Nature is a Player: Pathogenic Disease in Medieval Europe

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Nature is a PlayerPathogenic Disease in
Medieval Europe

• Hosts and Parasites
• Baseline Disease Conditions in preindustrial
  Europe
• Some Medieval Experiences

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Hosts and Parasites

• Shared environmental interactions
• Acute/chronic endemic/epidemic
• Vectors
• Disease pools and virgin soil epidemics

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Baseline Disease Conditions in Preindustrial
Europe

• Normal Mortality 3 p. a.
• Extreme infant and child mortality rates
• High urban mortality rates
• Periodic Mortality Crises
• Chronic debilitating diseases

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Medieval European history is punctuated by acute
and large-scale epidemic events which played out
against a shifting background of long-term
endemic diseases.
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Medieval European history is punctuated by acute
and large-scale epidemic events which played out
against a shifting background of long-term
endemic diseases.

• The Justinianic Plague, 540-568?
• Spread, descriptions, mortalities
• The First Pandemic, 540-750?
• Endemic leprosy Mycobacterium leprae
• Repulsive symptoms, great cultural resonance, but
  no demographic significance
• Late medieval disappearance?

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Medieval European history is punctuated by acute
and large-scale epidemic events which played out
against a shifting background of long-term
endemic diseases. The Black Death, 1347-1351

• Course of events
• Explanatory problem
• Bubonic plague Yersinia pestis, X. cheopsis,
  R. rattus, and 19th-20th century epidemiology
• How good the fit?
• Alternative understandings
• Cultural responses and learning

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Medieval European history is punctuated by acute
and large-scale epidemic events which played out
against a shifting background of long-term
endemic diseases.

• A failed pathogen? English Sweats, 1485-1551
• Malaria a major but changing endemic disease
• Plasmodium spp, Anopheles vectors, and human
  pathology
• Mediterranean Europe falciparium vivax
• Around the North Sea vivax, its vector and
  victims