The Black Death: what it was, and characteristics of this pandemic

We've all heard of the Black Death. This sad episode of humanity has appeared in numerous literary works and in films, such as An endless world by Ken Follet or The Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones, the latter recently transferred to the small screen.

However, the literature on the epidemic dates back to the same fourteenth century, when Giovanni Bocaccio, survivor of the great slaughter of the city of Florence, conceived his novel, the Decameron, like a series of short stories told by friends, secluded in the countryside to escape the pestilence. The novel begins with a vivid description of the epidemic, which constitutes one of the most eloquent testimonies of the calamity it caused for the European population.

Bocaccio tells us of thousands of deaths (in a single city); of husbands who abandoned their wives, and vice versa, for fear of contagion, and even parents who left their children dying in bed, alone, without attention or care. He tells us of mass graves laden with the dead, of

quick and furtive funerals, with hardly any priests and with no relatives present to mourn the deceased. It bears witness to the speed with which death came, silently, almost without warning, the horrible torment of the sick, the loneliness of the dying, the chaos, the terror, the confusion.

This was the Black Death the most rugged and deadly epidemic in human history. In this article we will try to rescue all its aspects, and also to discern, as always, between reality and fantasy.

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The Black Death, or the evil that came from the East

14th century Europe was an eminently mercantile land. Gone were the first centuries of the Middle Ages, where the economy was predominantly local and practically subsistence. Indeed, towards the eleventh century everything began to change: the boroughs acquired new strength with the reactivation of the economy; The bourgeois class appeared and, with it, the mercantile routes, which had their roots in distant Asia, acquired new vitality and importance.

One of the most important routes (the Silk Road) started from China, crossed the entire Asian continent and ended in Europe. Specifically, it ended in Italian cities, which had emerged as true leaders in international trade. One of these receiving centers was Venice, which, due to its geographical location, was the gateway for products from the East.

Between 1346 and 1347, a Mongol army laid siege to the Asian city of Caffa (on the shores of the Black Sea, which at that time was a Genoese merchant colony). According to the chronicler Gabriele de Mussis, Asians launched their plague victims into the city with powerful catapults. Supposedly, this was the way in which the Genoese of Caffa caught the disease, and which they later transferred to their homes in Italy.

However, the original source of the pestilence is not known for sure. Some historians, such as Ole J. Benedictow, insist that its origin was the Black Sea itself, specifically the Crimean Peninsula, since there are no records of any focus in the regions closest to China. Therefore, it is unlikely that the disease traveled through the Silk Road, as other researchers have suggested.

Be that as it may, the fact is that in 1348 the pestilence was already in Europe. The pandemic was moving with extraordinary speed compared to the other epidemics of antiquity, and by the middle of that fateful year it had already devastated most of the European territories. The figures are terrifying: only 2 inhabitants out of 10 escaped death. The terror had only just begun.

The end of abundance and God's punishment

Europe had long left the so-called terrors of the year 1000 behind. The decades before the great Plague had been fruitful: agricultural and livestock activity prospered due to good weather conditions and improved cultivation techniques, and all this translated into a considerable improvement in the diet which in turn led to an extraordinary increase in the population.

But at the beginning of the fourteenth century, things began to go wrong. According to many authors, including the eminent French medievalist Jacques Le Goff, this situation caused a depletion in productive capacity, and there came a point where it was impossible to feed the entire European population. In addition, the good weather conditions disappeared, giving way to the so-called Little Ice Age, in which hail and frost caused meager harvests and clearly insufficient for so many mouths.

All this, as expected, caused an excessive famine that weakened the population and left it practically defenseless before the arrival of the Black Death. The result: death prevailed even among the youngest and apparently healthiest, and did not differentiate at all between sexes, ages or social classes. For all this, the Europeans of the time believed that the pestilence was a punishment from God for his many and grave sins.

Penance versus carpe diem

At this point, religious hysteria broke out. Endless processions, begging to ask God for mercy, flagellants that tore their skin to wash with their blood the sins of the world... the calls were spread Dances of Death, macabre musical representations in which the Grim Reaper called the living to leave for his kingdom. Pessimism spread across Europe; no one really believed that humanity could survive this second Flood. It was the end.

