The Black Death

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The Black Death
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Contributing Factors

• Italian sea trade expanded around 1300
• Opened Strait of Gibraltar
• Advances in shipbuilding
• Year-round, far-reaching trade
• Mongols controlled Eurasian landmass
  facilitated long-distance trade (Silk Road)
• Great Famine from 1315-1322
• Greater susceptibility to disease

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Pathology

• Bubonic plague bacillus Yersinia pestis
• Fleas Rats Sometimes Humans
• Pneumonic transmission (coughing, sneezing)

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The Disease Cycle
Flea drinks rat blood that carries the
bacteria.
Bacteria multiply in fleas gut.
Human is infected!
Fleas gut cloggedwith bacteria.
Flea bites human and regurgitates blood into
human wound.
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Symptoms

• Boils grow in armpit, groin, neck nut or apple
  sized
• Very painful!
• Boils could be lanced and drained of pus higher
  chance of recovery
• High Fever
• Black spots/blotches caused by bleeding under the
  skin
• Coughing blood dead in 2-3 days

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Spread of the Disease

• First description SW China 1331
• Mongol armies and merchants carried rats across
  Central Asia
• Reached Black Sea by 1340s
• Chemical warfare Mongols catapulted plague
  bodies into Kaffa - 1346
• 1347 Genoese ships brought plague from Kaffa to
  Sicily
• 1348 Plague hit Italian ports, spread through
  Europe

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• Poor urban conditions contributed to spread of
  disease
• Low standards of personal hygiene weakened
  immune system
• Estimate of 1/3 of European population killed in
  1348
• Recurrences of plague from 1360s to 1400

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Various Forms of Care

• 14thC Physicians could ease pain, but no cure
• Crowded cities warm/moist conditions higher
  death rate
• Corrupted air caused imbalance of fluid
  bloodletting
• Burning herbs, church bells, cryptograms

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Reactions

• Wealthy fled to countryside
• Towns isolated themselves
• Scapegoats Jews poisoned the wells!
• Led to persecution
• Some areas had hospital facilities limited
  availability and comfort
• Many saw plague as punishment from God

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Pograms against the Jews
Golden Circle obligatory badge
Jew hat
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Social and Economic Consequences

• High mortality rate for clergy stayed to care
  for sick
• Helped agrarian economy population decline led
  to increased productivity
• Balance between labor, land, capital
• New members brought into urban guilds
• General inflation
• High mortality Fall in production, shortage of
  goods, rise in prices
• Shortage of workers demand for higher wages,
  higher standard of living
• Pop. decline increase in per capita wealth

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Intellectual and Cultural Consequences

• Pervasive pessimism
• Various reactions
• Party time!
• Severe asceticism religious fervor
• Flagellants
• Blame the Jews
• Pogroms, persecution caused flight to E. Europe

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• Fancy funerals to mass graves
• Holy pilgrimages got them out of the city!
• Quarantine of travelers and ships
• More endowments to universities new colleges
• International character of medieval culture
  weakened

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Death Triumphant !A Major Artistic Theme
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Boccaccio in The Decameron
The victims ate lunch with their friends and
dinner with their ancestors.