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The Black Death in Europe, circa 1340 CE

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The Flagellants

Behold sad priests with Roods held high

Processions long with death so nigh

My neighbours lie with bubobe sores

Along the streets in tens and scores

And Flagellants with hoods disguised

Their whips their bodies to chastise

What folly!!--- Are they Devil-cursed

Who shed their blood on me dispersed?

Shall I follow them in fervent prayer

To God to pray, to Heaven stare

Or lock my door and seal it tight

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Awaiting death to come tonight?

(Frank Moloney-2014)

Mongol Trebuchet Crimea (1346) “The Laptop of Doom” Iraq (2014)

How are these two images related? This essay will explain.

IntroductionA pandemic of such severity as to justify description as a “biological

Tsunami” swept through Europe in the 1340s, killing an estimated 30-50

million people. We refer now to that infectious phenomenon as The Black

Death, The Great Pestilence, The Great Mortality, or The Bubonic Plague.

The flow of desolation was unstoppable, relentless, unforgiving, unbiased

with respect to class or kind, to kith and kin, to nationality or allegiance.

The sequelae saw an eventual paradigm shift across every strata of

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society, permanently changing all manner of relationships: between the

governed and the governing, the Church and its flock, serfs and their

overlords, Christians and Jews, and in countless other ways, macroscopic and

microscopic, global and regional. The Plague of the 1340s (“The Black

Death”) was followed each decade by similar, albeit less severe, recurrences

lasting through most of the Late Middle Ages. These bacteriological

“cathartic waves” were so severe it appeared to the populace as if Nature, or

God, were waging war against Mankind for nebulous reasons. Although this

was not the first time The Plague had caused a widespread epidemic in

Greater Europe (The Plague of Justinian 541-543 BCE in The Byzantine

World being a precursor, [Bayliss 1980]), the devastation in the wake of the

14th Century epidemic was unprecedented and led to massive social changes

across the entire Continent. “Thus was this dread disease thrust into the

collective memory of western civilization” (McEvedy 1988).

This vermin-vectored scourge was unique in its capacity for rapid spread

across wide swaths of countryside, highly contagious in crowded towns and

villages, of bewildering causation, impossible to prevent and certainly

incurable.

This essay will outline the Plague’s unrelenting progress from the

Far East to the Middle East to Southern Italy and then across almost all of

Europe, précising the Black Death’s myriad effects on humanity but

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concentrating on the virulence and pathogenicity of the causative organism.

Irrefutable evidence will be presented that the bacterium involved was

Yersinia pestis in all Plague episodes. This essay will argue that the

Medieval series of epidemics should stand as a talisman for possible

“doomsday” pandemics in the future, most especially with respect to the

potential use of the causative bacterium as a “biological weapon of

mass destruction”. The question will be answered as to what prescient value

there might be for people in our age to study the Black Death in the Middle

Ages, the answer explaining the lethal relationship between the two

seemingly disparate images above of a catapult and a lethal laptop.

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Thesis one That the Black Death in the 1340s was Medieval Europe’s most

significant emergent event in population depletion.

Question: how was it possible for a disease to kill so many people in such

a short time over such vast distances?

1. Setting the scene: the population at risk

The answer lies in mixing two volatile ingredients: a causative agent of

significant virulence acting on a biologically predisposed population living

under ideally susceptible “Goldilocks conditions”. The exquisite

susceptibility of the population in the 1340s was a result of many factors,

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including: a significant population increase over a relatively short period of

time (Horrox 1994, Benedictow 2004, Daileader 2007) increased competition

for land use (Ziegler 2009, Follett 2014), severe climate change with long

wet summers, exceptionally snowy winters, and devastating Spring floods

(Oostheok 2014).

The natural consequence was widespread crop failures, poor harvests and

less available food, famine therefore inevitable, initially in Northern

Europe circa 1315 (Daileader 2007). “The harvest of 1315 was the worst in

living memory-all through May and June—the rain continued” (Kelly 2005).

In its wake came the Great Famine of Southern Europe, circa 1346-1347

(Daileader 2007, Ziegler 2009). “ ---there was a severe shortage of basic

foods---to the point where people---ate grass and weeds as if they had been

wheat” (Storie Pistoresi—cited in Ziegler 2009). The population succumbed

to widespread ill health, especially exemplified by stressed immune systems

and therefore low resistance to disease (Scrimshaw 2003).

It is estimated that 5%-10% of Europe’s population died of famine during

this pre-Plague period (Jordan 1996). Thus 1340 ushered in a decade of

European vulnerability, witnessing stressed rural communities,

stimulating migration to larger towns and cities with inevitable overcrowding

and squalid living conditions, providing a perfect milieu for an impending

biological catastrophe (Kelly 2005). There could have been little or no “herd

immunity” (Fine et al 2011) to the impending infection in a population living

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700 years after the Justinian Plague, which population possessed the ideal

level of genetic naiveté perfect for initiation and rapid spread of Yersinia

pestis.

