Black Death Case Files

Expert Analysis: Origin of the Black Death

The plague began in Asia. Traveling trade routes, it infected parts of
Asia, the Muslim world, and Europe. In 1347, a fleet of Genoese merchant
ships arrived in Sicily carrying bubonic plague, also known as the Black
Death. It got the name because of the purplish or blackish spots it
produced on the skin. The disease swept through Italy. From there it
followed trade routes to Spain, France, Germany, England, and other parts
of Europe and North Africa.

Source: Linda B. Black, Roger Beck, et al., World History: Patterns of Interaction

Expert Analysis: What Disease Was It?

Historians are still not sure what disease the Black Death was, or even if
it was a single disease. One theory is that the disease took two different
forms. One, called bubonic plague, was spread by fleas that lived on rats
and other animals. The other, pneumonic plague, could be spread through
the air from person to person.

Source: Susan Ramirez, et al., World History: Human Legacy, Holt

Figure 1: Origins and Spread in Asia

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Figure 2: First Incidence in Europe and Asia

Photo: Black Rat (Suspect)

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Expert Analysis: The Mongols and the Rats
In 1346 plague struck Mongol armies laying siege to a Black Sea port. From
there infected rats and fleas made their way onto ships. Infected fleas
bit humans transferring the disease to them. As merchants traveled [along
trade routes], so did the plague. It spread quickly throughout Europe,
first striking coastal regions and then moving inland. By 1351, almost no
part of Europe remained untouched by the Black Death.

Source: Susan Ramirez, et al., World History: Human Legacy, Holt

Expert Analysis: Flying Corpses and Biological Warfare

In 1334 in the north-eastern Chinese province of Hopei, China, a new
disease appeared. Highly virulent, highly infectious, it killed about 90
percent of the population — some 5,000,000 people. It then made its way
west, striking India, Syria, and Mesopotamia.

In 1346, it struck a Genoese trading station Kaffa on the Crimean

Peninsula of the Black Sea - right between the empires of Islam and
Christianity. Kaffa was under siege from the Muslim Tartar forces and its
inhabitants were starving. Suddenly though, the Tartars started dropping
like flies. The Black Death had arrived.

But there was little comfort for the besieged Genoese. Before retreating,
the commander of the Tartars catapulted a few plague infested corpses over
the city walls. Hoping to escape, the Genoese sailed away in four ships.
But by the time they reached Messina, Sicily, most of those on board were
already dead. The ships were ordered out of the harbour - but too late.
The Great Pestilence, as it would come to be known, had reached Europe.

Source: Peter Lavelle, “On the Trail of the Black Death”, ABC Science, abc.net.au

Forensic Sketch: Mongol Army (Suspect)

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Figure 3: The Golden Horde and Mediterranean Spread

Figure 4: Spread of Plague in Europe

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Expert Analysis: Was the Black Death a Virus?
The descriptions given by Boccaccio and others didn't seem to fit with
what we know about bubonic plague. That was the view of two British
researchers, Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott from the University of
Liverpool, who in 2001 published a book called Biology of Plagues:
Evidence from Historical Populations. In it they pointed out several
things that didn't make sense if indeed, the Black Death was caused by
bubonic plague. For example;

• How did it spread so quickly? According to written accounts at the

time, the Black Death spread on average about 2 miles a day. This
implies packs of rats scurrying at breakneck speed across the
countryside. But there were no such observations from observers at
the time. In fact, eyewitness accounts of the Black Death in towns
and villages don't mention rats at all.
• How did it get over the Pyrenees and the Alps? How did it reach
Iceland and Greenland? Those are long cold journeys for a plague-
ridden rat that prefers warmer climates.
• Why did it spread along trade routes and where crowds of people
gathered — in urban centres, at fairs, and amongst armies and
processions of people?
• And why was quarantining the only real measure that was effective?
Quarantining wouldn't have worked if the plague was spread by rats,
because the rats would have escaped from quarantined houses and
villages and continued to spread the disease.

There had to be some other means of transmission than the rat/flea/human

pathway. It made much more sense if transmission was from person to person
— by an airborne particle — probably a virus, argue Duncan and Scott.
Medieval descriptions of the Black Death — where dark spots appear in the
skin — sound more like viral hemorrhagic fever, similar to modern day
Ebola, than bubonic plague, they say. If so, it would explain why it
spread so quickly. The virus, they argue, had a long incubation period of
about 20 days. During this time — the period between exposure to the virus
and getting the symptoms — the person was infectious and spread the
disease, unbeknownst to the population.

