldiers died. But it started up again, soon enough.

The effect at local levels was more severe. City councils were ravaged. Whole families of local nobles were wiped out. Courts closed down and wills could not be probated.

But new courts were convened. The legal mess caused by so many deaths was eventually sorted out, and political life went on. Still, more than once you will read of a siege being lifted because of the plague, or of some principality falling into disarray because the prince died of the Black Death.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/20.shtml

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Historical Timing of the Plague

The plague itself was disastrous enough, especially in the appearance of more than one form during the same epidemic. But coming when it did was as catastrophic as its form. The middle 14th century was not a good time for Europe.

The European economy was already in difficulties. It was approaching the limits of expansion, both on its frontiers and in reclaiming land from forest and swamp. The arrival of the Mongols and the Ottomans had disrupted trade routes, and certain areas of Europe were edging into depression.

Worse, the overall climate was changing, with cooler and wetter weather creating lower crop yields even as the population was increasing. By the early 1300s we begin to hear of great famines.

The Church was in poor shape as well. The popes resided at Avignon, not at Rome, to the scandal of many. Heresy could be found in England and Bohemia and southern France, and the Church seemed unable to control it. The Holy Land had been lost in the 1290s and efforts to recover it had been dismal failures.

The Hundred Years' War added war to plague and famine. Just two years before, at Crecy, the English had inflicted a great defeat on France. Soon would appear the routiers, mercenary armies that served one king or the other or, when neither king could pay, would roam the countryside in search of plunder.

The difficulties created by war and a constricted economy were exacerbated by the Black Death. There is a relationship here, of course. The effects of the plague were made worse because of these other problems. And the problems themselves were redoubled because of the plague.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/21.shtml

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Recurrence of the Plague

One of the worst effects of the plague was that it came not once, but over and over. It was never as bad as the first instance. In some cases the plague was as virulent but it was more limited in geographic scope. A couple of times it covered Europe again, but not with such devastation.

It was this recurrence that so reduced the population of Europe, as countries never really had the chance to recover properly before another outbreak would occur. All through the second half of the fourteenth century, every generation was visited by the plague. It struck again and again in the 15th century, but less frequently.

Those were the worst centuries, but there were local epidemics for another two hundred years. Parts of Europe did not recover their pre-plague population until the 17th century.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/22.shtml

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Postscript

Last outbreak in England was the Great Plague of London in 1665. This was the sort of epidemic that was characteristic of the plague after the 15th century: restricted to a city or a region.

The sensible thing to do when the plague struck was to get out of town, for people expected the plague would remain local. Aristocrats could do this because they had estates in the countryside. The poor, of course, had nowhere to go, so they remained and died. One of those in 1665 who had a country estate was a young Cambridge professor, Isaac Newton. He had been working on some theories and mathematical problems regarding the physics of motion, but his teaching duties allowed him little time to work on them.

The plague of 1665 forced him into isolation and idleness. It was while at his country estate in the summer of 1665 that Newton solved the mathematical problems associated with his theory of gravitation.

The bubonic plague did not go away. It still exists, everywhere in the world. It is quite common among rodent populations--rats, of course, but squirrels, rabbits and skunks as well. The Rocky Mountains (where I live) is one of the places where it is still widespread. Every few years I read in the newspapers how a hunter has contracted the disease. We have a cure for it, but the disease moves very quickly, and there are some isolated places in the Rockies, and once in a while the hunter doesn't make it.

The plague is still very much with us.

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/23.shtml

[Jonesie]

Jean de Venette on the Progress of the Black Death

JEAN DE VENETTE, a French friar, has left us a chronicle about the progress of the plague as it moved through Europe.

Jean de Venette - born c. 1308, , Venette, Fr. died c. 1369
French chronicler who left a valuable eyewitness report of events of the central France of his time.

Of peasant origin, Jean joined the Carmelite order and was elected prior of the Carmelite convent at Paris in 1339. In 1342 he was appointed provincial of France for the Carmelite order. He also apparently served as a master of theology at the University of Paris. About 1360 he composed a short history of the Carmelites up to 1240. His Latin chronicle, covering the period of 1340?68, was a continuation of the work by Guillaume de Nangis. Although he was interested in the success of the 14th-century Valois dynasty, he displayed an unusually pronounced sympathy for the peasants and was critical of both the monarchy and the feudal lords. An eyewitness of most of the events he recorded, he provided innovative interpretation and lively discussion of the narrative, a characteristic unique among chroniclers at that time. He also wrote an unpublished religious poem, the Roman des trois Maries (c. 1347).

