THE IMPACT OF THE BLACK DEATH ON EUROPE

Molly Corti

HISTORY 497, Senior Seminar

December 14, 2015

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Between 1347 and 1350 the Black Death spread from Central Asia to

the Middle East and Europe. The disease also afflicted China, although it is

not clear whether it started there or it was exported to China from Central

Asia. According to many historians, “the great death,” as it was called by the

people who lived through it, ended the lives of millions but made European

society significantly more modern and more open to change than it had been

previously.

The plague was so devastating that many believed that the Black

Death would be the end of the world. When the disease struck Europe in the

middle of the fourteenth century, the people were already in a weakened

condition due to overpopulation, natural disasters, and lack of food or a poor

diet. As the disease ravaged Europe, many explanations were proposed as to

why this disaster could happen, most based on religious beliefs. Medical

responses included bloodletting and beliefs in “bad air” and poisoned ground

water. The Black Death was an event that can be studied in respect to how it

began, how quickly it spread, how deadly it was, and how it was understood

by those who lived throughout it. But the ultimate importance of the plague

is the consequences and changes that it forced upon Europe. The plague was

responsible for far reaching cultural, religious, economic and agricultural

changes in Europe, many related to the sharp decline in population. Although

the Black Death devastated Europe, “it guaranteed that in the generations

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after 1348 Europe would not simply continue the pattern of society and

culture of the thirteenth century.”2

Most historians believe that the great epidemic known in history as the

Black Death began in Central Asia in the 1330s along the Silk Road that

connects China with the Mediterranean. The unification of much of Central

Asia in a Mongol Empire and the growing popularity of trade between Europe

and China helped spread the disease beyond its original area. Europeans first

came in contact with the disease at the siege of Caffa, a trading outpost of

the Italian city of Genoa, located in the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea.

While attempting to conquer the area, a Mongol army was devastated by the

plague. The Mongols withdrew from Caffa, but the disease had begun to

spread and the Genoese were infected. Next, Genoese ships brought the

disease to the Byzantine Empire then on to Western Europe.3 The plague

soon stormed the European continent and terrified its people.

In Europe, Sicily was the first area to be struck in the year 1347. The

first documented case was in October when twelve Genoese ships arrived at

the port in the city of Messina.4 From Messina, the disease spread further,

first by sea to other port cities in Italy, France, and Spain, and then by land,

eventually affecting the entire continent. Attempts by municipal authorities

to stop contagion by searching all ships and driving away those carrying dead

2 Herlihy, David. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West: Harvard University Press, 1997. 383 Kelly, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.7-104 Aberth, John. The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. 1.

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and sick people were either unsuccessful or only managed to delay contagion

by a few weeks, as in Genoa and Venice.5

There have been disagreements about the actual source of the illness

based on the speed of transmission, mortality rate, season of year, and

symptoms.6 The description of the symptoms of the disease by

contemporaries does not match the symptoms of any current disease. As a

result, some medical researchers have argued that the Black Plague could

have been the product of a combination of diseases. 7 However, there is one

theory that is more widely accepted. This theory is that the illness was

caused by a single deadly bacterium, Yersinia pestis. The bacterium is

thought to have been spread by fleas that feasted on infected rats who first

arrived in Europe on merchant ships. The rat that is more often blamed is the

Black Rat, a species that evolved during the Ice Age, most likely in present

day India. These rats are known to jump high, be able to chew through brick,

and squeeze through quarter inch holes. Although the rats prefer to live in

one place, they travel when hungry and this is how they came to Europe,

although it is not clear when they first arrived. Medieval Europe was a perfect

place for rats to thrive because the streets were full of trash. Livestock

roamed the streets, human waste was thrown out windows and butchers left

blood and waste on the ground.8 After a person was infected with the bacteria

5 Kelly, John . 90-94.6 Theilmann, John, and Frances Cate 2007.” A Plague of Plagues”: The Problem of Plagues Diagnosis in Medieval England.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37, no3: 371-393. Academic Search complete, EBSCO(accessed November 16, 2015: 372.7 Ibid.8 Kelly, John. 66-69.

