The Black Death Spreads

• In 1333, a devastating epidemic in Hopei, northeastern China, wiped out approximately two-thirds of the population, resulting in about five million deaths.
• As a prominent trading hub, China facilitated the arrival of the epidemic in Europe by 1347, specifically in Messina, Sicily.
• Trading ships traversing routes from the Black Sea, via Constantinople, and across the Mediterranean Sea played a crucial role in spreading the disease.
• The diseases brought by trading ships spread to areas across the Mediterranean including Corsica, Sardinia, Sarai and Tana.
• The rapid spread of the epidemic to Messina and the surrounding countryside occurred before residents could grasp the severity of the situation.
• During the outbreak Christian traders faced attacks from the Tartars, further aggravating the crisis as plague victims were concentrated within the city.
• By January 1348, some sailors and passengers believed they had outrun the plague.
• The Black Death, or Great Plague, was a devastating epidemic in the 1300s that impacted both Europe and Asia.
• Spread through rat parasites like fleas, the plague resulted in one of history's highest death tolls.
• The Black Death reached England via Bristol, a major European port, by 1348.
• Joan Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward III of England, succumbed to the plague on September 2, 1348, in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France while preparing to marry King Pedro of Castile.
• London's population was approximately 70,000 when the plague struck Bristol.
• Poor living conditions and sanitation in London facilitated the plague's spread throughout England, with the River Thames acting as a conduit for infections.
• Church records indicate around 20,000 deaths in London between 1348 and 1350.
• Over two years, the plague claimed 30 to 40% of England's population, obliterating entire villages and towns.
• London's unsanitary conditions fostered the plague's spread, with practices such as emptying chamber pots into the streets and keeping livestock in homes exacerbating the situation.
• In the 18 months following the plague's arrival in London, approximately 400,000 people died, leading to mass burials, especially for the poor.
• The Bishop of London urgently opened the Smithfield cemetery, followed by a secondary cemetery at Spittle Croft, to accommodate the rising death toll.
• Edward III ordered the cleaning of London's streets to curb contamination, but the council cited the deaths of street sweepers and cleaners from the plague as an obstacle.

Science Behind the Plague

• Scientists now attribute the Black Death to the bacillus Yersinia pestis, discovered in the 19th century by Alexandre Yersin.
• The bacteria is hosted by small mammals like rats, rabbits, and squirrels.
• Rats were prevalent in the streets and homes of England, contributing to the spread.
• The term Bubonic Plague comes from the telltale buboes, or painfully swollen lymph nodes, that appear, accompanied by vomiting, nausea, and fever.
• Fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) on rats transmitted the plague to humans.
• Transmission occurred through inhaling infected droplets or direct contact with the blood of those infected.
• The Black Death, also known as the Great Pestilence or Great Mortality, ranks as one of history's most devastating pandemics.
• A pandemic is defined by the spread of disease over a wide area.
• Historians estimate that the plague killed half of Europe’s population.
• Due to ignorance about the disease, it spread easily among family members and caretakers, but when they observed the symptoms, families were ripped apart.
• Poor towns and cities faced streets littered with corpses, leading to mass burials or cremations.
• Fears of infection led to avoidance of public spaces and communal activities in markets and churches, causing significant economic losses as trading ports closed.
• The plague affected all social classes, placing ruling monarchs in a political crisis.
• The frustration with the nature and cause of the plague led scholars to reject astrological and superstitious diagnoses, fostering advancements in public health, hospital management, and physical science education.
• Survivors experienced a crisis of faith, questioning God's existence and power as the church failed to offer adequate assistance, which led to heretical movements and the construction of personal private chapels.
• The Dance of Death, or danse macabre, in art, poetry, drama, music, and visual works, reflected the preoccupation with death.

Bubonic Plague in England (1348)

• Churchyards quickly filled with bodies due to the rapid spread of the plague.
• Carts collected the dead at night, taking them to new burial grounds.
• Black rats carried infected fleas which would bite victims, causing the infection to spread.
• The first symptom was painful swellings which were caused by buboes, usually in the groin or armpit, and about the size of an egg.
• By the second day of infection, victims developed a fever and began vomiting.
• Bleeding under the skin caused dark blotches all over the body.
• Victims suffered spasms of pain when the disease attacked the whole nervous system by day four.
• 80% of victims died within 3-5 days of being bitten but the infected fleas.
• Many at the time believed the plague was a punishment for sins, caused by God.
• A group called the Flagellants travelled the country whipping themselves in punishment for their sins, believing this would spare them from the plague.
• Others thought that the pestilence was caused by the alignment of the stars and planets.
• Some believed that the deaths were caused by poisonous air.
• Some people cut open their buboes to let the disease leave in their blood, which accelerated their death.
• Others laid down next to roaring fires to sweat the plague out, or applied warm butter, onion, garlic, and dried toad to their buboes.

Consequences of the Black Death

• Crop perished and animals wandered the countryside unattended due to widespread death.
• Prices went down due to excess supply.
• Many buildings went into ruin and villages became desolate.
• As a result of a servant and slave shortage, wages increased, improving peasants situation.
• England's population fell from approximately five and a half million to less than four million.
• Labor shortages saw wages double and rents fall.
• Food prices plummeted due to plentiful land and fewer people to feed.
• Many landowners sold farms to tenants.
• Some historians argue that the Black Death altered the balance of political power in England.
• The Black Death potentially sped up the collapse of the feudal system, and severely dented faith in the church.
• A new class of land-owning peasants emerged because of it..
• Workers defied their lords by migrating in pursuit of higher wages.
• Farming became less important than sheep-rearing due to a lack of farmhands.
• Wool in late-medieval was critical to England's prosperity
• Some individuals began to criticize of the church in the mid-fourteenth century.
• Edward III was mostly occupied with conflicts with the French, but may have been aware of the threat to the soldiers.