History
The Great Plague
The Great Plague, also known as the Black Death, was a devastating pandemic that swept through Europe in the 14th century, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was transmitted through fleas infesting rats. The plague had profound social, economic, and cultural impacts, leading to widespread fear and significant changes in European society.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
10 Key excerpts on "The Great Plague"
- David Herlihy, Samuel K. Cohn Jr.(Authors)
- 1997(Publication Date)
- Harvard University Press(Publisher)
ONEBubonic Plague: Historical Epidemiology and the Medical Problems
The Black Death of 1348 and 1349, and the recurrent epidemics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were the most devastating natural disasters ever to strike Europe.1 We cannot cite exact losses; there are no global figures. The populations of some cities and villages, in areas as far removed from each other as England and Italy, fell in the late decades of the fourteenth century by 70 or 80 percent.2 The more we learn of the late medieval collapse in human numbers, the more awesome it appears. Europe about 1420 could have counted barely more than a third of the people it contained one hundred years before.This was Europe’s greatest known ecological disaster, and also the last of such magnitude it has had to endure. The epidemics of modern history seem mild when compared with the fury of the Black Death. A principal thesis here is that the two salient characteristics of the population collapse of the late Middle Ages—Europe’s deepest and also its last—are not unrelated. The devastating plagues elicited a social response that protected the European community from comparable disasters until the present.The great medieval epidemics have in recent years attracted considerable attention from historians. There are several reasons for this. In part it reflects the contemporary effort of historians to recapture more of the past than their predecessors accomplished. Ultimately, they would like to reconstruct the entire environment, the total life situation, that prevailed in past epochs. In this quest for total history, they of course include the cultural climate—ideas, ideologies, beliefs, myths and values—that circumscribed human life. But the physical environment also demands consideration. How did human communities interact with their natural surroundings? What were the ecological systems of the past? Indisputably, microorganisms play a crucial role in all systems of human ecology. Parasitic microbes also have a history, dark to be sure, but intimately connected with that of their human hosts.
- Frank W. Thackeray, John E. Findling, Frank W. Thackeray, John E. Findling(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Greenwood(Publisher)
9 The Plague and the Fire, 1665-1666 INTRODUCTION Bubonic plague may first have visited London around 166 or 167, when the town was called Londinium and was the center of Roman Britain. At that time, it was part of a general European epidemic, and although its true nature is not known with certainty, the sickness quite possibly was the plague. Archaeologists know that the rats that carry plague were in London by the third century, and probably earlier. Over its long history, London, like other great cities has had frequent epidemic diseases brought on by overcrowding, lack of sanitation and pest control, and no knowl- edge of preventive medicine. By the sixteenth century, London was one of the largest cities in the world, crowded with immigrants and subject to epidemics. An influenza virus killed many Londoners in 1558-1559, but plague came more often (and was never entirely absent) during the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries. An outbreak of plague in 1593 killed an estimated 18,000 people, and that of 1603 killed 30,000. But the worst of the plague epidemics, that of 1665, killed perhaps 65,000 to 110,000 people, although the exact figure can never be known. Plague was difficult to diagnose in its early stages, because the symp- toms varied among victims. Often, however, it started with a severe chill, followed in short order by convulsions and nausea, with protracted vom- iting. Next came a period of malaise and depression, marked by severe headaches and loss of balance. At this point, some victims fell into a coma. Some died without regaining consciousness; others revived and in many cases, developed buboes (hence, the name bubonic plague). Buboes were purple, black, or red lumps that could appear in the groin, armpits, or less 148 Events that Changed Great Britain from 1066 to 1714 Between September 2 and September 5,1666, a fire destroyed about 80 percent of the buildings within the ancient city walls of London, including St.
eBook - PDFOn Our Way
The Final Passage through Life and Death
- Robert Kastenbaum(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- University of California Press(Publisher)
At a “tipping point,” as Malcolm Gladwell would say, 1 the number and type of deaths can lead large populations as well as individuals to feel that the too many deaths are prelude to the total destruction of life. Even young children—the proverbial innocents living in an enchanted T O O M A N Y D E A D / 2 2 1 and protected domain—may be chanting, “Ashes, ashes. All fall down!” We begin, then, by passing through the gate of time to revisit some of the most terrifying days in human history. PLAGUE The word plague (from the Latin plaga, a forceful blow) has been ap-plied to many contagious diseases but has become associated primarily with the bubonic plague. In its most devastating appearance this pesti-lence was known as the Black Death. Every major lethal epidemic in the last three hundred years or so has been compared to the plague, and people with a sense of history have an abiding fear that a new form of this disease might yet again emerge and carve an appalling trail of death throughout the global community. What of the disease itself? How did it spread, how many lives did it end, and what measures were taken to control this horror? What was the world in which the Black Death struck, and what was its impact? And did the memory of this catastrophe die with its survivors, or has the Black Death continued to influence us hundreds of years later? First, the disease itself. We begin with first-person accounts from a devastating re-turn of the plague in the seventeenth century. The Plague and Its Victims Florence, 1631. A resplendent and sophisticated city. A scorpion stung a housemaid just above her knee. At least, that was what seemed to have happened. The wound was a little strange, though, not typical for scorpions. Perhaps it was a carbuncle, the name given to a painful infection under the skin that could become a serious problem if not treated promptly. A deputation of physicians was sent by the Pub-lic Health Magistracy.