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that caused the plague, it commonly took between two days and a full week

before symptoms would be seen. 9 The disease caused terrible symptoms

including painful swelling in the lymph nodes, bleeding under the skin, high

fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, and in most cases, a swift death. In the spot

where the flea had bitten the person, a swelling would occur. Then the lymph

nodes closest to the bite would also swell. This spread the form of plague

known as the “bubonic” form. The swelling of the nodes in the groin or armpit

area was called a “bubo”. A second and more deadly variant of the same

disease was pneumonic plague, which occurred when the lungs of a person

suffering from the plague also became infected. Unlike the bubonic form of

the plague, pneumonic plague could be spread directly from person to person

as the infected person coughed and would typically spit blood and saliva,

which would pass the bacteria on to other people. Whatever the mode of

transmission, the plague of the Black Death traveled much more quickly from

place to place and infected a much higher percentage of the population than

the ancient or modern versions of the plague.

Also related to the changes brought about by the plague is the idea

that the disease is thought to be only part of the reason so many people died.

“The plague did not by itself cause the high mortality in mid- and late

fourteenth-century England.”10 A series of environmental factors contributed

to make the disease so deadly. Besides the unsanitary conditions of

9 Aberth, John. 23.

10 Theilmann, John and Frances Cate. 372.

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European cities, the European population of the mid-fourteenth was probably

less resistant to disease than not only modern Europeans, but also Europeans

from previous centuries. In the years immediately preceding the Black

Death, Italy suffered floods, famines, wars, and major earthquakes that

damaged all or most of its major cities. After centuries of population growth,

mid-fourteenth century Europe was overpopulated. Northern Europe suffered

a great famine between 1315-1322. “People of all ages who were already in

poor health before the Black Death subsequently faced higher risks of death

during the epidemic than their healthy peers.”11 The weather had turned

colder and rainy resulting in series of poor harvests. Much land was poor and

peasants were starving. In Ireland there were even cases of reported

cannibalism.12 War also spread and became more deadly. The fourteenth

century was very violent and the Hundred Years War, the bloodiest conflict of

the Middle Ages, began in 1337.13 In the late summer of 1347, the island of

Cyprus, one of the first places in Europe to be hit by the plague, suffered a

massive earthquake. The ensuing tidal wave destroyed much of coastal

Cyprus and was said to have turned the island into a vast desert.14 This

combination of natural disasters, human conflicts, and other man-made

factors such as the prevalence of trade between different parts of Europe

made the Black Death of 1347-1350 so much more devastating than other

epidemics. 11 DeWitte, Sharon N. 2014. "Mortality Risk and Survival in the Aftermath of the Medieval Black Death."

Plos ONE 9, no. 5: 1-8. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 17, 2015).12 Kelly, John. 60. 13 Ibid.,74.14 Kelly, John. 89.

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The sudden and massive population loss is one of the reasons why the

changes in Europe were so significant after the plague hit. It is important to

understand the mortality rate, even though it is a difficult task. There is

much debate over the exact death rate in Europe caused by the Black Death,

but some information is clear. It was not unusual for entire families to die.

“Not just one person in a house died, but the whole household, down to the

cats and the livestock, followed the master to death.”15 The mortality rate of

the Black Death was on average between 30-40 percent of a European

population that is estimated to have numbered about 75 million people

before the plague.16 Some historians believe that the total loss of life was

closer to 50 percent.17 In certain areas, the death rate ranged from 40 to 60

percent.18 One city that had a dramatic decrease in population was he Italian

city of Florence where the population is believed to have gone from 120,000

in 1330 down to 37,000 following the plague. It is interesting to note that in

the fifteenth century Florence will emerge as probably the greatest center of

the Italian Renaissance. In Normandy, a region of Northern France, estimates

are that the death toll was even greater. In Eastern Normandy, it is believed

that 70-80 percent of people died.19

Fourteenth century Europe did not have a cure to stop the plague.

Medical doctors were powerless and were often criticized in the chronicles.