Here's what they think probably happened. A person — a soldier perhaps or

a travelling tradesman who was infected with the Black Death, but wasn't
yet ill, arrived in a new town and took up lodgings. That person infected
the rest of the household who spread it to other households (usually via
visiting children) to the entire village or town. After about two to three
weeks the traveller died. Then others fell ill and died. Meanwhile someone
from the village had travelled into another village spreading the disease
and so on. That's why the disease appeared to travel so fast — two miles a
day was the rate at which travellers on average moved across the
countryside on foot.

Source: Peter Lavelle, “On the Trail of the Black Death”, ABC Science, abc.net.au

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Witness Testimony: Blaming the Jews for Plague

In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in
all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the
water and the wells-that is what they were accused of-and for this reason the Jews
were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for the
pope protected them there. Nevertheless they tortured a number of Jews in [Switzerland]
who then admitted that they had put poison into many wells, and they also found the
poison in the wells. Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this
affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews…

Source: Jakob Twinger von Königshofen, Chronicler of the Black Death, 1474

Crime Scene Sketches: Jews burned to death in Strasbourg

Feb. 14 1349 during the Black Death

Source: Medieval Drawing, circa 1375

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Source: Woodcut Illustration, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Figure 5: Impact on European Population

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Figure 6: Demographic Comparison

Witness Testimony: Graves Upon Graves

At every church they dug deep pits… and thus those who were poor who died during the
night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit. In the morning when a large number
of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shoveled it down on top of
them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just
as one makes lasagna with layers of pasta and cheese.

Source: Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, Florentine Chronicle, written in 137

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Crime Scene Sketches: The Dead and the Dying

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Witness Testimony: Death All Around

The plight of the lower and most of the middle classes was even more pitiful to behold.
Most of them remained in their houses, either through poverty or in hopes of safety, and
fell sick by thousands. Since they received no care and attention, almost all of them died.
Many ended their lives in the streets both at night and during the day; and many others
who died in their houses were only known to be dead because the neighbors smelled their
decaying bodies. Dead bodies filled every corner. Most of them were treated in the same
manner by the survivors, who were more concerned to get rid of their rotting bodies than
moved by charity towards the dead. With the aid of porters, if they could get them, they
carried the bodies out of the houses and laid them at the door; where every morning
quantities of the dead might be seen…

Source: Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 14th century

Photo: Plague Symptoms on Hands, Skin, and Lymph Nodes

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Witness Testimony: Symptoms of the Disease

The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose
was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain
swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an
egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours. In a short space of time these
tumours spread from the two parts named all over the body. Soon after this the
symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other
part of the body, sometimes a few large ones, sometimes many little ones. These spots
were a certain sign of death, just as the original tumour had been and still remained.

Source: Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 14th century

Forensic Sketch: Plague Victim Beset by Dogs

Witness Testimony: Profiting From Plague

Those who especially profited from the plague were the chemists, the doctors, the
poultry sellers, the undertakers, and the women who sold… herbs for [treating open
sores]. And those who made the most were these herb sellers. Wool merchants and
retailers when they came across cloth could sell it for whatever price they asked
(because it was so scarce). Once the plague had finished, anybody who could get hold of
whatsoever kind of cloth, or found the raw materials to make it, became rich… [When the
plague passed,] people began to return to their homes and belongings. And such was the
number of houses full of goods that had no owner, that it was amazing. Then the heirs
to this wealth began to turn up. And someone who had previously had nothing suddenly
found himself rich and couldn’t believe it was all his, and even felt himself it wasn’t quite
right.

Source: Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, Florentine Chronicle, written in 1378

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Expert Analysis: Reaction to the Plague
“Some people fled their cities, some gave way to religious frenzy
(extremism) or [open and obvious] hedonism (seeking physical pleasure
without concern for morality), and some remained faithfully at their
posts, hoping for divine protection against the pestilence [disease]. But
none can have emerged from the ordeal unaffected…”

Source: C. Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe: A Short History, 1968

Crime Scene Sketch: Doctor with Herbs and Victims

Witness Testimony: Doctors Are No Help

No doctor's advice, no medicine could overcome or alleviate this disease, An enormous

number of ignorant men and women set up as doctors in addition to those who were
trained. Either the disease was such that no treatment was possible or the doctors were
so ignorant that they did not know what caused it, and consequently could not administer
the proper remedy. In any case very few recovered; most people died within about three
days of the appearance of the tumors….