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9075019/Jean-de-Venette

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Jean de Venette on the Progress of the Black Death

In A.D. 1348, the people of Florence and of almost the whole world were struck by a blow other than war. For in addition to the famine . . . and to the wars . . . pestilence and its attendant tribulations appeared again in various parts of the world. In the month of August, 1348, after Vespers when the sun was beginning to set, a big and very bright star appeared above Paris, toward the west. It did not seem, as stars usually do, to be very high above our hemisphere but rather very near. As the sun set and night came on, this star did not seem to me or to many other friars who were watching it to move from one place. At length, when night had come, this big star, to the amazement of all of us who were watching, broke into many different rays and, as it shed these rays over Paris toward the east, totally disappeared and was completely annihilated. Whether it was a comet or not, whether it was composed of airy exhalations and was finally resolved into vapor, I leave to the decision of astronomers. It is, however, possible that it was a presage of the amazing pestilence to come, which, in fact, followed very shortly in Paris an throughout France and elsewhere, as I shall tell. All this year and the next, the mortality of men and women, of the young even more than of the old, in Paris and in the kingdom of France, and also, it is said, in other parts of the world, was so great that it was almost impossible to bury the dead. People lay ill little more than two or three days and died suddenly, as it were in full health. He who was well one day was dead the next and being carried to his grave. Swellings appeared suddenly in the armpit or in the groin -- in many cases both -- and they were infallible signs of death. This sickness or pestilence was called an epidemic by the doctors. Nothing like the great numbers who died in the years 1348 and 1349 has been heard of or seen of in times past. This plague and disease came from ymaginatione or association and contagion, for if a well man visited the sick he only rarely evaded the risk of death. Wherefore in many towns timid priests withdrew, leaving the exercise of their ministry to such of the religious as were more daring. In many places not two out of twenty remained alive. So high was the mortality at the H?tel-Dieu in Paris that for a long time, more than five hundred dead were carried daily with great devotion in carts to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris for burial. A very great number of the saintly sisters of the H?tel-Dieu who, not fearing to die, nursed the sick in all sweetness and humility, with no thought of honor, a number too often renewed by death, rest in peace with Christ, as we may piously believe.

This plague, it is said, began among the unbelievers, came to Italy, and then crossing the Alps reached Avignon, where it attacked several cardinals and took from them their whole household. Then it spread, unforeseen, to France, through Gascony and Spain, little by little, from town to town, from village to village, from house to house, and finally from person to person. It even crossed over to Germany, though it was not so bad there as with us. During the epidemic, God of His accustomed goodness deigned to grant this grace, that however suddenly men died, almost all awaited death joyfully. Nor was there anyone who died without confessing his sins and receiving the holy viaticum. . . .

Some said that this pestilence was caused by infection of the air and waters, since there was at this time no famine nor lack of food supplies, but on the contrary great abundance. As a result of this theory of infected water and air as the source of the plague the Jews were suddenly and violently charged with infecting wells and water and corrupting the air. The whole world rose up against them cruelly on this account. In Germany and other parts of the world where Jews lived, they were massacred and slaughtered by Christians, and many thousands were burned everywhere, indiscriminately. The unshaken, if fatuous, constantly of the men and their wives was remarkable. For mothers hurled their children first into the fire that they might not be baptized and then leaped in after them to burn with their husbands and children. It is said that many bad Christians were found who in like manner put poison into wells. But in truth, such poisonings, granted that they actually were perpetrated, could not have caused so great a plague nor have infected so many people. There were other causes; for example, the will of God and the corrupt humors and evil inherent in air and earth. Perhaps the poisonings, if they actually took place in some localities, reinforced these causes. The plague lasted in France for the greater part of the years 1348 and 1349 and then ceased. Many country villages and many houses in good towns remained empty and deserted. Many houses, including some splendid dwellings, very soon fell into ruins. Even in Paris several houses were thus ruined, though fewer here than elsewhere.

After this cessation of the epidemic, pestilence, or plague, the men and women who survived married each other. There was no sterility among the women, but on the contrary fertility beyond the ordinary. Pregnant women were seen on every side. . . . But woe is me! the world was not changed for the better but for the worse by this renewal of population. For men were more avaricious and grasping than before, even though they had far greater possessions. They were more covetous and disturbed each other more frequently with suits, brawls, disputes, and pleas. Nor by the mortality resulting from this terrible plague inflicted by God was peace between kings and lords established. On the contrary, the enemies of the king of France and of the Church or stronger and wickeder than before and stirred up wars on sea and on land. Greater evils than before [swarmed] everywhere in the world. And this fact was very remarkable. Although there was an abundance of all goods, yet everything was twice as dear, whether it were utensils, victuals, or merchandise, hired helpers or peasants and serfs, except for some hereditary domains which remained abundantly stocked with everything. Charity began to cool, and iniquity with ignorance and stand to abound, for a few could be found in the good towns and castles who knew how or were willing to instruct children in the rudiments of grammar.