Thus the scene was set.

2. Epidemiology of the causative agent

Yersinia pestis had been present in The Far East (Mongolia, The Gobi Desert,

China) for millennia, taking an estimated 20,000 years to evolve from the

soil-dwelling bacillus Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, “--which in the course of

its evolution--provide it with specialised mechanisms for infiltrating

mammalian hosts” (Achtman 1999). Brubacker (2012) summarises its

development thus: “This brief evolutionary process entailed lateral

acquisition of new virulence determinants that mediate flea-borne

transmission--as well as loss of enzymes necessary for endurance in natural

environments”. The initial vector of Yersinia pestis was the oriental rat flea

(Xenopsylla cheopis).

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T tytytrynvgffgjf

natural state ingested with blood

The flea’s natural main enzootic reservoir was the rat.

However Xenopsylla cheopis is adapted to other animal reservoirs, including

ground squirrels, marmots, rabbits, hares and domestic cats (Boyce 1985,

Victorian Government Report 2007, McGovern and Friedlander 2008). The

early pastoral-nomadic Mongols (The Tartars) are reported as being well

aware of the dangers of hunting certain animals, especially marmots, and of

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not using their fur for clothing. In their travels they learned to give a wide

birth to potential camping sites when they encountered areas littered with

large numbers of dead rats (Christian 1998, Bradbury and Onon 1990).

3. Spread to Europe

a) Initial contact in Caffa:

The Mongols had slowly moved West along establishing trade routes,

eventually occupying what is now the Crimea (Ukraine), where the Kahn

agreed to host Genoese merchants whose vast trading fleet

harboured in Caffa, now called Feodosija (Vasiliev 1936).

(Google Earth)

The tenuous peace between the Christian Genoese and their Muslim hosts

was fatally breached in 1343 after a brawl in nearby Tana, resulting in a

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Genoese exodus to the relative safety of the City of Caffa, behind its thick

walls and heavy fortifications (Wheelis 2002). The next three years witnessed

a series of sieges and withdrawals until in 1346 a mysterious disease began to

decimate the Tartars (de Mussi 1346, cited in Derbes 1966) who seized on a

novel idea: instead of using large rocks as ammunition for their trebuchets

(catapults) they “weaponised” their dead and dying colleagues, hurling

diseased bodies over the city walls, arguably history’s first recorded example

of biological warfare (Worsham 1997, Wheelis 2002,).

Trebuchet (catapult) The Siege of Caffa

b) Spread to Italy and beyond:

In October 1347 Genoese galleys appeared in the harbour of Messina

(Sicily), literally drifting ashore as if unmanned. The Franciscan Monk

Michele da Piazza (cited in Horrox 1994) chronicles in 1348 that locals were

horrified to discover that very few of the galley occupants were alive; those

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who were, at death’s door with an unknown “--sickness clinging to their very

bones”. It was too late for the Messinians: the disease spread with unique

speed throughout the port. It is warranted here to quote briefly from those

chronicles, as the Monk’s description of the symptoms and signs of the

disease can serve as a template for how The Plague affected its victims

onwards throughout all of Europe: “Breath spread the infection among those

speaking together-- and it seemed as if the victim was struck all at once by

the affection and was—shattered by it. This shattering impact-- caused the

eruption of a sort of boil, the size of a lentil, on the thigh or arm, which so

infected and invaded the body that the victims violently coughed up blood,

and after three days’ incessant vomiting--they died and with them died not

only anyone who had talked with them, but also anyone who had acquired or

touched or laid hands on their belongings.”----a prophetic warning of

things to come!!

Classic buboes image (Wiki images)

The Messinians fled over the island of Sicily, and: “Inevitably--the Black

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Death crossed the narrow Strait of Messina and--invaded the Italian

mainland and--acquired, so to speak, a foothold on Italy’s toe” (Benedictow

2004). From there the epidemic spread with unrelenting force over all of

Europe, as best depicted in the following graphic:

(from Benedictow 2006)

Question: what was unique about this pandemic?

1. The rapidity of spread

Whilst no one doubts that the initial spread involved flea-infested rats,

infecting humans (and animals), significant speculation exists as to

subsequent methods of infestation. The vector of spread in “England” (ie

Great Britain) was certainly not the rat, as is commonly assumed. But what

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was it? Attention to Historical detail reveals the facts:

a) Arrival of the Plague in Great Britain

The plague’s marched unrelenting through France, crossing the Channel in

1348 (Gasquet 1893), then “jumping ship” at Melcombe Regis (Dorset), and

within three years all of Great Britain had been affected, as the plaque below

attests:.

Plaque on Custom House Quay, Melcombe Regis (Burrows 2009).

b) Spread of the Plague in Great Britain

The disparity between villages and towns replete with dead bodies,

cemeteries full (literally) to overflowing, piles of decaying corpses being

ravished by hordes of wild dogs, and the lack of any evidence for an

accompanying population of dead rats has led several Historians to

question the rat flea as being a significant vector beyond the European

mainland. Irrefutable evidence has now been presented from many

sources that the human flea was now the culprit (Cohn 2002, Welford and

Bossak 2009).

