Facing the Black Death

Ring around the rosies

A pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

For centuries, English and American children at play have chanted this seemingly nonsensical rhyme. For all their innocence, however, these children have been transmitters of historical memory. The "rosies" to which this song refers are "buboes," the ugly protuberances at the neck, armpits, or groin that are the horrible sign of bubonic plague. The "pocket full of posies" refers to the clump of flowers that medieval Europeans might clutch in their hands and hold before their noses in a futile attempt to keep the plague at bay. And when today's children collapse to the ground as they chant "all fall down," they unknowingly recreate piles of burning corpses.

This simple children's song records the terror of the Black Death, the epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century and killed somewhere between a quarter and a third of its people. Those who exhibited the tell-tale buboes usually had less than three days to live. Those who contracted the pneumatic form of the illness, spread by respiration from person to person would be perfectly healthy one day and dead the next. "Ring around the rosies" shows how ancient memories of dramatic events can be retained in the popular imagination.

When the plague epidemic hit Europe in 1347-1348, people faced the crisis with little useful knowledge about how the plague was spread or how it could be treated. One thing they did know: The disease had come from the east. While most historical attention has been focused on the Black Death in Europe, historians have followed through on that single bit of knowledge and now understand that the fourteenth-century outbreak of the plague was a pandemic, that is, a widespread epidemic that struck most of Eurasia and North Africa almost simultaneously. The tragedy of the Black Death was not limited to a single corner of the world (it effected China and the Islamic World too), and it has therefore become a major topic among world historians.

I would like you to look at a sampling of contemporary accounts of the Black Death from Western Europe. As you are looking at these, ask yourself: How do the authors answer the questions of the source of the disease, why it arose so suddenly and spread so rapidly, and the solution of eliminating it? What were some of the medical, religious, political, and economic reactions to the Black Death? The first document I would like you to consider is written by Giovanni Boccaccio, a literary scholar as well as one of the great writers of his day. His Decameron (which you can read by clicking here) is a work of fiction, but these opening pages, where Florentine reactions to the plague are described, have the ring of truth. I would also like for you to look at a document written by Jean de Venette. Among the major elements of the account of Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar, are the great importance that Christians placed on dying a "good death" and the challenges that the huge mortality of 1348 posed to their doing so. You can read this document by clicking here (pgs. 55-57). Sudden death and the possibility of burial in unconsecrated ground were particularly horrible for people who believed that an eternity in hell awaited any soul that was not adequately prepared. Jean de Venette also comments, like Boccaccio, on the effects of the epidemic on standards of social conduct and morality. It is also important to note that this account indicates that some believed that the Black Death was caused by the evil actions of particular groups of people. The attacks on Germany's Jewish population that he describes are a chilling anticipation of the genocide that would take place six hundred years later. 1349, sadly, was neither the first nor the last time that one response to harsh times has been to find a scapegoat. Another source I would like you to look at is a visual one, a reproduction of a painting that is included because it gets at both human and cosmological dimensions of the Black Death as it was experienced in Europe (you can look at it by clicking on the above painting). In interpreting this painting, it might be helpful to think in terms of several sets of contrasts. First, compare the left and right sides of the lower part of the painting, with the corpse in the foreground as a bridge between the two. Second, compare the lower and upper portions of the painting. St. Sebastian, who is seen near the top of the painting in a position of prayer, was one of several saints who became identified as offering help to plague victims. Sebastian was a soldier in the Roman army who was put to death for his adherence to Christianity. St. Sebastian was always represented with arrows piercing his flesh, a torture equivalent to being pierced by the hidden arrows of the plague. I'd also like you to take a look at a document entitled "A Wholesome Medicine Against the Plague" (which you can read by clicking here, just section 51). This document reminds us that while reaction to the plague in Europe could take such violent forms as self-flagellation and attacks on Jews, there were many other Christians who were more moderate and balanced in their response. The final document I'd like you to look at, in which the great Humanist philosopher Petrarch (which you can read by clicking here, just pgs. 248-249) describes the death of his friends, brings us back down to the most basic, human level. As we read Petrarch's letter, can we really imagine what it would have been like to be living in such circumstances?

Honestly, there are so many documents that are available from various parts of the world dealing with the Black Plague. However, after simply looking at these and considering our discussion today, what, ultimately, caused the Black Death? For most Christians of the time, the ultimate cause almost certainly had to be God. But why would God bring such a pestilence to humanity? There are also some texts that refer to the conscious activities of evil human beings who spread the disease on purpose. How were they said to have done so, and why? What groups were most likely to be singled out for such accusations, and what fate did they suffer as a consequence? What were the social, political, and economic effects of the Black Death? How did people's responses to the calamity affect social relationships within communities, between neighbors, between different social groups, and within families? Also, what were the psychological effects of the plague (especially considering Petrarch's writing)? Your thoughts...