[Source: Richard A. Newhall, ed., Jean Birdsall, trans., The Chronicle of Jean de Venette (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), pp. 48-51.]

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/plague.html

[Jonesie]

THE BLACK DEATH - Plagues and Pestilences

From Old Church Lore by William Andrews; William Andrews & Co., The Hull Press; London, 1891; pp. 152-173.

Plagues and Pestilences

THE graphic pages of Daniel Defoe have made the reader familiar with the terrible story of the Great Plague of London, which began in December, 1664, and carried off 68,596 persons, some say even a larger number. To give a detailed account of that visitation would be to relate an oft-told tale. Some important facts, not generally known, respecting old-time plagues and pestilences may be gleaned from parish registers and churchwardens? accounts, and it is from such records that we propose mainly to draw materials for this chapter.

When a town was infected with the plague, business was suspended, and the inhabitants isolated from the neighbouring places. If a person desired to travel at large, he made application to the Mayor or Chief Magistrate, and obtained a certificate to the effect that he was not suspected of the plague.

In many towns, great wisdom was displayed by erecting huts on breezy moors and other places away from the busy haunts of men, for the reception of the plague-stricken persons, and to which they were removed. The inmates of a house were not suffered to leave the homes from whence the patients had been removed. An order passed in London, in 1570, states: ?Howses, having some sicke, though none die, or from whence some sicke have been removed, are infected houses, and such are to be shutt upp for a moneth. The whole family to tarrie xxviii daies.? Round the houses, watch and ward were constantly kept to prevent egress. Certain boundaries were defined, and these could not be passed. The watchers provided the inmates of the houses with food, etc., and took messages to their friends. In the churchwardens? accounts of St. Mary, Woolchurch, Haw, is an entry: ?

?1607-8. Paid a warder for warding
Mr. Clarke?s house, being infected,
ordered by the Mayor .................4 0.?

On the door of the infected house was the sign of a cross, in a flaming red colour, with the pathetic prayer, ?Lord, have mercy on us.? In old churchwardens? accounts, many items like the following, drawn from the accounts of St. Mary, Woolnoth, London, might be quoted:

?1593-4. Item for setting a crosse
upon one Allen?s doore in the
sicknesse time ...........................ijd.
Item paid for setting two red crosses
upon Anthony Sound his dore ......iiijd.

These crosses were about a foot in length. More than one student of the past has suggested that the practice of marking the doors of infected houses with red crosses arose from the injunction given to Moses at the institution of the passover. The crosses served the important purpose for which they were intended, namely, to caution folk against going to infected houses.

Queen Elizabeth, 1563, commanded that the inmates of a house which had been visited by the plague should not go to church for a month.

Orders were given that any dogs found in the streets were to be killed. An order, bearing on this matter, made in May, 1583, at Winchester, may be reproduced: ?That if any house wtn this cytie shall happen to be infected with the Plague, that thene evye persone to keepe within his or her house every his or her dogg, and not to suffer them to goo at large: And if any dogg be then founde abroad at large, it shall be lawful for the Beadle or any other person to kill the same dogg: and that any Owner of such Dogg going at large shall lose 6s.? It was believed that dogs conveyed contagion from infected houses.

A passage in Homer?s ?Iliad? has a reference to man obtaining infection from an animal. It relates to the great pestilence that prevailed in the Grecian army:

?On mules and beasts the infection first began,
At last, its vengeful arrows fix?d in man;
Apollo?s wrath the dire disorder spread,
And heap?d the camp with mountains of the dead.
For nine long nights throughout the dusky air,
The funeral torches shed a dismal glare.?

Many remedies were tried to stay the progress of plagues. The ringing of church bells was among the number. ?Great ringing of bells in populous cities,? says Bacon, in his ?Natural History,? disperseth pestilent air, which may be from the concussion of the air, and not from the sound.? Music, in the Middle Ages, was believed to have a healing power. Large fires were lighted in houses and streets as preventatives. It is not unlikely that the practice may be derived from the fact that, in 1347, during the time of the plague raging at Avignon, Pope Clement VI. caused great fires to be kept in his palace, day and night, and by this means believed he had kept the pestilence from his household. In 1563, we learn from Stow that a commandment came from Queen Elizabeth that ?every man in every street and lane should make a bonefire three times a week, in order to the ceasing of the plague, if it so pleased God, and so to continue these fires everywhere, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.?