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Pulex irritans (Human flea)

Study of Church burial records confirms that the bacillus spread at the almost

inconceivable rate of 4.23km/day. Experts from diverse fields of interest

now conclude that human to human spread via Pulex irritans was the most

logical explanation (Cohn, Twigg, Gage, Wood interviewed in Praed’s DVD

presentation 2006). Once infected the victim was capable of contaminating

another via body fluids (coughing), direct contact (contagious) or of

investing used clothing with the pestilence (indirect spread). Establishing the

connection between Pulex irritans and humans, and then between infected

humans themselves, is vital to my arguments later in this essay with respect

to the potential for “weaponising” Yersinia pestis and the consequences of

such a “doomsday scenario”.

2. The inconceivable Human devastation

Space does not allow for more than a précis of the widespread catastrophe

and confusion, the “shock and awe” reactions of the population, in the wake

of this pandemic. Instead two illuminative examples will be provided to

support my thesis:

a) Changes to the Laws of Inheritance favouring women

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In the English village of Walsham-Le Willows in 1349, all four males in

the Cranmer family perished within days of each other, but miraculously

two sisters survived. Consequently they inherited vast tracts of land

and eventually became England’s richest wool producers (McLaughlin

2005, Follett 2014). The Plague provided the Cranmer sisters with their

“emergent event”, breaking male-dominated inheritance, ritualised by

centuries of tradition, resulting in a significant sociological paradigm shift

in post-Plague society.

b) The liquefaction of dead bodies

The infection caused such widespread and rapid tissue destruction that

bodies literally disintegrated, (Worsham 1997, Kelly 2005, McGovern and

Friedlander 2008) making their burial a serious biohazard, rivalling the risks

of collection, transportation and internment we now witness with Ebola

victims throughout Africa. It would be naïve not to assume this is a fact of

which today’s Jihadi terrorist groups are well cognisant!!

Conclusion: there can be little argument against the tenet that the Black

Death was Medieval Europe’s most significant emergent event in population

depletion. Perhaps the most incontestable evidence is that, on the “Richter

Scale” of natural disasters (ie the Foster scale), the Black Death ranks

second after WW11, just ahead of WW1 (Foster 1997). Not only do

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many Historians agree with this assessment (Donald 1999, Kelly 2006,), but

the USA Atomic Energy Commission (using the Foster Scale) believes that

the Black Death approximates “-- nuclear war in its geographical extent,

abruptness of onset and scale of casualties” (Hirshleifer 1966, Anon 2014).

Thesis twoThat The Black Death was Bubonic Plague and caused by Yersinia pestis.

The aetiological agent (for both the ancient Justinian Plague and The Black

Death) we now know, as a scientific fact, to be the gram-negative bacterium

Yersinia pestis (Harbeck et al 2013, and Wagner et al 2014 [proof for the

Justinian Plague], Haensch et al 2010, Bos et al 2011, and Callaway 2011,

[proof for the Black Death]). These recent genome studies, (using tissue

extracted from bodies buried in confirmed Plague cemeteries) allow us

the luxury of completely ignoring, or at least devaluing, an entire literature

devoted to “Plague Deniers” who speculated that small pox, anthrax, or

viruses such as Spanish Flu or Ebola might provide alternative explanations

(Cantor 2001, MacKenzie 2003, Scott and Duncan 2004).

Thesis three

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That The Plague still poses a threat to modern man and that lessons from the study of The Black Death and its effects on populations still have relevance in the 21st Century.

Question: is the plague still with us?

Answer: unquestionably.

As a proof for Thesis three the following recent news items, can serve as a “res ipsa loquitur”:

“Chinese city (Yumen) sealed off after bubonic plague death----38yr old man dies after eating dead marmot he found”--AFP—(Anon) Tuesday 22 July 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/07/24/quarantined-chinese-town-reopens-after-plague-death

“Three more plague cases were found in Colorado, a week after the first infection of the deadliest form of the disease was reported in the state in a decade.” --Bloomberg News--Sonali Basak and Jennifer Oldham--19 July 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-18/four-cases-of-life-threatening-plague-found-in-colorado.html

“Exclusive: Found: The Islamic State’s Terror Laptop of Doom. Buried in a Dell computer captured in Syria and lessons for making bubonic plague bombs and missives on using weapons of mass destruction.”-- Foreign Policy--Harald Doornbos, 28 August 2014.

http//www.foreignpolicy.com/articles

From catapults in 1346 to laptops in 2016?

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Epilogue

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santanaya 1896)

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I thank the History Department for the privilege of completing this essay as a “Big History” Course assignment—it was a fascinating and extremely rewarding undertaking.

Dr Frank Moloney

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