The Black Death in Europe

CLIMATE CHANGE and PLAGUE in the FOURTEENTH CENTURY HIST 1301 | History The Black Death in Europe In 1346–1347, as the plague started to wreak havoc in the Mamluk Sultanate, it was also finding its way to the ports of Europe via merchant ships sailing the Black Sea and trade caravans along the Silk Road. Following its impact on the flea-infested marmot fur bales being unloaded in the Mongol-controlled cities of Sarai and Astrakhan (modern-day Russia), the plague proceeded down the River Don until it reached the city of Caffa (modern-day Feodosiya, Ukraine), a major trading hub on the Crimean Peninsula. A Mongol siege of Caffa, which was the point of entrance for the plague into Europe, was directed on Genoese tradesmen who had sought safety in the city. Italian notary clerk Gabriele de Mussis, who was there throughout the siege, described in graphic detail the Mongols' attempts to introduce bodies infected with the plague into the city. Despite the story's impossible to verify veracity, it shows that dead corpses were thought to be sources of disease long before the role of germs was understood. However, it is quite probable that flea-ridden rats brought the plague to Caffa, unrelated to the Mongol siege. For an extended period, Caffa functioned as a significant administrative hub for Genoese commerce, with its port acting as a key focus for merchant activity. During the summer of 1347, plague-carrying rats left Caffa and boarded ships sailing towards the ports of Messina and Genoa in the Dardanelles, the Black Sea, and Italy. From there, the illness travelled to the port of Marseilles and then down rivers, trails, and highways into the interior of Europe, killing up to 24 million people at the time, or around 30 percent of the continent's total population. Following a string of famines and crop failures earlier in the fourteenth century, Europe experienced a period of economic recession that culminated in the onset of the plague. The early 1300s saw a reduction in the quality of life for all save the wealthiest elites due to an economic crisis brought on by an increase in population and a proportionate decrease in agricultural production. Falling earnings resulted in less resources, worse diets, and widespread malnourishment for the great majority of individuals living at the bottom end of the economic range. The European population was suffering from years of economic deterioration and malnutrition well before the onset of the plague in the 1340s. These factors may have weakened immune systems and rendered certain people more susceptible to infectious illness assaults. The Black Death era had profound effects on the arts and literature in addition to its effects on the population and economy. This was due to the destruction caused by the disease. The anxieties around death and decay spurred a renewed focus on realism in the visual arts, addressing themes of redemption and mortality. Especially vivid reminders of death's inevitable nature and concerns of hell and damnation were macabre depictions of deathbed scenarios and dancing skeletons. The visual imagery of death served as a powerful reminder to celebrate life even in the face of death, even if it also expressed the collective cultural trauma connected with the pandemic. By describing what it was like to survive the pandemic and examining themes of impermanence and death, mediaeval writers also sought to make sense of the Black Death. For instance, a fictitious group of young men and women seeking safety from the plague in a villa outside of Florence spend the time by exchanging stories that consider love, grief, and the whims of fate in Giovanni Boccaccio's well-known collection of novellas, The Decameron. The Decameron also draws attention to broader societal reactions brought about by the demographic destruction caused by the plague, such as the rise in importance of merchants as a result of the expansion of international trade and the decline in public trust in the European Christian Church. The Black Death in mediaeval Europe elicited a range of societal reactions, from increasing devotion to hedonism to resigned acceptance of eventual death, despite the fact that the Christian Church remained a source of spiritual consolation for many. Most people did not have the luxury of leaving the congested metropolitan centres behind, but those who could afford to done so did. Even when certain Italian cities tried to establish quarantine and travel restrictions, mediaeval European cities continued to be epicentres of illness. In certain towns, markets were closed and funeral gatherings were forbidden; in others, the sick patients had to be removed from hospitals to prevent infection. Medical professionals, however, were unable to completely explain or treat the plague due to the lack of a germ theory of infection, despite the fact that centuries of early scientific observations had encouraged many to try the methods and strategies that had worked in past illness outbreaks. But many of the devout resorted to the clergy, who were also dying in record numbers, primarily as a result of their attempts to care for the sick, since they were unable to completely understand how and why the sickness was spreading. However, they were also powerless to stop the plague's unrelenting death toll. While some in Christian Europe attributed the epidemic to astrological influences, earthquakes, or toxic fog, the majority believed it was an indication of God's wrath. In certain places, the idea that communities needed to be cleansed of "morally contaminating people" like beggars and prostitutes also resulted in the scapegoating of Jews, who were wrongly accused of poisoning wells to spread the plague. Despite the fact that the plague also affected their communities, Jews were persecuted severely, with full-scale killings occurring in a number of places. Motivated by the strict and violent beliefs of late mediaeval Christianity, individuals who spearheaded the persecution of oppressed groups attempted to appease the divine by constructing churches, creating cults around saints such as Saint Roche, and pursuing heretics and outsiders whom they felt had offended the Almighty. Perhaps the greatest example of the passion and despair that drove some responses to the plague in mediaeval Europe is the emergence of flagellants, individuals who thought that by publicly flogging themselves, they might lessen divine vengeance and atone for humanity's crimes. Following the idea's introduction to Germany from Eastern Europe, the flagellants went from town to town, reading poetry of penitence and slashing themselves with leather whips until they bled. Usually, the townsfolk welcomed them with the belief that they would stop the spread of the plague. From time to time, their discourse devolved into anti-Semitic accusations that the Jews were to blame for the epidemic that would destroy Christendom. During the early years of the plague outbreak, the flagellants were active over most of Europe and could have even transmitted the illness through tainted blood. But because of their more extreme views, flagellants were publicly denounced by Pope Clement VI in 1349, and by the fifteenth century, they had completely vanished from memory. Long-term economic and demographic effects of the plague included extensive depopulation and periodic outbreaks of the illness throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in every region it touched. Ancient social hierarchies changed to account for the large population losses that followed the epidemic, and old religious systems were questioned. The people who died most often were peasants, labourers, and those at the bottom of the social order. However, among those who made it through, severe labour shortages caused some enterprises to fail and improved working conditions in others. Since the social hierarchy often preached that the elites were blessed with luxury, the disadvantaged started to doubt this, considering that they too perished from the epidemic and neglected to care for those for whom they were responsible.