Source: Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 14th century

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 Plague
Doctors

Expert Analysis: Doctors of Death

In the 14th Century, people did not understand exactly how diseases were
transmitted. While some believed that disease had to be passed on by
physical contact, many followed the “Miasma Theory” that diseases were
spread by breathing in “bad air.” Plague doctors, who traveled throughout
infected cities trying to help those suffering, tried to protect
themselves from catching the disease by wearing suits covering every part
of their bodies. The most noticeable part of the suit was a mask with a
long, bird-like beak that was filled with good smelling herbs and rose
petals. They believed that this “good air” would protect them from the
“bad air” that caused plague.

Source: Simon Elijah Johnson, “Doctors of Death”, 2015

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Crime Scene Sketch: Death in the Street

Witness Testimony: Breakdown of Society

One citizen avoided another, hardly any neighbour troubled about others, relatives never or
hardly ever visited each other. Moreover, such terror was struck into the hearts of men
and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and
the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly
incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they
had not been theirs.

Source: Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, 14th century

Witness Testimony: Inflation of Prices

…the king sent word [that] workmen should [not ask for] more [money] than they had
before [the outbreak of the plague]… Nevertheless the workmen… did not heed the king’s
decree, and if anyone wanted to hire them he had to pay what they asked… In the following
winter there was such a want of hands (need for workers), for every kind of work… Cattle
and such livestock as a man might have wandered about without a keeper, and there was
no one to look after people’s possessions. And thus the necessities of life became so
dear, that what in previous times was worth 1d. now cost 4d. or 5d…

Source: Henry Knighton, Knighton’s Chronicle, written in England during the 14th century
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Expert Analysis: Effects on European Society
The economic and social effects of the plague were enormous. The old
manorial system began to crumble. Some of the changes that occurred
included these: Town populations fell; Trade declined and prices rose; The
serfs left the manor in search of better wages; Nobles fiercely resisted
peasant demands for higher wages, causing peasant revolts in England,
France, Italy, and Belgium; Jews were blamed for bringing on the plague.
All over Europe, Jews were driven from their homes or, worse, massacred;
The Church suffered a loss of prestige when its prayers failed to stop the Page 3 of 6

onslaught of the bubonic plague and priests abandoned their duties.

Source: Linda B. Black, Roger Beck, et al., World History: Patterns of Interaction,
McDougal Littell

The Bubonic Plague

The bubonic plague, or Black Death, was a killer disease that swept repeatedly
through many areas of the world. It wiped out two-thirds of the population in some
areas of China, destroyed populations of Muslim towns in Southwest Asia, and then
decimated one-third of the European population.

Route of the Plague

1 The horse-riding Mongols
likely carried infected fleas
and rats in their food
supplies as they swooped
into China.
ASIA
1
2 The disease came with
EUROPE merchants along the
3 2
ATLANTIC Genoa MONGOLIA trade routes of Asia to
OCEAN Kaffa southern Asia, southwest
Asia, and Africa.

SOUTHWEST CHINA PACIFIC

ASIA OCEAN 3 In 1345–46, a Mongol
Alexandria army besieged Kaffa. A
INDIA 0 1,000 Miles
year later, Italian
AFRICA
0 2,000 Kilometers merchants returned to
Italy, unknowingly bringing
the plague with them.

Disease Spreads Patterns of Interaction

Black rats carried fleas that were infested with a bacillus The Spread of Epidemic Disease:
called Yersinia pestis. Because people did not bathe, almost Bubonic Plague and Smallpox
all had fleas and lice. In addition, medieval people threw
their garbage and sewage into the streets. These unsanitary The spread of disease has been
streets became breeding grounds for more rats. The fleas a very tragic result of cultures interacting
carried by rats leapt from person to person, thus spreading with one another across place and time.
the bubonic plague with incredible speed. Such diseases as smallpox and influenza
have killed millions of people, sometimes,
as with the Aztecs, virtually destroying
Symptoms of the Bubonic Plague civilizations.
• Painful swellings called buboes (BOO•bohz) in the lymph nodes,
particularly those in the armpits and groin
• Sometimes purplish or blackish spots on the skin
• Extremely high fever, chills, delirium, and in most cases, death

Death Tolls, 1300s

Western Europe 20–25 million 1. Hypothesizing Had people known

the cause of the bubonic plague,
China, India, other what might they have done to slow
25 million its spread?
Asians
See Skillbuilder Handbook, page R15.
= 4 million
2. Comparing What diseases of today 16
might be compared to the bubonic
plague? Why?
400 Chapter 14