Black Death

From Medieval Wiki

Black Death by: James Evens and Xa Conrad

The idea of infection began to be taken far more seriously than it ever had before. Hospitals transformed themselves in response to the new plague - sometimes for the better, but often for the worse, as when, in fear, they cast their ulcerated patients out into the streets.

-Peter Lewis Allen

The Great Plague Started and Ended from around 1332-1352, but there have been cases in which the plague showed up for brief periods of time after the great epidemic.

A patient from the Black Death.

How the Black Death began

A Rat

The Black Death is thought to began from a flea called Xenopsylla Cheopis. This is a flea which bites rats and then vomits into the blood stems of the rat then, the rat would dies an agonizing death. After this the flea will have to find a new host specially any warm blooded host such as a human or a rat normally the rats would not come into contact with humans but because of a change in climate the rats came into closer contact with people with the flea being abel to jump six inches forward and four inches up could easily jump on to a human and transmit the decease.

The Spread of the Black Death

The Black Death is thought to have begun in Mongolia in the the late 1320s. Then from Mongolia the disease spreed into China causing much death in these areas. then to India and after this it spread to the Middle East. Not just the rats where carring the disease, but also traders crossing the trade routs had the disease. Thus making the disease being able to cross over to distance countries and even continents. A chilling tale recounts the story of how the Black Death came to Italy. The story all starts with a man called Mussis at a fort called Kaffa. A group of Muslims were being insulted by a group of Christians. The Muslims got very mad and chased the Christians to Fort Kaffa. At the fort, the Muslims waged war on the Christians. Days later the Christians were running out of food and then the unthinkable happened. Black Death broke out in the Muslim soldiers. Out of anger, the Muslims then catapulted the dead bodies over the stone walls of Fort Kaffa. The Christians then decided to dispose of the bodies by dumping them in the rivers, streams, and lakes surrounding the fort. Thus, poisoning their own water supply. After this the Christians fled to the ships in a final attempt to save their lives, but still Death followed them on their journey. By the time they finally got to Italy most of the sailors on the ship had the plague or died. Also, at the end of their journey the Christians were turned away from the Port of Genoa with fire arrows, thus burning down the ship. However, this didn’t save the people in the town. Some of the sailors had jumped ship before it burned down and swam ashore and eventually mingled with the people. This is how the plague and Death came to Italy.

Here is a funny view of the plague...[1]

Boccaccio said that the victims, "ate lunch with their friend and dinner with their ancestors in paradise."

Medical Explanation

A Plague Doctor's Stereotypical Outfit.

The plague was interpreted in many different ways. The doctors thought it was a medical epidemic. Which they were most right. But most of the doctors of the Medieval ages were under trained... at the very best of times. Not that it was their fault, but there was little room for education in their lives. For only the very rich could afford a tutor, and there was so little known about the human body at such a time. Also, what if the teacher was wrong? Would they not just pass on their misleading concepts? Because only the rich could afford any type of education, and there would be only a few. So when a problem arose, they simply had to think of something quick, not unlike us in some ways. Not only were the methods questionable, but there were lots of fake doctors. Back then, the only thing that you could hold to say you were a doctor was your word and others words. No fancy degree, no record, no proof. How these fakes arose was when there were less people, the taxes went up (because of less jobs, in short) so in order to pay bills they would take to the profession of doctor. People were desperate for answers, so they would pay huge amounts of money just to have these doctors give them "treatment". These doctors were know to use in-humane methods such as draining blood with leaches. It is sick, but they thought that "bad blood" was the answer. Also they would shove hot metal rods into your flesh.