15 Horrox, Rosemary. The Black Death. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. 3616 Kelly, John. 11-1217 Aberth, John. 318 Kelly, John.1219 Ibid., 281

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However, at least some of their prescriptions, like fleeing the site of infection,

clearing refuse, or isolating suspected carriers of the disease (quarantine)

were beneficial.20 Some preventive measures, like lighting large fires in the

chamber of Pope Clement at Etoile-sur Rhone near Avignon also helped, not

because the fires purified infected air, as the papal doctor believed, but

because they kept the pope’s quarters free of the infected fleas that spread

the contagion. There were some people who did catch the disease who did

not die. It is estimated that 10 to 40 percent of those who did get sick got

better even without treatment.21 Contemporary writers noticed how fast the

disease spread. The Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio related how, in

Florence, two pigs tore up some rags that had belonged to someone who died

of the plague and the pigs soon dropped dead in the street. The plague was

especially brutal to women and children who spent more time indoors where

the risk of infection was greater.22 The Black Death was said to be cruelest to

pregnant women who gave birth before dying. Another example of how

deadly the Black Death was can be found in the records of the city of Bristol,

England. 23 For in 1575 the city of Bristol saw deaths from the plague in 42 of

its 104 houses.

Adding to the deaths and decline in population due to the plague was

the mass murder of Jews, which was one of the most disturbing results of the

20 Aberth, John. 37-3821 Ibid., 23. 22 Kelly, John. 1223 Porter, Stephen. "An Historical whodunit." Biologist 51, no. 2 (Summer2004 2004): 109-113. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed December 11, 2015).112

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plague itself. In the mid-fourteenth century there were about 2.5 million Jews

in Europe, mostly in Spain and Southern France. Some of them had been in

the area since Roman times. The majority of the Jews were known to be

relatively rich and were typically more literate than their Christian neighbors.

By the middle of fourteenth century, Jews generally lived apart from

Christians in segregated districts. Jews also had better hygiene than most of

their Christian neighbors because of the Jewish religious requirement to bathe

before the Sabbath. Better hygiene meant that Jews did not catch the plague

as easily or as quickly as Christians, which may have increased suspicion

against them. It was common for Christians to have disagreements and

hostile feelings against the Jews because of religious differences.24 But the

plague itself is believed to have caused or increased divisions among people

and created greater hostility against marginal groups like strangers, beggars,

and religious minorities like the Jews. 25

During the plague, Jews were accused of deliberately poisoning wells

and springs with the substances that caused the plague. According to the

Chronicle of Mathias of Neuenburg who was an eyewitness to a Jewish

pogrom at Strasbourg, in Alsace, a border region between France and

Germany, the Jewish citizens were accused of throwing poison down the

springs and wells.26 The city government that tried to protect the Jews from

the accusations was thrown out of office and replaced by a new government

24 Cantor, Norman. F. 150-16125 Herlihy, David. 59.26 Aberth, John. 151.

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that gave in to the mob. 27 The Jewish citizens of Strasbourg were stripped

almost naked by the crowd and marched to their death into a house prepared

for burning. 28 About half of Strasbourg Jewish population, 900 persons out of

1,884, was exterminated.29 In Basel, upstream from Strasbourg on the Rhine

River, the authorities built a wooden house on an island in the Rhine. On

January 9, 1349, the entire Jewish community except children who had

accepted to convert to Christianity and those Jews who had managed to

escape were locked in the especially prepared wooden structure. The

building was set on fire and everyone in it died.30 In Strasbourg, Jews “were

put on the wheel and immediately executed.”31 Pogroms also occurred in

Southern Europe in areas close to Mediterranean which were more

cosmopolitan and where Jewish communities had been established for many

centuries. On Palm Sunday in 1348, a mob attacked the Jewish quarter in

Toulon, a city in Southern France east of Marseille. Several dozen Jews were

dragged from their homes and murdered.32 In the morning, dead bodies were

left in the streets and rumors of their guilt in causing the plague spread to

neighboring villages causing more deaths.33

The interrogation and execution of the Jews of Savoy in September–

October 1348 at the lakeside castle of Chillon, in present day Switzerland,

was a turning point in creating a new kind of anti-Semitic hysteria. A Jewish 27 Aberth, John. 151-154, Herlihy, David . 66; Kelly, John. 256; Cantor Norman F. 150.28 Kelly, John. 256.29 Ibid., 256. 30 Ibid., 256.31 Aberth, John. 151-153.32 Ibid., 251.33 Kelly, John.138-141.

