The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Black Death The Dust Bowl The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 The Hindenburg Disaster of 1937 Hurricane Katrina The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919 The Johnstown Flood of 1889 The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 The Sinking of the Titanic The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Louise ChipLey sLaviCek The Black DeaTh Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data Slavicek, Louise Chipley. The black death/Louise Chipley Slavicek. p. cm.—(Great historic disasters) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-7910-9649-9 (hardcover) 1. Black Death. I. Title. II. Series. RC171.S633 2008 616.9'232—dc22 2008004887 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Text design by Annie O’Donnell Cover design by Ben Peterson Printed in the United States of America Bang KT 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. Contents Introduction: “Life Is But One Long Agony” 7 1 Setting the Stage for the Black Death 11 2 What Was the Black Death? 23 3 The Path of the Black Death 37 4 The Black Death Psyche 50 5 Medieval Medicine and the Black Death 64 6 Social and Economic Impact of the Black Death 78 7 Religion, Culture, and the Black Death 91 8 The End of the Black Death 105 Chronology and Timeline 111 Glossary 114 Bibliography 118 Further Reading 120 Picture Credits 121 Index 122 About the Author 127 introduction: “life is But one long Agony” I n 1346, Europe was hit by the worst natural disaster in its recorded history: the Black Death. Generally believed to be a combination of bubonic plague and two other plague strains, the Black Death ravaged the length and breadth of Europe from Sicily to Norway, from Ireland to Rus- sia, for five terrible years. Scholars can only speculate regard- ing how many people perished in the lethal pandemic, which also swept across parts of western Asia and North Africa dur- ing the late 1340s and early 1350s. Most historians, however, agree that the Black Death killed anywhere from 33 to 60 percent of Europe’s total population—roughly 25 million to 45 million men, women, and children. (A pandemic is a disease outbreak that affects a large geographical area and a high per- centage of the population.) The greAT MorTAliTy And The BlACk deATh During the Middle Ages (about 400 to 1400), the notorious pandemic of the mid-1300s was usually referred to as the Great Mortality or, simply, the pestilence (meaning a deadly contagious disease). The term Black Death did not come into 7  THE Black DEaTH The Black Death is one of history’s most devastating plagues. It destroyed between 33 and 60 percent of medieval Europe’s population. The spread of the plague has been linked to the growth of international trade between asia, where the Black Death is believed to have originated. Introduction  general use until centuries after the outbreak. To date, just one writing from the medieval era has been found that mentions the phrase—a Latin poem about the pandemic that scholars now believe may have been mistranslated. In the poem, author Simon de Covinus, a Flemish (Belgian) astronomer, labels the pandemic as the “mors atra.” Later Euro- pean translators of de Covinus’s poem, and of several sixteenth- century Swedish and Danish chronicles that use the same term, took the phrase to mean “the black death,” even though the word atra signifies both “terrible” and “black” in Latin. The translators may have chosen “black” rather than “terrible” as the more likely of the two meanings because they were under the common misconception that the fingers and other extremities of plague victims usually blacken as the disease progresses. In fact, blackening of the extremities from hemor- rhaging beneath the skin (heavy bleeding from ruptured blood vessels) only occurs in an extremely rare plague strain known as septicemic plague. Accurate or not, by the early twentieth century the term Black Death had become the standard name throughout much of the Western world for what may very well be the greatest medical catastrophe of all time. A TrAgedy of exTrAordinAry ProPorTions Today, most scholars concur that the huge population loss caused by the Black Death deeply impacted the course of European history, accelerating and in some instances—ini- tiating—major social, economic, and cultural changes. The psychological toll that the pandemic exacted from those who lived through it was also profound. People were shocked and terrified by the unprecedented scale of the tragedy, which struck young and old, rich and poor, city dwellers and rural folk, with equal ferocity. Seemingly, there was no way to stop the deadly scourge. Nor did anyone have the slightest idea of