The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9)

John de Pratis, the Bishop of Tournay, was one of the first to be carried off by the sickness. He had gone away for change of air, and on Corpus Christi Day, June 11th, 1349, he carried the blessed Sacrament in the procession at Arras. He left that city the next day for Cambray, but died the day after almost suddenly.79 He was buried at Tournay; and "time passed on," says our author, to the beginning of August, up to which no other person of authority died in Tournay. But after the feast of St. John the plague began in the parish of St. Piat, in the quarter of Merdenchor, and afterwards in other parishes. Every day the bodies of the dead were borne to the churches, now five, now ten, now fifteen, and in the parish of St. Brice sometimes twenty or thirty. In all parish churches the curates, parish clerks, and sextons to get their fees, rang morning, evening, and night the passing bells, and by this the whole people of the city, both men and women, began to be filled with fear.

The officials of the town consequently seeing that the Dean and Chapter, and the clerics generally, did not care to remedy this matter, since it was in their interest it should go on, as they made profit out of it, having taken counsel together, issued certain orders. Men and women who, although not married, were living together as man and wife, were commanded either to marry or forthwith to separate. The bodies of the dead were to be buried immediately in graves at least six feet deep. There was to be no tolling of any bell at funerals. The corpse was not to be taken to the church, but at the service only a pall was to be spread on the ground, whilst after the service there was to be no gathering together at the houses of the deceased. Further, all work after noon on Saturdays and during the entire Sunday was prohibited, as also was the playing of dice and making use of profane oaths.

These ordinances having lasted for a time, and the sickness still further increasing, it was proclaimed on St. Matthew's Day (September 24th) that there should be no more ringing of bells, that not more than two were to meet for any funeral service, and that no one was to dress in black. This action of the city authorities, the writer declares to have been most beneficial. In his own knowledge, he says, many who had hitherto been living in a state of concubinage were married, that the practice of swearing notably diminished, and that dice were so little used that the manufacturers turned "the square-shaped dice" into "round objects on which people told their Pater Nosters."

I have tried, says our author, to write what I know, "and let future generations believe that in Tournay there was a marvellous mortality. I heard from many about Christmas time who professed to know it as a fact that more than 25,000 persons had died in Tournay, and it was strange that the mortality was especially great among the chief people and the rich. Of those who used wine and kept away from the tainted air and visiting the sick few or none died. But those visiting and frequenting the houses of the sick either became grievously ill or died. Deaths were more numerous about the market places and in poor narrow streets than in broader and more spacious areas. And whenever one or two people died in any house, at once, or at least in a short space of time, the rest of the household were carried off. So much so, that very often in one home ten or more ended their lives together, and in many houses the dogs and even cats died. Hence no one, whether rich, in moderate circumstances, or poor, was secure, but everyone from day to day waited on the will of the Lord. And certainly great was the number of curates and chaplains hearing confessions and administering the Sacraments, and even of parish clerks visiting the sick with them, who died."

In the parishes across the river, the mortality was as great as in Tournay itself. Although death as a rule came so suddenly, still the people for the most part were able to receive the Sacraments. The rapidity of the disease, remarked upon by Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy, is also spoken of in the same terms by the Abbot of St. Martin's. People that one had seen apparently well and had spoken to one evening were reported dead next day. He specially remarks upon the mortality among the clergy visiting the sick,80

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1

Green, Short History of the English People, p. 216.

2

Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, xiv, col. 14.

3

The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, translated by B. G. Babington (Sydenham Society), p. 21.

4

Marinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum Fidelium crucis super Terræ Sanctæ recuperatione et conversatione, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. ii.

5

The most southern part of Asiatic Turkey.

6

Probably Mahe, on the Malabar coast.

7

Now Cambay, in the Baroda Dominion to the north of Bombay.

8

Otherwise Kus, now Koos, in Upper Egypt, not far from Thebes.

9

Sometimes known as S. Feodosia. This port was by the beginning of the 14th century a most important trading settlement of Genoese merchants. In 1316 Pope John XXII issued a Bull making it the cathedral city of an extensive diocese. By the time of the outbreak of the great plague it had become the centre of almost all commerce between Asia and Europe (Cf. M. G. Canale, Della Crimea, del suo commercio et dei suoi dominatori, i, p. 208 et seq.)