eBook - PDF- Joseph P. Byrne(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Greenwood(Publisher)
As opposed to that of the late medieval Black Death, the identity of the epidemic disease as true bubonic plague has not been contested. The waves of the plague certainly caused large-scale mortality and— especially in important urban centers such as Constantinople—a sharp demographic decline, but it is still difficult to translate this into more specific demographic terms. Figures estimating the overall loss of life at 20 to 30 percent of the pre-plague population are often cited, but their accuracy and value are questionable. Certainly, labor became sparse and more expensive, more and better land was available, and manpower shortages limited military operations, whereas on a spiritual level the scourge encouraged the intensification of religious ritual and may have affected the initial spread of Islam. 532 Plague of Cyprian There are abundant sources on the Plague of Justinian written in Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and Old Irish—mostly histories and chronicles and, to a lesser extent, nar- rations of saints’ lives. Several sixth-century authors were eyewitnesses to the pandemic, such as the historians Procopius (d. 565), Agathias (c. 536–582), and Euagrius (c. 536–600) writing in Greek; John of Ephesus (c. 505–585), a bishop writing in Syriac; and the bishop and historian Gregory of Tours (538–593) writing in Latin. Arabic authors such as al-Madaini wrote in the late eighth and ninth centuries, as did some of the Greek and Latin authors such as Theophanes (758/60–817) and Paul the Deacon (c. 720–799), who referred to plague waves in the seventh and eighth centuries. Several detailed descriptions of the disease enable us to identify it as bubonic plague. Procopius includes the longest account of the symptoms associated with the epidemic’s first visitation in 542. Its onset was sudden and accompanied by fever. In a few days at the most, swellings developed mainly in the groin, but also inside the armpit, beside the ears, or on the thighs.
eBook - PDFHow to Win the Nobel Prize
An Unexpected Life in Science
- J. Michael Bishop, J. Michael BISHOP(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Harvard University Press(Publisher)
It was meant to evoke dread and catastrophe, rather than color (although hemorrhages into the skin did create black blotches on the dying). The Black Death was not entirely new to Europe in 1347. The Athe-nian historian Thucydides described an epidemic of plague in the fifth century b.c. , noting shrewdly that individuals who survived would not develop the disease again—perhaps the first recording of acquired im-munity. The “Plague of Justinian” that ravaged Rome in 542 a.d. and helped trigger the decline of the Byzantine Empire was probably also the same disease, although some suspect instead that it was smallpox. 3 But the epidemic that began in October of 1347 had no precedent in scale or devastation. Over six months, the plague swept across Eurasia, killing as much as one-half of the entire population between India and Ireland. “So lethal was the disease, that cases were known of persons going to bed well and dying before they woke, of doctors catching the illness at the bed-side and dying before the patient. So readily did it spread that to the French physician Simon de Covino, it seemed as if one sick person could ‘infect the whole world.’” 4 Vatican sources estimated deaths at over 25 million. Four-fifths of Florence perished, two-thirds of the population of Venice, half the population of Paris. 80 People and Pestilence Giovanni Boccaccio witnessed the plague in Florence and included his memorable description of the epidemic in the introduction to the Decameron . He emphasized the profound effect that pestilence can have on the fabric of society. This disaster had struck such fear into the hearts of men and women, that brother abandoned brother, uncle abandoned nephew, sister left brother, and very often wife abandoned husband, and— even worse, almost unbelievable—fathers and mothers neglected to tend and care for their children as if they were not their own.
eBook - PDFPlague-Making and the AIDS Epidemic: A Story of Discrimination
A Story of Discrimination
- G. Bright(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
CHAPTER 5 The Nineteenth through Twentieth Centuries T he third and last plague pandemic to date began by the end of the nineteenth century and ceased by the mid-twentieth century, thanks to the discovery and effectiveness of several antibiotics, such as streptomycin. 1 In his recent history of the third pandemic, Myron Echenberg proposes that “at least 15 million” people died worldwide. 2 Population losses, however, were not as concentrated in any one country during this visit of plague, perhaps because of the ability of humans to now travel more globally and take the disease with them. This pandemic emerged in China in 1855. By the time it left that coun- try one century later, 2 million people were dead. 3 From China, the plague traveled to Hong Kong, where the first case was diagnosed in May 1894. 4 In August 1896, Bombay was hit and the disease did not leave India until the 1920s with the death toll at 12 million. 5 By 1900, New Zealand, Australia, Alexandria, Portugal, Africa, South America, Hawaii, and California were vis- ited by plague. I focus primarily on Hong Kong, where the bacterial cause of the disease was discovered, and on California, where the disease touched down on American shores for the first time. Both locations share very similar cultural perceptions of the disease. For the first time in its history, Hong Kong was hit hard by plague. Within six months of the first diagnosed case in May 1894, the number of infected rose to 2,679, with 2,552 deaths in a total population of 246,000. 6 Although only 1 percent of the Hong Kong population perished from the disease, it devastated the city and produced reactions reminiscent of those of earlier centuries. Gone were the days when planetary misalignments and comets were pro- posed as causes of the disease; however, divine explanations persisted in 1894. The white European population in Hong Kong, namely the British, had 60 ● Bubonic Plague occupied the country for quite a few decades.
