A Historical Guide to the Black Death

A Historical Guide to the Black Death

The Black Death just sounds scary, doesn’t it? Well, spoiler alert, it was. You’ve likely heard of the Black Death, but do you know what it actually was? Where it took place? How many victims there were?!

For the answers to these and all of your other burning questions, keep reading! A historical guide to the Black Death, coming right up.

What is the Black Death?

Plague: carting the dead, by Moynet – WikiCommons

The short answer is, the Black Death is the bubonic plague. Both names scare me. And, to be honest, after researching for this article I have the right to be! It sounds like an awful disease, and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. Shout out to the lady who pushed me on the metro yesterday.

The Black Death, or the plague as it is sometimes called, hit England for the first time in the 14th century, the year 1348 to be exact. Before the plague struck, England’s population was roughly 6 million people. Most lived in London, which at the time had a population of around 70,000.

The term “Black Death” wasn’t used at the time, and was coined a some point in the 17th century. In the 1600s, the plague was often referenced as the “Great Pestilence” or the “Great Mortality.” If you’d like to get technical, the plague is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis. It’s thought to have been transmitted by fleas who then infected rats.

It was carried from China to England through rats who then came into contact with humans. There were 2 different strains of the disease that made it’s way through England. The first, was spread more slowly through human contact with infected rats. The second, spread far more quickly as it was an airborne bacteria.

Both forms of the disease attacked the lymph nodes, caused large “buboes,” which were large swells that emerged on the body. Other symptoms included fever, headaches, vomiting, blisters and coughing up blood.

This first type attacked the spleen and the lungs, and usually killed it’s victim within a few days. The second, as it was an airborne bacteria, spread a lot quicker from person to person and immediately attacked the victim’s lungs. It’s likely that both forms of the disease were traveling through England in the 14th century.

Who was affected by the Black Death?

The Black Death as seen in Florence, Italy by Giovanni Boccaccio – WikiCommons

Although I’ve been speaking on the Black Death in England, it’s important to note that the disease spread throughout Europe as a whole.

The first place that the plague was recorded in England was in an English province called Gascony. It soon spread by boat to the town of Dorset in June 1348. A group of friars called the Grey Friars are the source of this record, through their aptly named collection called the Grey Friars’ Chronicle.

The Black Death traveled quickly through south western England, and the first major city that it hit was Bristol. By September 1348, the disease had made its way to London. It likely arrived there by 1 of 3 ways: by land from Dorset, by land from Gloucester (another south western town), or by boat.

London just happened to be the perfect breeding ground for a disease like the Black Death. Conditions were horrible and dirty. The streets were winding and narrow, there was sewage waste everywhere in the streets, and people lived in really cramped quarters. By the New Year the disease was spreading quickly, and the middle of 1349, it was making its way across all of England.

The problem with beating this disease was that it kept getting reintroduced by ships coming into harbor in England. In the summer it spread quickly in the warm temperatures, but luckily by December of 1349, it began to wane. All in all, it took the disease 500 days to travel across England before it was eventually stomped out.

How do you treat the Black Death?

Medical treatment in the 14th century – WikiCommons

As I’m sure you can all imagine, medical practices of the 14th century were less than sophisticated. Modern medicine was centuries away from being developed, and healers at the time were drawing at straws when it came to treating the plague.

Methods of treatment at the time included sweating out the disease, bloodletting and forced vomiting. When someone was diagnosed with the plague, the doctor would try to locate where the swelling originated and would attempt to drain veins near the area. “Sweating” out the disease involved being given special herbs and medicines that made you sweat, which doctors at the time thought to be helpful.

Doctors also used a technique called “cupping” to try to treat the Black Death. This meant placing a cup over the sores on the patient, in an attempt to burst the sore. Oils were then applied to the broken sore to try to keep swelling down and therefore cure the patient.

As the Black Death was caused by a bacteria, and the invention of antibiotics was many years away, treatment was usually pointless. The Black Death was essentially an incurable disease.