It is asserted in Rome, in A.D. 195, that for some time, 5,000 persons died daily of a fearful plague. The physicians were unable to check its deadly course. It lasted for three years. The doctors of the day urged upon the people to fill their noses and ears with sweet smelling ointments to prevent contagion. We learn from Defoe?s ?Journal of the Plague Year, 1665,? how largely perfumes, aromatics, and essences, were employed to escape contagion at that time. Says Defoe, if you went into a church where any number of people were present, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance, that it was much more strong, though, perhaps, not so wholesome, than if you were going into an apothecary?s or druggist?s shop. In a word, the whole church was like a smelling bottle; in one corner, it was all perfumes; in another, aromatics, balsamics, and a variety of drugs and herbs; in another, salts and spirits; as every one was furnished for their own preservation. ? The poorer people, who only set open their windows night and day, burnt brimstone, pitch, and gunpowder, and such things in their rooms, did as well as the best.?

The annals of many of the northern English towns contain numerous sad references to plagues. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for example, suffered much. The churchwardens? accounts of St. Nicolas contain records of payments which bear on this subject. We find, for instance, the following item:

?1699. By cash paid for a tarr barrell
to burn in ye church ..............0 8.?

Fires were made in churches in movable pans. A year later, we read:

?1700. For hearbs for tubing ye
pewes ................................1 0.?

In courts of justice, might be seen large nosegays, not for ornament, but as preservatives against the pest. The Rev. J. R. Boyle, F.S.A., has gone carefully over the churchwarden?s accounts of St. Nicholas?, now the Cathedral of the city of Newcastle, and reproduced some curious items in his guide to the building. Here follow a few of the items:

?1684. For juniper and erbes for ye
vestry ..................................... 0 10.
1684. Paid for erbes and fflowers
for Mr. Maior?s pew 2 times .......... 3 0.
1686. Erbes for ye church at Easter,
Whitsuntyde, and Assizes ............ 6 0.
1688. Paid for holland [holly] and
juniper for ye vestery, and erbs ... 1 11.
1690. Paid for sweet herbs for
strawing in ye pews, etc. ............1 0.?

Mr. William Kelly, read before the Royal Historical Society, on July 12th, 1877, an important paper on ?Visitations of the Plague at Leicester.? He gave particulars of the Mayor addressing a letter to Justice Gawdie, who was about to visit the town in his official capacity. He was informed that the plague had broken out in houses near the castle, and it was concluded that his lordship would not come to preside so near the infected places. The result of the communication may be gathered from the following entry, copied from the chamberlain?s accounts:

?1594. Item, paid for charges of
makinge readye of All
Hallowes Churche for the
judges to hold the assyses in,
because the other parte of the
town was then infected with
the sicknes ........................... xvs. vjd.?

We have previously stated, that persons wishing to leave a plague-stricken town, for the purpose of travelling, were obliged to obtain passes. Mr. Kelly gives a copy of one of these documents, which we reproduce in extenso. It reads as follows:

?Villa Leic. Theise are to certifie all the Queenes Majesties officers and lovinge subjects, to whom theise presents shall come, that the bearer, Alice Stynton, the wife of John Stynton, of the towne of Leycester, pettye chapman, dothe dwell and inhabyte in the parish of St. Nicholas, in the said town, in a streete called the Sore Laine, neyre unto the West Brigge.

The which John Stynton hathe not bene in Leycester sythence one fortnytt after St. James Daye last; but travelinge abrode in Northamptonshier about his lawfull affaires in gaytheringe under the Greate Seale of England, by lycence, for a poore house at Waltam Crosse.

And this bearer, his wief, with hym all the said tyme, untill her nowe comyng hom to Leycester, which was aboute a weeke past. The which bearer her dwellyng ys not neyre unto places suspected of the plage, but ys cleyre and sound from the same, God be thancked, neyther ys there any att this present sicke thereof in the said streete or parish, God be praised. Do therefore request you to permytt and suffer her quietlye to travell to her husband, and also to permytt and suffer her said husband and her quietlye, upon ther honest behavire, to travell aboute ther lawfull busynes withoute any your hyndrance, and you the constables to helpe them to lodginges in ther said travell yf such nede shall require. In witness whereof, we the mayor and alderman of the saide towne of Leycester have hereunto subscribed our names, and sette the seale of office of the said mayor, this vjth daye of October 1593, A? 35? Eliz.?

The records of Beverley supply some important notes respecting persons leaving the place. We gather from George Oliver?s history of Beverley, that the plague raged with great violence in the year 1610, death and desertion were greatly thinning the town; the corporation made an order, directing that a fine of ten shilling be imposed on every individual leaving the town, even to go to fairs and markets, without the mayor?s special permission. If the preceding measure was insufficient to detain persons in Beverley, it was resolved to imprison or otherwise punish, at the discretion of the justices, those offending.