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surgeon known as Balavigny was arrested in the month of September and

confessed under torture to the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy

to spread the disease throughout Europe by agents of a certain Rabbi Jacob

from Toledo, Spain.34 At some point, Balavigny was taken across Lake Geneva

from Chillon to Clarens to identify the spring that he confessed to have

poisoned. Balavigny was said to have described in detail the color of the

poison and the type of cloth used to spread it.35 The addition of all these details

probably gave more credibility to his confession. At that time in Europe, accusations of well

poisoning had grown and the thoughts of some were that the Jewish people were attempting to

dominate the world. The interrogations at Chillon helped to strengthen and to spread the belief of

a conspiracy in which the deliberate and systematic spread of the Black Death was only one part

of a Jewish master plan to seize control of Christian Europe.

Because the plague was so devastating, it is natural that the people of

the time would want to know why it happened and if there was something

they could do about it. Because the people of that time had not experienced

an event as devastating as the Black Death, they had never been as

motivated to seek answers to why such a disease happened. Many doctors

refused to treat the sick because they knew it was useless. No large sums of

money could convince them to get near the infected.36 Medieval chroniclers

accused physicians of being cowards. This disease was new so the doctors did

not really know how to treat it. Several doctors unknowingly got sick as they

34 Kelly, John. 232.35 Horrox, Rosemary. 214.36 Aberth, John. 37.

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treated their patients. Medieval doctors wrote about the plague and tried to

understand its causes, but their explanations were based on astrology and

fanciful notions derived from the medical texts of Ancient Greece. For

instance, doctors followed the belief of the Greek Physician Galen who

believed that disease was caused by an imbalance in the body and that this

imbalance could be detected by looking at urine.37 The doctors at the

University of Paris produced a treaty on the plague. According to them, the

primary causes of the plague was “[the] configuration of the heavens in 1345

… [when] there was a major conjunction of three planets in Aquarius.” When

the three planets aligned some people speculated that the alignment had

poisoned the air and that the plague was caused by people breathing in the

poisoned air. 38

Hot and damp air was believed to be especially dangerous, so medical

doctors in Paris and elsewhere told people to stay away from swampy areas

and marshes and not to open windows that faced to the south. 39 Treatment

by medieval doctors consisted of avoiding baths, blood–letting, and advice on

what to drink and eat. For example, the Italian physician Gentile da Foligno

recommended white wine and cabbage against the plague.40 In medieval

times doctors tried to treat the plague using the knowledge they had, which

was often based on Greek assumptions or religious notions. But during and

after the Black Death, doctors were criticized. They were accused of being

37 Cantor, Norman F. 9.38 Kelly, John. 169-170.39 Ibid., 171.40 Ibid., 173.

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cowards for not treating patients, impotent for not being able to help, and

sometimes even greedy.41 This lack of faith in the medical doctors and their

traditional training caused a shift to a more practical kind of medicine

practiced by the surgeons who, until then, had been regarded as inferior to

the university-trained doctors.42 One important development was that

autopsies became more common after the Black Death. Autopsies gave

medical practitioners a more accurate knowledge of the human body and this

knowledge was now put in anatomy texts to train new doctors.43

The Post Black Death era in Europe also challenged the thoughts about

how the plague spread. 44 The physician who is most credited with the study

of this illness is Giovanni Fracastoro who was a health professional in

Florence, the capital of the Tuscany region.45 The plague changed the

purpose of hospitals in Europe. Before the Black Death hospitals existed to

remove the sick from society to prevent invention. The expectation was that

those who were hospitalized would soon die. After the great plague, hospitals

became a place where diseases could be cured. People in hospitals were

seen as patients and were divided into separate wards based on the disease

they had.46 The Black Death was also responsible for the birth of new

institutions to oversee public health, not only hospitals, but also municipal

41 Aberth, John. 27.42 Kelly, John. 288.43 Ibid., 289.44 Ibid., 289.45 Kelly, John. 289.46 Ibid..

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health boards that set the rules sanitation, burials, and the quarantine of sick

people, including those infected by the plague.47

In terms of the economy, the Black Death at first created a lot of

disruption. Workers died in large numbers or simply fled the cities because

they feared for their lives. There was a sudden need for certain type of

professions like gravediggers, physicians, and priests. In England, during the

plague, a bishop allowed lay people, including women, to hear confessions

and administer the sacrament of penance to the sick.48 Medieval professions

like the various crafts and the merchants were tightly organized in “guilds.”