10

The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called Ystoria de morbo seu mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348, was first printed by Henschel, in Haeser's Archiv für gesammte Medicin (Jena) ii, 26–59. The editor claims that De' Mussi was actually present at Caffa during the Tartar siege, and came to Europe in the plague-stricken ships which conveyed the infection to Italy. Signor Tononi, who in 1884 reprinted the Ystoria in the Giornale Ligustico (Genoa) vol. x (1883), p. 139 seqq., has proved by the acts of the notaries of Piacenza that De' Mussi never quitted the city at this time, and his realistic narrative must have been consequently derived from the accounts of others. From the same source Tononi has shown that De' Mussi acted as notary between A.D. 1300 and 1356, and was consequently born probably somewhere about 1280. He died in the first half of the year 1356.

11

Tana was the port on the north-western shore of the sea of Azor, which was then known as the sea of Tana. The port is now Azor.

12

De' Mussi says the siege lasted "three years." Tononi shows that this is clearly a mistake, and adduces it as additional evidence that the author was not himself at Caffa.

13

Gabriele de' Mussi, Ystoria de Morbo, in Haeser, ut supra.

14

K. Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland (Innsbruck, Wagner, 1884), p. 8.

15

J. J. Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum Historia (1631), p. 476.

16

See Lechner, Das grosse Sterben, p. 15. De' Mussi gives the same account.

17

"Chi cominciavano a sputare sangue, morivano chi di subito." The contemporary chronicle of Parma by the Dominican John de Cornazano also notes the same: "Et fuit talis quod aliqui sani, si spuebant sanguinem, subito ibi moriebantur, nec erat ullum remedium" (Monumenta historica ad provincias Parmensem et Placentinam pertinentia, vol. v, p. 386).

18

Anglada, Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes (Paris, 1869), p. 416. The idea that this peculiar malady was altogether novel in character is confirmed by its specially malignant nature. According to a well-recognized law new epidemics are always most violent and fatal. The depopulation of the Fiji Islands by the measles is an instance of the way in which a comparatively mild disease may in its first attack upon a people prove terribly destructive. It is commonly thought that it has been the action of some new disease whereby the races which built the great prehistoric cities of Africa and America have been completely swept away.

19

The following account of an outbreak of disease somewhat similar to the "Black Death" appeared in the British Medical Journal of 5 November, 1892: – "An official report of the Governor-General of Turkestan, which has recently been published in St. Petersburg, states that that province has been severely visited by an epidemic of 'Black Death,' which followed upon the footsteps of cholera. On September 10 (22) it appeared suddenly at Askabad, and in six days it killed 1,303 persons in a population of 30,000. 'Black Death' has long been known in Western Asia as a scourge more deadly than the cholera or the plague. It comes suddenly, sweeping over a whole district like a pestilential simoon, striking down animals as well as men, and vanishes as suddenly as it came, before there is time to ascertain its nature or its mode of diffusion. The visit here referred to was no exception to this rule. After raging in Askabad for six days the epidemic ceased, leaving no trace of its presence but the corpses of its victims. These putrified so rapidly that no proper post-mortem could be made. The Governor-General gives some details as to the symptoms and course of the disease, which, though interesting as far as they go, do not throw much light on its pathology. The attack begins with rigors of intense severity, the patient shivering literally from head to foot; the rigors occur every five minutes for about an hour. Next an unendurable feeling of heat is complained of; the arteries become tense, and the pulse more and more rapid, while the temperature steadily rises. Unfortunately no thermometric readings or other precise data are given. Neither diarrhœa nor vomiting has been observed. Convulsions alternate with syncopal attacks, and the patients suffer intense pain. Suddenly the extremities become stiff and cold, and in from 10 to 20 minutes the patient sinks into a comatose condition, which speedily ends in death. Immediately after he has ceased to breathe large black bullæ form on the body, and quickly spread over its surface. Decomposition takes place in a few minutes."

20

A Franciscan friar, Michael Platiensis (of Piazza).

21

The Archbishop was a member of the Order of St. Francis, and had been created Patriarch of Antioch.

22

Gregorio (R.), Bibliotheca Scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas retulere, tom. i, p. 562 seqq. The historian wrote probably not later than A.D. 1361.

23

Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, vi, p. 11.

24

"The Decameron," Introduction.

25

Muratori, Scriptores, xiv, coll. 11–15.

26

Muratori, Scriptores, xv. 1021.

27

Ibid., xii, 926.