The head of every family had to report periodically, during the time of the plague, to the constable in his ward, the state of he health of his household. If the disease attacked any member of his family, or those under his charge, and he neglected, within a specified number of hours, to report the matter, he was liable to a fine of forty shillings, to be placed in the town?s chest.

The town of Derby suffered greatly from a plague in 1592-3. It appears to have been imported in some bales of cloth from the Levant to London, and quickly spread into the provinces. In the parish register of St. Alkmund?s, Derby, under October, 1592, is this statement. ?Hic incipit pestis prestifera.? It took twelve months to run its destructive course.

The register of All Saints?, Derby, under October, 1593, says: ?About this time, the plague of pestilence, by the great mercy and goodness of Almighty God, stay?d, past all expectac?on of man, for it rested upon assondaye, at what tyme it was dispersed in every corner of this whole p?she: ther was not two houses together free from ytt, and yet the Lord bade his angell staye, as in Davide?s tyme: His name be blessed for ytt.?

The inhabitants of Derby suffered greatly from a plague in 1665. In the Arboretum of the town is a memorial of the visitation, in the form of a stone, bearing the following inscription:

Headless Cross, or MARKET STONE.

This Stone FORMED PART OF AN ANCIENT CROSS AT THE UPPER END OF FRIAR GATE, AND WAS USED BY THE INHABITANTS OF DERBY AS A MARKET STONE DURING THE VISITATION OF THE PLAGUE, 1665.
IT IS THUS DESCRIBED BY HUTTON IN HIS HISTORY OF DERBY.

__________________________________________________ ______________


?1665. Derby was again visited by the plague at the same time in which London fell under that severe calamity. The town was forsaken; the farmers declined the Market-place; and grass grew upon that spot which had furnished the supports of life. To prevent a famine, the inhabitants erected at the top of Nuns-green, one or two hundred yards from the buildings, now Friar-gate, what bore the name of Headless-cross, consisting of about four quadrangular steps, covered in the centre with one large stone; the whole near five feet high; I knew it in perfection. Hither the market-people, having their mouths primed with tobacco as a preservative, brought their provisions, stood at a distance from their property, and at a greater from the townspeople, with whom they were to traffic. The buyer was not suffered to touch any of the articles before purchase; but when the agreement was finished, he took the goods, and deposited the money in a vessel filled with vinegar, set for that purpose.? ?

Tobacco has long been regarded as an efficacious preservative against disease. There is a curious entry in Thomas Hearne?s Dairy, 1720-21, bearing on this matter. He thus writes, under date of January 21st: ?I have been told that in the last great plague in London none that kept tobacconists? shops had the plague. It is certain that smoaking was looked upon as a most excellent preservative. In so much, that even children were obliged to smoak. And I remember that I heard formerly Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say that, when he was that year, when the plague raged, a school-boy at Eaton, all the boys of that school were obliged to smoak in the school every morning, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoaking.?

Charles Knight, in his ?Old England,? gives an original drawing of the Broad Stone, East Retford, Nottinghamshire. He says, on this stone, money, previously immersed in vinegar, was placed in exchange for goods, during the Great Plague.

THE BROAD STONE, EAST RETFORD.

In front of Tothby House, near Alford, Lincolnshire, under a spreading tree, is a large stone, which formerly stood on Miles Cross Hill, and, when the town was plague-stricken, in the year 1630, on this stone, money immersed in vinegar was deposited, in exchange for food brought from Spilsby and other places. From July 22nd, 1630, to the end of February, 1631, 132 burials are recorded in this parish register and this out of a population of under 1000 persons, a proportion equal to that of London during the Great Plague. In one homestead, within twelve days, were six deaths. The Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A., who has contributed a carefully-prepared chapter to ?Bygone Lincolnshire? on this theme, does not state how the scourge was brought to Alford.

The dead were, as a rule, buried at night, without coffin and ceremony, and frequently in a common grave outside the usual graveyards, like, for example, those in the pest pit of London. ?Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!? was the dismal cry which was heard in London during the Great Plague. The people were dead and buried in a few hours, and it is believe that many were interred alive. A well-known instance occurred at Stratford-on-Avon. The plague raged at the town in 1564, and swept away one-seventh of the inhabitants. The council chamber was closed, but the councillors did not neglect their duties; they met in a garden to discuss the best means of helping the sufferers. The visitation was not confined only to the homes of the poor. The Manor House of Clopton was attacked, and one of its fair inmates, a beautiful girl named Charlotte Clopton, was sick, and to all appearance died. She was buried without delay in the family vault, underneath Stratford Church. A week passed, and another was borne to the same resting place. When the vault was opened, a terrible sight was presented. Charlotte Clopton was seen leaning against the wall in her grave clothes. She had been buried alive, and, on recovering from the plague, had attempted to get out of the vault, when death had ended her sufferings.