The guilds were closed associations that did not normally admit apprentices

who were not the sons or other close relatives of the masters. However, the

Black Death killed off large numbers of craftsmen and tradesmen and their

offspring. The guilds adjusted to the new situation by opening up their ranks

to outsiders who would not have had the chance to become craftsmen or

merchants before the Black Death. 49 A similar development happened with

the religious orders. So many priests and friars had died in the plague that

the Church recruited a lot of new persons to fill its ranks. Many of the new

recruits did not have the qualifications or, sometimes, the religious vocation

of their predecessors, which may have contributed to a decline of the

religious orders and the rise of more popular forms of worship.50

47 Ibid..48 Herlihy, David. 39-42.49 Ibid. 44-45.50 Ibid., 45-46.

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The plague also had a profound effect on the physical environment.

There was vegetation overgrowth that occurred when farms were abandoned

due to the death of peasant families and a decline in the raising of livestock

also resulted in changes. Over the hundred years that followed the Black

Death, forests would overtake areas that had once been dedicated to

agriculture.51 Recent studies have shown, through data collected from soil

layers dating back many centuries, that there was a significant decline in

arable land after the Black Death. There is an absence of pollen in the layers

of soil following the plague, which shows the subsequent collapse of

agriculture following the extreme population decline caused by the Black

Death. It took almost a century for the same levels of pollen to show up in the

layers of soil once again. Paleontologists have looked for certain plant pollen

to denote agricultural activity.52 There were also many other contributing

factors to the shrinking of agriculture during the fourteenth century. The

continent suffered through the Great Famine, The Hundred Years War, and

the Black Death. The Black Death is thought to have greatly accelerated the

decline in crop cultivation at this time.53 Livestock, such as cattle, sheep, and

pigs either perished in the Black Death or ran wild after their owners died

from the plague.54 The loss of arable land and livestock was significant, but

51 Yeloff, Dan, and Bas van Geel. 2007. "Abandonment of Farmland and Vegetation Succession Following the Eurasian Plague Pandemic of ad 1347–52." Journal Of Biogeography 34, no. 4: 575-582. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed December 11, 2015). 576.52 Ibid., 578.53 Ibid., 579.54 Ibid..

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studies show that the agricultural decline only lasted a century or so before

the land began to be utilized again as the population began to increase.55

Moreover the decline in agriculture, particularly traditional agriculture

based on the extensive cultivation of grains, helped the European economy to

diversify after the Black Death. Land that was once devoted to the cultivation

of wheat and other grains could be freed for other usages such as pasturage

or woods. The mills that were no longer needed to grind grains could be put

to industrial uses, like the production of textiles or of timber.56 Because there

fewer workers left, they could negotiate for better wages. In the towns,

wages were two to three times higher after the Black Death than before it,

despite the attempts of many city governments to keep wages and prices

down.57 The much greater demand for workers after the Black Death also had

a huge impact on the relationship between peasants and their feudal lords.

Almost everywhere, the peasants were big winners. They could now leave the

land and easily found a job in cities. Even if they stayed on the land, their

services were now in higher demand. As a result, the peasants were no

longer treated as serfs of the lords and the institution of serfdom “began to

disappear entirely.”58 The high price of labor also inaugurated an era of

technological innovation. Besides using mills for new purposes, Europeans of

the generations that followed the Black Death invented new tools and

machines like the printing press, bigger ships that could undertake longer 55 Ibid., 580.56 Herlihy, David. 46.57 Ibid., 48-49.58 Ibid., 285.

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voyages, firearms, and banking and insurance methods that made businesses

more efficient and more productive.59

After the Black Death, the amount of money per capita increased. 60

Historians have found evidence that the standard of living improved in

several areas in Europe, for example in England.61 One economic factor that

affected everyone’s life was the price of grain. Grain prices dropped heavily

towards the end of the fourteenth century and remained low for about a

century, while the price of other grains and of meat products remained

relatively high.62 The decrease in population also meant that more food was

available per capita. After the Black Death, Europeans ate larger quantities

of bread, meat and fish. These nutritional changes lead to a more healthy

way of living in Europe during the late medieval period and the Renaissance.