28

Ibid. xv, 123. At this period the population at Siena was more than 100,000, and it had been determined to proceed with the building of the vast Cathedral according to the designs of Lando Orefice. The work was hardly undertaken when the plague of 1348 broke out in the city. The operations were suspended, and the money which had been collected for the purpose was devoted to necessary public works (G. Gigli, Diario Sanese, ii, 428).

29

Muratori, Scriptores xv, 653.

30

Ibid., 902.

31

Ibid., xvi, 286.

32

A. Pezzana, Storia della città di Parma, vol. i, p. 12.

33

Historiæ Parmensis Fragmenta, in Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 746.

34

T. Michelet, Histoire de France, iv, p. 238.

35

A. Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire (Paris, 1853), p. 103.

36

Epistolæ Familiares (Ed. 1601), lib. viii, pp. 290–303.

37

Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 926.

38

See his article La Medicina in Venezia nel 1300 in Archivio Veneto, tom. xxv, p. 361, seqq.

39

p. 369.

40

Ibid., 377.

41

Ibid.

42

Ibid., p. 378.

43

Ibid., p. 379.

44

Roncioni, Istorie Pisane in Archivio Storico Italiano, iv, 808.

45

Chronicon Pragense, ed. Loserth in Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Scriptores, vol. i, p. 395.

46

Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum, i, p. 343.

47

C. Anglada, Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes, p. 432.

48

Matthias Nuewenburgensis in Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germanicarum, iv, p. 261.

49

Henricus Rebdorfensis, Ibid., p. 560. Another account speaks of Marseilles remaining afterwards almost "depopulated," and of "thousands dying in the adjoining towns" (Chronicon Pragense, in Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Scriptores, i, p. 395).

50

J. Astruc, Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier (Montpellier, 1862), p. 184.

51

Anglada, ut supra, p. 432.

52

Opuscule relatif à la peste de 1348, composé par un contemporain in Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, 1e Sér., ii, pp. 201–243.

53

Martin, Histoire de France (4th ed.), v, p. 109.

54

Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire, p. 103.

55

Anglada, Maladies Éteintes, p. 431.

56

Higden, Polychronicon (ed. Rolls Series), viii, p. 344.

57

L. Michon, Documents inédits sur la grande peste de 1348 (Paris, 1860), p. 22.

58

Baluze, Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium, i, p. 254. In a second life of Clement VII. (p. 274) it is said that vast pits were dug in the public cemetery, where the dead were buried "ut pecora gregatim."

59

The writer was sending his letter on April 27th, 1348, so that the period would have been about six weeks.

60

Breve Chronicon clerici anonymi, in De Smet, Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, iii, pp. 14–18.

61

Henricus Rebdorfensis, in Boehmer, Fontes, iv, p. 560.

62

Anglada, Maladies Éteintes, pp. 413–14.

63

Barnes, History of Edward III., p. 435.

64

Thiener, Monumenta Historica Hungariæ, i, p. 767.

65

Wadding, Annales Minorum, viii, p. 25 (ed. 1723).

66

Olivier de la Haye, Poëme sur la grande peste de 1348. Introduction par G. Guigue, p. xviii, note.

67

Breve Chronicon in De Smet, Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, iii, p. 19.

68

Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits, i, p. 532.

69

Ibid. Here the note abruptly finishes.

70

H. Martin, Histoire de France, v, p. 111.

71

Marlot, Histoire de Ville de Reims, iv, p. 63.

72

All copies of this chronicle give "quingente," and it has usually been stated that the number so buried each day was 500. M. Géraud, who edited the work for the Société de l'Histoire de France, suggests that it is a mistake for 50, and quotes two MSS., in which in the margin the following note is found: "L corps par jour a l'Hostel-Dieu de Paris." As this reading is more probable it has been adopted above.

73

Continuatio Chronici Guillelmi di Nangiaco, éd. pour la Société de l'Histoire de France par H. Géraud, ii, pp. 211–217.

74

They speak in the document of "the 17th of the ensuing month of July."

75

Michon, Documents inédits sur la Peste Noire, p. 22.

76

Thierry, Recueil des Monuments inédits de l'Histoire du Tiers Etat, i, p. 544.

77

Ibid., p. 546.

78

"Certe dicere timeoQuæ vidi et quæ videoDe ista pestilentia."

79

Gams, Series Episcoporum, gives 13th June, 1349, as the day of his death.

80

"Quia de sacerdotibusInfirmos visitantibusQuamplurimi defecerunt."