The Black Death in the Middle Ages - Research Paper Example

? The Black Death in the Middle Ages. The Black Death in the Middle Ages. The Black Death refers to the virulent plague which devastated Europe from 1347 – 1352, causing more than twenty million deaths. The word plague has its roots in the Greek medical term plege, for ‘stroke.’ It connotes the rapidity with which the disease strikes its victims. Plague is endemic among rodents, particularly in central Asia, but does not cause many fatalities. However, if it crosses the biological barrier to attack other species, it can prove deadly. The disease-causing pathogen is the bacillus Yersinia pestis, which was identified by the French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin only in 1894. The bacillus normally persists as a mild infection in the bloodstream of infected rats. The rat flea, or Xenopsylla cheopis, is the vector which transmits the bacillus to other rats. In unusual circumstances, such as the absence of an adequate rodent population, the flea may bite and infect humans. The human immune system is very vulnerable to the bacillus and the plague is usually fatal1. A study of the origin, spread, characteristics and significance of the Black Death in the Middle Ages shows that it was one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. The origin of the Black Death can be traced through historical accounts to Central Asia: “The earliest documented appearance --- occurred in 1346, in the Mongol territory called the Khanate of the Golden Horde” in present-day southern Russia2. The plague crossed biological barriers in Central Asia to attack and decimate the marmot population. These dead mammals were skinned by Asian trappers and the hides became a part of the merchandise which travelled down the famous ‘Silk Road’ from China, across Asia and to the Crimea.3 The outbreak is reported to have emerged after earthquakes and strange atmospheric conditions. The pestilence first ravaged the teeming populations of China and India, and moved to Persia, supposedly resulting in twenty-four million casualties in the East.4 There are accounts of horrendous casualties in China, India, Mesopotamia, Cairo, Syria and Cyprus. Gabriele de’ Mussis, a notary of Piacenza, writes that “In the year 1346, in eastern parts an immense number of Tartars and Saracens fell victims to a sudden and mysterious death.”5 The Tartars besieged the Black Sea port of Caffa (modern Feodosia), a Genoese settlement in the Crimea, where Italian merchants had taken refuge. The Tartars reportedly catapulted plague-infected corpses into Caffa, spreading the infection to the Genoese, who in turn carried it to Genoa. By 1348, the plague had moved from the seaports to reach the inland areas of Alexandria, Tunisia, Italy and France. It jumped across the seas to Britain, Ireland and Norway. It continued to spread until, “By 1350 virtually all of western and central Europe has been affected.”6 The plague moved eastwards to Poland and the Baltic lands the next year and then back to Central Asia in 1353, when it finally subsided. Historians currently estimate that, between 1346 –1353, the Black Death may have caused 50 million deaths in Europe. This constituted about 60 percent of the population. The characteristic symptoms of the Black Death show it to have been a lethal combination of the Bubonic plague and the pneumonic plague. At the onset of the bacillus’ entry into the human bloodstream, the immune system responded with fever and the swelling of the lymph nodes in an attempt to flush out the contagion. These painful, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpits and groin, were called buboes: hence Bubonic plague. These swellings were referred to as the gavocciolo. Boccaccio states that some of these swellings “were egg-shaped while others were roughly the size of the common apple.”7 By the third day the victim experienced high fever, diarrhea and delirium and the skin showed dark splotches due to the rupture of blood capillaries and the clotting of blood beneath the epidermis. This darkening of the skin may be the origin of the term ‘Black Death,’ As the bloodstream became congested with bacteria, blood poisoning and massive hemorrhaging occurred and the victim died. In another course of the disease, the buboes burst through the skin on the fifth day, ejecting pus. This ejection of the bacillus gave the victim a chance of survival. The other form of the Black Death was even more lethal. This pneumonic plague could be directly transferred between humans without the rat flea vector. The bacillus was transmitted through particulate matter exhaled by the infected person.8 Here, the Black Death was characterized by gangrenous inflammation of the lungs and throat, violent chest pain, vomiting and spitting of blood and a fetid odor emanating from the breath of the victim. Death almost inevitably followed within three days. There was no known cure for the Black Death in the Middle Ages. The victims’ reactions differed: sudden death within a few hours, deep coma, sleeplessness and fever, and raging thirst.9 The reaction of medieval society to the Black Death was characterized mainly by panic. The Genoese turned away foreign ships from their harbor. The obsession with avoiding contagion resulted in family members deserting each other. Priests and judicial officials refused to perform their duties to the dying. It was the Dominicans, Friars Minor and other monastic orders who undertook the care of the victims. Houses were left deserted and unguarded. The city inhabitants rushed to the fields and lived in temporary shelters. Religious processions were organized to beg divine intercession. Men hardly dared to breathe. In many cases, the victims immediately gave up hope and did not struggle against inevitable death. The survivors differed in their response: some held fast to a temperate lifestyle and isolated themselves; others indulged every appetite through reckless gaiety. The corpses were abandoned in empty houses and there was none to give them Christian burial. Corpses were thrown into a common plague-pit without any rites. These were “trenches into which the bodies were put by hundreds, laid in rows as goods packed in a ship.”10 The consequences of the Black Death were tremendous. It resulted in reducing the population of Europe by a third to a quarter. As a result, the economic situation changed drastically: the pre-plague “world of labor surplus, land shortage and food shortage – low wages, high rents and high prices”11 was transformed. Post-plague Europe witnessed falling rents and prices and higher wages. Serfdom declined sharply. Greater prosperity ushered in new consumption patterns. Less labor-intensive goods, efficient production and technological innovation appeared. The social upheaval saw the decline in the authority landowners and employers and traditional land-based governments. The authority of the Church was weakened in the face of its helplessness against the Black Death. However, piety increased in the surviving populace and many rich donations were given to churches. General attitudes towards disease changed with the emphasis shifting from divine intercession to proactive human action as exemplified by public health measures. The Black Death instigated a wave of de-urbanization as people fled from the infected cities. The plague influenced art and literature. Boccaccio’s The Decameron , the images of the ‘Grim Reaper’ and the ‘Dance of Death’ are examples of medieval art forms of this period. Flagellants and pseudo-flagellants were some of the “bizarre social phenomena” engendered by the Black Death.12 It can be unequivocally be stated that the Black Death was the most significant development of the Middle Ages and changed the landscape of Europe and much of the other world. Bibliography. Damen, Mark. “Section 6: The Black Death.” Utah State University. 2012. http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/06PLAGUE.htm  Gasquet, Francis Aidan. The Great Pestilence AD 1348 to 1349: Now Commonly Known As the Black Death, 1893. 1 – 33. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=CORQjhbgW9QC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false Hays, J.N. “Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History.” 2005. ISBN 1-85109- 658-2. 41 – 51. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=GyE8Qt-kS1kC&pg=PA41&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false Read More