Curiously, this certainty that times were ending and, with them, life, proliferated in some sectors and social groups, a reaction absolutely contrary to what we have before commented. Instead of retiring to pray, or to do penance to ask God for the forgiveness of sins, certain people chose carpe diem in response to the collective shipwreck. Thus, many were dedicated to having fun, drinking and eating, frequenting brothels in the cities more than ever, and even neglecting their chores and obligations. What difference did it make? The world was ending. And if it ends, those people should think, we better take advantage of these last moments and take a good memory to the other world.

This second reaction is the one that Bocaccio picks up in the Decameron mentioned above, when he tells us the story of these ten young people who are cloistered in a beautiful village in the country to wait for the plague to pass, and to mitigate their boredom they dedicate themselves to love, food, music, laughter and derision. In short: they laugh at death.

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"The stigmatization of the Jews

Unaware of the nature of the disease, the medievals could only guess about it. And since it is known that in all misfortunes there must always be a scapegoat, this time it was the turn of the Jewish community.

Jews were accused of such vile and unheard-of acts as poisoning water wells to spread pestilence. Thus, there were numerous popular attacks on Jewish neighborhoods, and in some places they became truly atrocious. In Tárrega, for example, there are about 300 victims, all of whom died in a truly rugged way.

However, it remains unclear whether the attackers actually believed the poisoning story, or whether it was merely an excuse to unleash their hatred. It is worth remembering that the impoverishment of the population had made it impossible to repay the loans granted by the Jewish bankers... and many of the Christians did not forgive it.

The rats and the plague

Obviously in the Middle Ages the pathogens causing the diseases were unknown. In fact, it was not until a very recent date, 1870, that science finally managed to discover these tiny beings who were responsible for so much death and suffering. And it was at the end of the 19th century, following an outbreak of plague in China, that Dr. Yersin thoroughly described the microorganism responsible for causing the disease. In his honor, the little enemy was christened Yersinia Pestis.

But how did the Yersinia act? It was shown that the main carrier of the bacteria was the black rat, very common in Europe. From the rodent, fleas that fed on its blood could travel to humans and transmit the disease. With minimal levels of hygiene this contagion was practically impossible, but we have to remember that in the Middle Ages, rats were regular guests both in cities and in the countryside.

The various pests

In addition to the contagion through rat fleas, there was another way to contract the disease. And was through the expectorations of the sick. At this point we will have to clarify that the Black Death manifested itself in three different ways.

One, the bubonic plague (the most common and famous), for the one in which the bacteria traveled through the lymphatic system and inflamed the lymph nodes, which turned into buboes.

A second way, also quite usual, in which the bacteria managed to reach the bloodstream and, through it, settle in the lungs of the sick person. In this case, pneumonic plague appeared, whose symptoms were persistent cough and expectoration of bloody sputum, highly contagious.

Finally, A third form of Black Death was septicemic, the most dangerous of all and that he never left any survivors. In this case, the bacteria proliferated in the blood and infected it. Black spots then appeared on the skin of the patient, and he died a few hours after infection. It is the modality that raised the most terror (the “sudden death”), since a person could be healthy in the morning and die hours later, between convulsions and very high fevers.

Europe after the Black Death

At the end of the 14th century, Europe was literally devastated. By 1353 three parts of its population had died (that is, about 25 million people). Entire villages were uninhabited, the fields were not cultivated for lack of labor, the cities had lost the mercantile impulse due to the high mortality (in Florence, for example, only a fifth of the population survived).

The Plague also caused an important social change: the few remaining peasants, conscious that the lords needed them to work the land, they began to demand more and more Rights. It is not surprising, then, that the great peasant revolutions, such as the Remença, which bathed Catalonia in blood, took place in those years of instability and change.

The world would never be the same again after the Black Death. In fact, not a few historians place this capital fact as the exit door of the Middle Ages in Europe.

Bibliographic references:

• Benedictow, Ole J., The Black Death (1348-1353). The Complete History, ed. Akal, 2011
• Le Goff, Jacques, The Late Middle Ages, ed. 21st century, 2016
• Bocaccio, Giovanni, El Decamerón, ed. Espasa Libros, 2010
• Various authors, Medieval History Manual, Alianza Editorial, 2016