Although there were fake doctors, there were real ones (as far as we know) to who devoted their studies to that of the Black Plague. The first known "Plague Doctor" was a man named John Paulitious who died in Edinburgh in 1645. The council (of Edinburgh) then decided to appoint his successor, George Rae to the job. But what they did not know was that George had found a brutally simple way to evade the Plague. Not cure, but evade. It all started when people thought that the plague was spread by air. So in order to protect himself, Dr. Rae wore all thick leather clothing from head to toe. Also, he wore a mask with sweet smelling herbs. And because the kind of Plague that they were worried about was caused by fleas, he was completely impervious because the fleas could not bite through his thick leather! But few other people that we know of wore such clothes, ironically, plague doctors were known to wear long black garments, and a white, ominous bird shaped mask. Such clothes had no resistance to the plague. And even though Rae was a cautious man (to himself), others were not so. For example, a way to find out if you had the plague would be to drink the patients urine. By doing so they thought that you could find out if the person had the plague. Though even if this did work, the sheer fact that if you have the plague you will typically die in under 5 days, so it did little to no good. Though as much praise as Rae may get for not letting himself get the plague, he was vicious doctor who had one of the most disgusting methods of all. He would cut open the boils and jam hot rods into them, horrible, but true. This was Medicine. This is disgusting and it is hard to believe that people could allow them selves to be mutilated so. And after all this horror, they still trusted these "doctors". But with as many gruesome and gratuitous treatments there were, some relatively harmless antidotes arose. These included lucky charms (necklaces), strong perfumes, hot drinks, and smoking tobacco (not health, but not as bad). The list goes on, but it is only matched by gruesome ones. So, in truth, one of the reasons why Europe suffered so badly from the plague was that they were doing more harm than help.

[2] This is long, but it is hugely helpful.

Religious Explanation

"God's Wrath"

Many people believe, and still do, that there is a god. What we do know for a fact though, was that religion played a serious part in the everyday life of medieval people. Religion was not for just the rich, but for all the people. So when the plague struck, it would effect all. When the plague struck, it would be like an earthquake to a very old house. Some people would would lose some of their faith in god. Others would completely lose all faith in what they once thought was the creator of the earth. Though some would continue to practice their religions as before, if not more vigorously. Why they may of done this is that the belief (in Christianity which was the main religion) that god only punished sinners. If you were raised to believe this, than you may think that it was just god punishing bad people. It has claimed to have happened many different times in the Bible, so why would people believe that now was any different? But the Black Plague was certainly a horrible thing for churches. Because what people did notice about the plague was that it was highly contagious. Even people would even go the distance to shut in people or whole neighborhoods to try and stop the plague from spreading even more. People started to go less and less to churches and such, also, if a person that had the plague did go to church, he or she could spread it and make everybody in the church die. And many who had once went to church fled to the country side. So it would be very easy for a church to shut down. Kind of like the fake doctors of the medical side, what if a church would lose a priest? What would they do? They would have to get a new priest, but since there would be such a high "demand" for priests, some who got a job would be a bit of an amateur. Also, a huge part in all religions is the after life and death. But with the mass deaths and the lack of time or space, burials were only ever left for the richest, but most of the time people would be buried in groups. For the thriving religions, the plague would threaten them, like a king with a tyrant at his door. But for struggling ones (like Judaism), there would be no chance. Like a great slaughter.

Other

While the Plague is most famous in Great Britain, it has traveled to many different countries. It ravaged other places such as Italy, Asia, Africa, and every where around the Mediterranean. And even though these country were not hit as hard, they still got slammed. Since the quantity of trade was relatively high, the plague could travel very fast and very easily.

Also, the plague in Great Britain was only the largest. There are cases of the plague in which few people know about. One of which is that there was a serious outbreak of the plague in the Ancient Roman times. Hundreds of thousands died, the ruler nearly one of them. And although the affects were not as bad, they were still horrible beyond belief.

The Peoples Reactions

The people reacted in different ways: some fled their homes and left all they had behind, while others stayed in hope that they would be spared and not get the plague. And then there where those who had the plague and started a desperate search to find a cure, but to no prevail. As situations got worse so did their reactions.

Some people fled to the country. During so they would attempt to cut themselves off from the world. Though very few found success, while most were left with only the grass and wolves.

Here is an example of how the plague still goes on...[3]