At Bradley, in the parish of Malpas, Cheshire, an entire family, named Dawson, consisting of seven members and two servants, died of the plague, in the year 1625. One of Dawson?s sons had been in London, and returned home sick, died, and infected the whole household. The deaths commenced towards the end of July and ended September 15th. Respecting Richard Dawson, the following particulars are given in the parish register, after stating that he was the brother of the head of the house: ?being sicke of the plague, and perceyving he must die at yt time, arose out of his bed and made his grave, and caused his nefew, John Dawson, to cast strawe into the grave, w?ch was not farre from the house, and went and lay?d him down in the say?d grave, and caused clothes to be layd uppon, and so dep?ted out of this world; this he did, because he was a strong man, and heavier than his said nefew and another wench were able to bury. He died about xxivth of August. Thus much I was credibly tould he did.? The next entry in this distressing record bears date of August 29th, and is that of the nephew just named, and, on September 15th, Rose Smyth, the servant, doubtless the wench referred to, was buried, ?and the last of yt household.?

At Braintree, in Essex, in 1665, the plague made great ravages. In that year, 665 persons died of it, being fully one-third of the inhabitants of the place. Business was at a standstill, the town was shunned, and the inhabitants had to depend on charity. Long grass grew in the street, and the whole place was one of desolation. At this time, Dr. Kidder, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, was looking after the spiritual welfare of the place. His life contains a painful picture of the sufferings of the inhabitants. In his own house, a young gentleman was attacked and died. ?My neighbours,? he writes, ?durst not come near, and the provisions which were procured for us were laid at a distance, upon a green before my house. No tongue can express the dismal calamity which that part of Essex lay under at that time. As for myself, I was in perpetual danger. I conversed daily with those who came from the infected houses, and it was unavoidable. The provisions sent into the neighbouring infected town were left at the village where I was, and near my house. Thither the Earl of Warwick sent his fat bullocks, which he did every week give to the poor of Braintree. The servants were not willing to carry them further. This occasioned frequent coming from that infected place to my village, and, indeed, to my very door. My parish clerk had it when he put on my surplice, and went from me to his house, and died. Another neighbour had three children, and they all died in three nights immediately succeeding each other, and I was forced to carry them to the churchyard and bury them. We were alarmed perpetually with the news of the death of our neighbours and acquaintances, and awakened to expect our turns. This continued a great part of the summer. It pleased God to preserve me and mine from this noisome pestilence. Praised be his name.? The plague at Colchester, in the same county, in 1665-6, made the death rate higher than that of the neighbouring town or even of London. Its deadly operations opened in August, 1665, and closed in December, 1666, and, in that period, passed away 4,731 persons. Poverty prevailed, but help poured in from many places. Weekly collections were made in the churches of London, and by this means the sum of ?1,311 10s. was obtained. The oath book of the Corporation contains the form of oath administered to men known as ?Searchers of the Plague.? It was the duty of the men to search out and view the corpses of all who died, and, in cases of death from the plague, to make known the fact to the constables of the parish, and the bearers appointed to bury them. The searchers had to live together, and apart from their families, and not go abroad, except in the execution of their duty. They were careful not to go near any one, and they carried in their hands white wands, so that people might know them and so avoid them.

Collections in churches were very general for 170 those suffering from the plague. The following entry, reproduced from the parish register of the small town of Cheadle, Staffordshire, may be quoted as a specimen of similar records:

?1666. Collected on the first
monthly fast, being second day
of August, towards the relief of
the persons and places visited
by the plague ........................14s. 7d.?

The plague penetrated into most unexpected places. Far away from London, in the Peak of Derbyshire, is the delightfully-situated mountain village of Eyam, a place swept over by health-giving breezes. It is a locality of apparent security against infection. In September, 1665, a parcel of tailor?s patterns was sent from London to Eyam, and with it came the disease. At that time the village had a population of 350 persons, and when the plague ?was exhausted with excessive slaughter,? only seventy-three were alive. From September 6th, 1665, to October 11th, 1666, 277 died, the death rate being much higher than that of London. The history of this visitation is heart-rending, and has been told by several writers, but by none more carefully than by William Wood, in his ?History of Eyam,? published by Richard Keene, of Derby. Two names in this dark story stand out in bright relief, one was the Rev. Thomas Stanley, the ejected rector of the parish, in 1662, and the Rev. William Mompesson, a successor, who was appointed in 1664. With their lives in their hands, these two brave men remained at the post of duty, visited, advised, and aided the sufferers unto death. Mrs. Mompesson administered daily to her husband?s suffering parishioners until death closed her useful life, on the 24th August, 1666. This was a terrible blow to her devoted husband, and a heavy loss to the villagers. ?At one time,? we are told, ?Mrs. Mompesson?s heart failed her, when she thought of her two children in the midst of the plague. She cast herself and her two children at the feet of her husband, and begged that they might all depart from the death-stricken place. In the most loving manner, however, he raised her from his feet, and pointed out the awful responsibility which would attach to his deserting his post. He then besought his wife to flee to some distant spot, where she and her babes might be safe. She refused, however, to leave him, but they mutually agreed to send the children to a relative in Yorkshire.?