According to David Harley, the Black Death also made Europe more

modern in its demographic system. Before the Black Death, whenever the

number of people grew too much or too fast for the amount of food available,

the number of people would be cut back by an increase in death rate due to

famine or to an epidemic like the Black Death. This hard break on population

growth is known as a “positive check” and was typical of medieval Europe

before the Black Death and pre-modern societies in general. But some

cultures develop “preventing checks” to keep the population from growing

59 Ibid., 49-51.60 DeWitte, Sharon. 2.61 Ibid., 2.62 Herlihy, David. 47-48.

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faster than the supply of food. Preventing checks work on lowering the birth

rate. Lower birth rates are typically achieved by delaying the age of marriage

and preventing some people from getting married and having children. After

the Black Death, a majority of Europeans were able to use preventive checks

to maintain and expand their resources. Only the poor remained under the

control of the old positive checks such as famine.63

Another consequence of the Black Death was a change in religious

attitudes and practices. Medieval Europeans held a strong belief that natural

disasters were an act of God.64 Medieval people believed that God sent the

plague to punish mankind for its sinfulness. Most people hoped to avoid the

plague by turning to religion. Masses were used as insurance against the

plague.65 A Catholic mass for turning away the plague was offered by Pope

Clement VI. Those who attended the Pope’s mass were to hold a burning

candle and keep it lit throughout the service.66 The believers where supposed

to kneel during the mass and have faith that death would not harm them

during the epidemic. Most people felt a need for prayer and forgiveness

during a difficult time when Europe suffered huge population losses. Masses

against the plague multiplied as Europeans begged for forgiveness of their

sins. 67 During the era of the Black Death many different prayers were

composed to ward off disease. One popular prayer was addressed to the

63 Herlihy, David. 51-57; Kelly, John. 293-294.64 Horrox, Rosemary. 95.65 Ibid.,. 120.66 Ibid., 122.67 Ibid.,121.

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Virgin Mary as the star of heaven and of the sea, and the merciful mother of

Christ: “Star of Heaven, who nourished the Lord and routed up the plague of

death which our first parents planted; may that star now deign to counter the

constellations whose strife brings the people the ulcers of terrible death. O

glorious star of the sea, save us from the plague, Hear us: for your Son who

honours you denies you nothing. Jesus, save us, for whom the Virgin Mother

prays to you.”68

The strong desire for religious comfort caused by the Black Death took

new forms that were outside the control of the Church. Like other institutions

of the time, the Church was unable to cope with the plague and many of its

most qualified members died of it. Confidence in the Church’s spiritual

leadership weakened and people expressed their faith through spontaneous

religious movements.69 One religious movement that challenged the

authority of the Church was the Flagellant movement. The Flagellants were

groups of men who travelled from town to town singing marching songs like

the “Stabat Mater, the thirteenth century poem portraying the suffering of

Mary,70 and beating one another with whips until they drew blood. The

Flagellants would often attract large crowds of onlookers with their singing,

their banners, and their dress, which included white cloaks with red crosses

on the back and front. Some people would even bring out dead bodies to be

blessed by the traveling bands of Flagellants.71 68 Ibid., 12469 Herlihy, David. 66; Kelly, John. 290-291.70 Horrox, Rosemary.97.71 Kelly, John. 67.

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The Flagellants claimed that their processions and bloody whippings

where directly authorized by God through a letter that was said to have been

found in Jerusalem on the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.72 A

German chronicler described the Flagellants as “a race without a head,”

meaning that the Flagellants did not have a leader and did not have any

common sense, either. The Flagellants became increasingly radical and

violent as the plague spread throughout Europe. In Germany, which was the

center of the movement, the Flagellants killed Jews wherever they found

them.73 The Flagellants were also a threat to the Catholic Church because

“they took upon themselves the job of preaching.”74 In the fall of 1349, Pope

Clement denounced the Flagellants for spilling the blood of Jews and

Christians and prohibited the faithful from associating with them.75 Secular

rulers, like King Philip VI of France, quickly followed the pope’s leads in also

banning the Flagellants.76 As a result the movement came to a quick end:

“[The Flagellants] vanished as suddenly as they had come, like night

phantoms or mocking ghosts.”77

The Black Death also caused changes in the relationship people had

with the saints.78 Saint Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who survived

being shot with multiple arrows, became very popular because the arrows he

72 Ibid., 264-265.73 Ibid., 267.74 Ibid., 152.75 Kelly, John. 268.76 Aberth, John. 138-139.77 Kelly, John. 268.78 Horrox, Rosemary. 97.

