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

The Black Death is one of the most important pandemics in history, considered a divine punishment.

We have all heard about the Black Death.. This sad episode of mankind has appeared in numerous literary works and films, such as A World Without End by Ken Follet or The Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones, the latter recently transferred to the small screen.

However, literature on the epidemic dates back to the 14th century itself, when Giovanni Bocaccio, a survivor of the great mortality in the city of Florence, conceived his novel, the Decameronas 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 is one of the most eloquent testimonies of the calamity it brought to the European population.

Bocaccio tells us of thousands of dead (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 fast and furtive burials, with hardly any priests and no relatives present to mourn the deceased.. He testifies 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 lurid and deadly epidemic in the history of mankind.. In this article we will try to rescue all its aspects, and also to discern, as always, between reality and fantasy.

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

Europe in the 14th century was an eminently mercantile land.. Gone were the first centuries of the Middle Ages, when the economy was predominantly local and practically subsistence-based. In fact, around the 11th century everything began to change: the bourgeoisie gained new strength with the revival of the economy; the bourgeois class appeared and, with it, the mercantile routes acquired new vitality and importance, which had their roots in distant Asia.

One of the most important routes (the Silk Road) started in 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 the time was a Genoese merchant colony). According to the chronicler Gabriele de Mussis, the Asians threw their plague victims into the city by means of powerful catapults.. Supposedly, this was the way in which the Genoese of Caffa caught the disease, which they later transferred to their homes in Italy.

However, the original source of the pestilence is not known with certainty.. Some historians, such as Ole J. Benedictow, insist that its origin was the Black Sea itself, specifically the Crimean Peninsula, since no records are found of any outbreak in the regions closer to China. Therefore, it is unlikely that the disease traveled along 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 moved 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.By the middle of that fateful year, it had already devastated most of Europe. The figures are terrifying: only two inhabitants out of ten escaped death. The terror had only just begun.

The end of plenty and God's punishment

Europe had left the so-called terrors of the Thousand Year far behind. The decades before the Great Plague had been fruitful: agricultural and livestock farming flourished due to the good climate and improved cultivation techniques.This led to a considerable improvement in the food supply, which in turn led to an extraordinary increase in the population.

But at the beginning of the 14th century, things began to go awry. According to many authors, including the eminent French medievalist Jacques Le Goff, this situation led to a depletion of productive capacity, and it reached a point where it was impossible to feed the entire European population. a point was reached when it was impossible to feed the entire European population.. In addition, the good climatic 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 was to be expected, provoked an excessive famine that weakened the population and left it practically defenseless before the arrival of the Black Death. The result: death struck even among the youngest and apparently healthiest of the population, and it did not differentiate at all between the youngest and the healthiest.and did not differentiate at all between sexes, ages or social classes. For all these reasons, the Europeans of the time believed that the pestilence was a punishment from God for their many serious sins.

Penance versus carpe diem

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

Curiously, this certainty that times were ending and, with them, life, caused a reaction to proliferate in some sectors and social groups that was absolutely contrary to the one we have mentioned above. Instead of retiring to pray, or to do penance to ask God for forgiveness for their sins, certain people chose carpe d'æsia, certain people chose carpe diem as a response to the collective shipwreck of their lives.. Thus, many dedicated themselves to having fun, drinking and eating, frequenting more than ever the brothels of the cities, and even neglected their chores and their duties. What did it matter? The world was coming to an end. And if it is coming to an end, these people must have thought, we had better make the most of these last moments and take good memories with us to the next world.

This second reaction is the one that Bocaccio reflects in the aforementioned Decameron, when he tells us the story of these ten young people who cloister themselves in a beautiful villa in the countryside to wait for the plague to pass, and who, to mitigate their boredom, dedicate themselves to love, food, music, laughter and mockery. In short: they laugh at death.

"The stigmatization of the Jews.

Unaware of the nature of the disease, the medieval people could only make conjectures about it.. And as it is known that in every misfortune there must always be a scapegoat, this time it was the turn of the Jewish community.

The Jews were accused of such vile and unprecedented acts as poisoning the water wells to spread pestilence.. Thus, numerous popular attacks on Jewish neighborhoods were recorded, and in some places they became truly atrocious. In Tarrega, for example, some 300 victims are counted, all of whom died in a truly lurid manner.

However, it is not clear whether the attackers really believed the poisoning story, or whether it was just an excuse to give free rein to 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 them.

Rats and 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 that 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 described in detail the microorganism responsible for causing the disease. In his honor, the little enemy was baptized as Yersinia Pestis.

But how did Yersinia work? It was shown that the main carrier of the bacterium was the black rat, which is very common in Europe. From the rodent, fleas feeding on its Blood could move to humans and transmit the disease.. With a minimum level of hygiene this contagion was practically impossible, but we have to remember that in the Middle Ages, rats were common guests both in the cities and in the countryside.

The various pests

In addition to infection by rat fleas, there was another way of contracting the disease. And that was through the exhalations of the sick.. At this point we must clarify that the Black Death manifested itself in three different ways.

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

A second way, also quite common, in which the bacterium managed to reach the bloodstream the bloodstream and, through it, settled in the lungs of the patient. the patient's lungs. In this case, pneumonic plague appeared, whose symptoms were persistent cough and expectoration of bloody sputum, highly contagious.

Finally, a third type of Black Death was the septicemic plague, the most dangerous of all and which never left any survivors. and which 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. This was the most terrifying form (sudden death), since a person could be healthy in the morning and die hours later, amidst convulsions and very high fevers.

Europe after the Black Death

By the end of the 14th century, Europe was literally devastated. By 1353, three thirds of its population had died (i.e., some 25 million people). Entire villages were uninhabited, the fields were not cultivated for lack of labor.The cities had lost their mercantile momentum due to the high mortality rate (in Florence, for example, only one-fifth of the population survived).

The Plague also provoked an important social change: the few remaining peasants, aware that the lords needed them to work the land, 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 after the Black Death. In fact, not a few historians consider this major event to be the the gateway to the Middle Ages in Europe..

Bibliographical references:

• Benedictow, Ole J., The Black Death (1348-1353). La historia completa, ed. Akal, 2011.
• Le Goff, Jacques, The Late Middle Ages, ed. Siglo XXI, 2016.
• Bocaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron, ed. Espasa Libros, 2010
• Various authors, Manual de Historia Medieval, Alianza Editorial, 2016.