About the middle of June, the more wealthy people fled to distant places from the plague-stricken village, and others built huts on the neighbouring hills, and in them took shelter. The entire population appeared determined to flee. Mr. Mompesson pointed out the folly of such a proceeding, observing that they would carry the disease to other places. His earnest entreaties prevailed.

He wrote to the Earl of Devonshire for assistance, to enable the inhabitants to remain in their own village. The Earl realised the importance of confining the disease within a certain limit. He readily made arrangements for a constant supply of food and clothing for the sufferers. A boundary was fixed round the village, marked by stones, and the residents solemnly agreed that not one should go beyond the radius indicated. The provisions, etc., were left early in the morning at an appointed place, and were fetched away by men selected for the work. If money was paid, it was placed in water. The men of Eyam faithfully kept their promise, so that the plague was not carried by them to any other places.

The churchyard was closed and funeral rites were not read; graves were made in fields and gardens near the cottages of the departed.

During the time the disease was at its height, the church was closed but the faithful rector did not neglect to assemble his flock each succeeding Sabbath in a quiet spot on the south side of the village, and to proclaim to them words of comfort.

Shortly after the disease had stopped at Eyam, the rectory of Eaking was presented to Mr. Mompesson. The inhabitants of his new parish had such a terror of the plague that they dreaded his coming amongst them, and a hut was built for him in Rufford Park, where he remained until their fears had subsided.

This short study of a serious subject enables us to fully realise the force of the supplication in the Litany: ?From Plague and Pestilence, Good Lord deliver us.?

http://www.elfinspell.com/AndrewsPlagues.html

[JohnW]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH - Plagues and Pestilences

In front of Tothby House, near Alford, Lincolnshire, under a spreading tree, is a large stone, which formerly stood on Miles Cross Hill, and, when the town was plague-stricken, in the year 1630, on this stone, money immersed in vinegar was deposited, in exchange for food brought from Spilsby and other places. From July 22nd, 1630, to the end of February, 1631, 132 burials are recorded in this parish register and this out of a population of under 1000 persons, a proportion equal to that of London during the Great Plague. In one homestead, within twelve days, were six deaths. The Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A., who has contributed a carefully-prepared chapter to ?Bygone Lincolnshire? on this theme, does not state how the scourge was brought to Alford.

Interesting coincidence. My "avatar" is a bas relief from All-Saints Church, Croft Lincolnshire. Croft is about 10 miles from Alford. My immigrant ancestor, Edward W., was a parishioner there in 1630 when the plague struck. Croft was a very small parish. The records for christenings, marriages and deaths frequently filled only one side of a page for the year. In 1630, the heading for deaths reads "Deaths - Many of the Plague". In a typical year, 5 people died in Croft. In 1630 there were 50 deaths. Among them were Edward W's first wife Mary, and their infant son Daniel.

My sister had the privilege of examining the original Parish Register at the Archives in Lincoln. She was able to bring back a CD with multiple images from the register, including the page described above.

[Jonesie]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH

JohnW: I extend my sympathies to your family for the loss of your relatives, Mary and Daniel, so many years ago.
It must have been a very traumatic time for Edward W.

[JohnW]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH

Yes. I expect is was a very traumatic experience for Edward.

A more recent event brings the trauma into perspective. On December 5, 1918 my grandfather died in the second way of the Spanish Flu. He was forty at the time, and was survived by his wife and four children. My father, who was 12 at the time, was given the "charge" at the bedside of his dying father, to take responsibility for his two younger brothers. He carried that charge out faithfully all his life.

Dad and his siblings stood in the doorway wearing masks as Grandpa took his last breath. He later wrote a moving account of riding the barge across the Wabash River as he accompanied the horse-drawn hearse to his place of burial.

Grandma never remarried. She supported the family of four children by giving piano lessons, and from the rent on the wholesale grocery warehouse Grandpa left to her.

There will be many more stories like this in the future, I fear.

[Jonesie]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH

It's unfortunate that you never got to know your grandfather. He probably was a wonderful person. And your grandmother was financially able to raise the children on her own, but it was still difficult to do without his help. That was a great loss for your whole family. So sorry to hear of another loss in your family.