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survived where now interpreted as a representation of the plague.79 The

saint who became most popular as a healer of the plague was a new saint,

Saint Rock. Saint Rock was supposed to have lived between 1295 and 1327

and was believed to have caught and survived the plague himself.80 Popular

desire for personal protection from a saint was also reflected in the growing

popularity of Christian first names. Looking at records from Florence from the

periods before, during, and after the Black Death, the historian David Herlihy

found that, from the 13th to the 15th century, the number of first names used

by the people of Florence grew smaller and that the percentage of names

taken from saints increased.81

One major change brought about by the Black Death was a new focus

on understanding and on cause and effect relationships. The disease had

been so horrible that people wanted to know more.82 This desire for

knowledge may not look scientific to us. For example, medieval people

continued to look at the stars and the planets for explanations and astrology

remained closely tied to medicine long after the Black Death. Moreover, the

medieval understanding of the solar system was wrong. Medieval people

counted seven planets, considered the sun and the moon to be planets, and

placed earth at center of universe. Every planet was said to have its own

characteristics and these characteristics were believed to influence people.

For example the planet Mars was known to be associated with war and 79 Horrox, Rosemary. 97; Herlihy, David. 79.80 Herlihy, David. 80.81 Ibid., 73-80.82 Horrox, Rosemary. 100.

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inclined people to anger and violence. Those who were born under the planet

of Mars were likely to become soldiers, butchers or barbers. 83 However, the

period after the Black Death saw the beginning of a scientific outlook based

on observation and the relationship between the various planets in space.

The universe started to be seen as an integrated system, in which different

parts influenced each other.84

Despite the sharp drop in population, there was a greater demand for

higher education. This was a consequence of the greater desire for

knowledge triggered by the plague, but was also the result of the social and

economic changes that had made it possible for a higher percentage of the

population to escape serfdom, join the professions, and gain some control

over their own destinies. In England, Cambridge University established four

new colleges after the Black Death: Gonville Hall in 1348, Trinity Hall in

1350, Corpus Christi in 1352, and Clare Hall in 1362. Oxford created two

new colleges: Canterbury in 1362 and New College in 1372. In Italy, which

already had a number of universities before the plague, a new university was

founded in Florence in 1350. However, most of the new universities were

founded north and east of the Alps in Heidelberg, Vienna, Prague, Cracow, in

areas that had no universities before the Black Death.85 So, it appears like

the epidemic created both a greater and a wider demand for higher education

in late medieval European society.

83 Ibid., 102.84 Ibid., 101.85 Kelly, John. 289; Herlihy, David. 70.

22

A related change to the spread of higher education after the Black

Death was the demand for books among the growing portion of the

population who could read them: merchants, university trained professionals,

and skilled craftsmen.86 However, producing books in the Middle Ages was a

labor intensive process that required many copyists to write each section by

hand. 87 Johann Guttenberg a native German from the city of Mainz found a

way to combine a number of existing technologies into the invention of the

printing press with movable metal types.88

The Black Death shows how an event outside the control of any group

of people can have a profound and lasting impact on human history.

However, the relationship between the great epidemic known as the Black

Death and medieval Europeans is complicated. Although the plague was

devastating, fourteenth-century Europeans were not passive victims of the

plague. In some ways, it was positive changes in Europe like population

growth and the expansion of trade to China and within Europe that brought

this disaster to Europe and made it more deadly once it got there. After the

disaster struck, people responded and adapted to the new situation fairly

quickly. Europe became more modern and started to look quite different

from China or the Middle East. Many of the old restrictions had to be relaxed

and more people had more control of their lives after the Black Death than

before it. For example, workers got better pay and more food than ever

86 Ibid., 288.87 Ibid., 288.88 Kelly, John. 288; Herlihy, David . 50.

23

before and many ordinary people felt free to practice their religion outside of

control of the church. Serfdom almost disappeared from Europe as peasants

could now leave the land and find employment and freedom in cities. Not all

the changes were good. Religious enthusiasm contributed to the creation of

European anti-Semitism and perhaps a wider hostility towards foreigners.

Even the stronger desire for knowledge had mixed effects. It did spur

technological innovation and a much greater use of books, but also made

wars more deadly and ensured that people would continue to look at the stars

for medical explanations.

24

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