How many lives were lost to the Black Death?

Plaque in the English sea port of Weymouth (Dorset at the time of the Black Death) by Les Haines – Flickr

It’s difficult to determine how many lives were lost to the Black Death as census information from the time is very hard to come by. It’s actually hard to know what England’s population was before the Black Death hit! But, most researchers say that the Black Death wiped out almost 30% of the English population at the time.

The group the most severely affected by the plague was the religious at the time. Clergymen and women were brought in to help comfort the sick and dying, and therefore become exposed to the disease. Researchers say that up to 45% of the English clergy were killed by the Black Death.

Because of the need for more members of the clergy, large numbers of people were ordained in 1349. According to the Church’s records, 299 priests and 683 acolytes (a person that assists a priest in a religious service) were ordained, and in 1350, only 166 are noted as being ordained.

Another group highly affected by the Black Death is, of course, the poor and peasants. These groups didn’t have the means to flee from the disease, unlike the rich and noble. They also didn’t have access to medical care and attention.

In fact, there aren’t that many records of death in the upper class at all. The only member of a royal family that died from the disease was King Edward III’s daughter Joan, who was visiting Bordeaux in France at the time (that’s right – England wasn’t the only country that saw the Black Death!). She was traveling to marry Pedro of Castille, and was struck down by the disease before she made it.

The aftermath of the Black Death

Warnings issued about the Black Death in England – WikiCommons

With up to 30% of the English population gone, many changes occurred. There was a shortage of farm laborers and therefore wages had to rise. The higher raises caused a lot of backlash in British society, as at the time people didn’t make the connection between the loss of laborers and the Black Death.

The rich and nobles blamed the poor, and went to the king to solve the problem. King Edward III swiftly passed a law that ensured that wages would remain as low as they were before the Black Death hit. The laborers and peasants were obviously not pleased, and it is assumed that this unrest led to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

On a governmental level, the shortage of people meant that wars were put on hold. After the Black Death, no major wars occurred until 1355.

There was also a shortage of priests and other religious after the Black Death. Another important fact to mention here is that when the Black Death began to spread, the Catholic Church credited immorality as the cause. They were likely biting their own tongues when much of their clergy fell victim to the disease. This caused distrust in the Church, not surprisingly! This would lead to the eventual Christian reformation in England.

On a brighter note, the plague instilled feelings of compassion from the rich and noble for their poorer compatriots. 3 new colleges were created in Cambridge after the Black Death.

The Black Death returns to England

The Great Plague of 1665 – WikiCommons

If the citizens of England thought they had escaped the Black Death, they were wrong. The disease returned regularly over the next few centuries, at intervals of roughly 5-12 years.

The worst came in 1563, when the plague wiped out nearly a quarter of London’s population. Years before, in 1518, regulations to stop the plague were introduced. If someone in your home was infected with the disease, it was required to hang a bale of straw outside your house for 40 days.

If you lived in an infected house, every time you went outside you were required to carry a white stick with you in order to warn others to keep a safe distance away. There were many other rules put in place as the years went on. This included putting a cross on the outside of your home, waiting until the night to bury the dead and ringing a “plague bell” 45 times at the victim’s funeral.

The last major plague outbreak in England occurred in 1665, just one year before the Great Fire of London. It is often referred to as the Great Plague of 1665. It began in London in February 1665, and took the lives of 100,000 Londoners, and all in just 18 months!

If you were unlucky enough to be infected by the plague, you were forced to stay indoors with a red cross painted on your house, with the words “Lord have mercy upon us” under it. Did you just get the chills too?!

The plague eventually disappeared by the end of 1665, and people began to return to London without fear. This was the last time that a major outbreak of this type of disease was recorded in England.

Conclusion

The Black Death in England was no joke! It wiped out a major portion of the population, and left many living in fear. Do I want to take a time machine back to England in 1349? No thank you.

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