[Jonesie]

Re: THE BLACK DEATH

Francesco Petrarca: Ad Seipsum (To Himself) (Epistola Metrica I, 14: lines 1-55)

Tr. by Jonathan Usher, Univ. of Edinburgh

Boccaccio transcribed this letter, written in Latin verse, in the Zibaldone Laurenziano (MS Laur. plut. XXIX, 8) with a postilla which led scholars to believe that it had been composed for an earlier outbreak of disease which had ravaged Tuscany in 1340. But given similarities with Petrarch's Penitential Psalms and with Familiares VIII, 4 and 7 (datable to 1349), it is now considered more probable that he was writing in response to the Black Death of 1348.

Whereas Boccaccio in the plague description of the Decameron emphasises social consequences and the dissolution of family bonds, resolutely omitting his own private sense of terror, Petrarch in this Metrica, as the self-addressed title indicates, is characteristically, almost selfishly interested in the impact of the pestilence first on his tight circle of friends, second on his own persona, using the plague, in other words, as a kind of 'pathetic fallacy' for his own private disquiet about mortality and the sway of the passions. Amongst the detailed parallels with the Decameron description are the declaration of the plague's uncertain causality (God's punishment or merely unfavourable stellar influences), and the Dantesque image of fire catching hold of something oily (here in Petrarch resinous floorboards, in Boccaccio 'cose secche o unte' [things dry or saturated with grease]). Petrarch's extended description of a house on fire owes something to the episode in the Aeneid where Aeneas escapes from a Troy already in flames carrying his father Anchises and leading his son Iulus by the hand (Aen. II, 721 ff.).

O what has come over me? Where are the violent fates pushing me back to? I see passing by, in headlong flight, time which makes the world a fleeting place. I observe about me dying throngs of both young and old, and nowhere is there a refuge. No haven beckons in any part of the globe, nor can any hope of longed for salvation be seen. Wherever I turn my frightened eyes, their gaze is troubled by continual funerals: the churches groan encumbered with biers, and, without last respects, the corpses of the noble and the commoner lie in confusion alongside each other. The last hour of life comes to mind, and, obliged to recollect my misfortunes, I recall the flocks of dear ones who have departed, and the conversations of friends, the sweet faces which suddenly vanished, and the hallowed ground now insufficient for repeated burials. This is what the people of Italy bemoan, weakened by so many deaths; this is what France laments, exhausted and stripped of inhabitants; the same goes for other peoples, under whatever skies they reside. Either it is the wrath of God, for certainly I would think that our misdeeds deserve it, or it is just the harsh assault of the stars in their perpetually changing conjunctions. This plague-bearing year has borne down on humankind and threatens a tearful slaughter, and the highly charged air encourages death. From his diseased heavenly pole, cruel Jupiter looks down, and from there he rains upon the earth diseases and grievous mortality. The merciless Fates rush to sever the threads of life all at once, if they can: seeing so many ashen faces of the wretched common people, and so many seeking gloomy Tartarus, I fear that from on high they may have been granted what they wish. Just thinking of these things, I confess I am frightened and I see before me the snares of imminent death. For where could I hide my head, when neither the sea nor the land nor the rocks full of dark caves show themselves to the one who flees, because death, rushing impetuously into even safe hiding-places, overcomes all things. Thus, like the mariner caught in a dangerous storm, before whose eyes cruel Neptune has sucked down the other ships in the convoy, who hears the fragile keel cracking in the belly of his ship and the splintering of the oars as they are dashed against the reefs, and sees the rudder carried away amongst the terrifying waves, I hesitate uncertain as to what to do, though certain of the peril. No differently, where unnoticed a deadly fire has taken hold of ancient timbers and greedy flame licks resin-rich floorboards, the household, aroused by the commotion, suddenly gets out of bed, and the father, before anyone else, rushes up to the top of the roof, gazing about him, and grasping his trembling son seeks to save him first from the dangerous fire, and works out in his mind how to escape with this burden through the opposing flames. Often in fear clasping to myself my helpless soul I too wonder whether there is an escape-route to carry it out from the conflagration and I am minded to extinguish the bodily flames with the water of tears. But the world holds me back. Headstrong desire draws me and I am bound ever more tightly by deadly knots. That is the state I am in. Dense shadows have covered me with fear. For whosoever thinks they can recall death and look upon the moment of their passing with fearless face is either mistaken or mad, or, if he is fully aware, then he is very courageous.
(J.U.)

Main: Plague: Perspectives on the Plague: Francesco Petrarca: Ad Seipsum (To Himself) (Epistola Metrica I, 14: lines 1-55)

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Ita...etrarca2.shtml