eBook - PDFPlagues and Pandemics
Black Death, Coronaviruses and Other Deadly Diseases of the Past, Present and Future
- Douglas Boyd(Author)
- 2023(Publication Date)
- Pen and Sword History(Publisher)
61 Chapter 6 The Great Plague Arrives in England Plague returned to Europe in 1661, when it surfaced in Turkey, but did not reach England until after the Restoration, in 1665–66 when King Charles II and others rich enough fled to their country houses, leaving the poorer classes in the city, where between 75,000 and 100,000 people died from a population of 460,000. 1 Worldwide, it is estimated that deaths in this pandemic totalled anywhere from 75 million to 200 million. Daniel Defoe wrote A Journal of the Plague Year, but he was a child when it happened and wrote his book later for publication in 1722, using notes made at the time and hindsight. Fortunately, that most famous of English diarists Samuel Pepys stayed in London and wrote copiously during the plague, recording his experiences each day before going to bed and, as was his custom, mixing topics to include the financial problems of the spendthrift King Charles II, perpetually over-spending his allowance by parliament to the detriment of his navy and army in this time of war with the Dutch and the French, plus endless gossip and details of his own sex life. What is curious is that, although surrounded by the plague and people dying of it, Pepys gives it relatively little prominence. He lived in very interesting times, playing truant from St Paul’s school, aged 15, in order to witness the decapitation on 30 January 1649 of King Charles I outside the Banqueting House on Whitehall, where the block on which the king had to lay his head for the executioner’s axe was so humiliatingly low that he had almost to lie down on the scaffold. During the nineteen years under the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and his ineffectual son, Richard Cromwell, Pepys served as a clerk, firstly in the Exchequer and then the Admiralty. With a keen ear for politics, he began his diary on 1 January 1660.
eBook - PDFLondon
A Social and Cultural History, 1550–1750
- Robert O. Bucholz, Joseph P. Ward, Joseph P. Ward(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
3 People who remembered the epidemics of 1636 and 1647 began to remove their families from London. What were they so afraid of? It is generally agreed, although not without dissent, that from 1347 through the 1720s Europe was subjected to repeated visitations of the same disease. Although medieval Europeans called it “the Black Death” (not the “Black Plague” as careless students sometimes do), by the seven- teenth century they referred to it simply as “the plague.” There are two types of plague, bubonic and pneumonic, both caused by enterobacteria. Pneumonic plague, passed through the air, is the less common. Bubonic plague is contracted from the bite of a flea carried on the European black rat (Rattus rattus); the fleas carry Yersinia pestis, the bacteria responsible for the infection. Most contemporaries missed this connection completely, leading to a great many mistaken strategies to combat the disease, such as the setting of fires to purge the air of supposed plague “effluvia.” One of the most frightening aspects of the plague was its suddenness. If a person were breathed on or bitten, symptoms appeared in 3 to 7 days, but their onset could be abrupt. You could be fine one minute, dying the next, as happened to Samuel Pepys’s coachman on June 17, 1665: It stroke me very deep this afternoon, going with a Hackny-coach from my Lord Treasurer’s down Holborne – the coachman I found to drive easily and easily; at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand; and told me that he was suddenly stroke very sick and almost blind, he could not see. So I light and went into another coach with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself, lest he should have been stroke with the plague, being at that end of town that I took him up. But God have mercy upon us all. 4
eBook - PDF- Sheldon Watts(Author)
- 1997(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
The Human Response to Plague 17 30. Cemsico, Medico, c Confes!jporchi.3±,Carrctte,e Projumaiori sp or chi, chepr Urobbe.chcmandano nlfojpurjo.Zj: Carre toni,cheportcino itiale detterob{ 4. Burning plague-infected possessions, Rome, 1656. cabins far from built-up areas; (4) assumption of responsibility by the local unit of taxation to provide free medical service and food to people placed in isolation; (5) provision of subsistence to those whose livelihoods had been wrecked by the closure of markets and who had no food reserves to fall back on. From this listing two points emerge. Under pretext of blocking the plague, what Andrea Zorzi terms the project of control and of social mediation touched the lives of subject peoples to an extent hitherto unknown. 58 Among the casualties was the old idea that rich and poor should join together in religious processions, festivals such as Carnival, and in well-heeled people's rites of passage. There was also the problem of funding; in most polities, families of noble blood were exempt from direct taxation. This meant that an elite's capacity to extract from ordinary taxpayers the great sums needed to enforce controls was itself a test of the new Ideology of Order. With wry humor a Palermo health official chose as his motto during the plague of 1576, Gold, Fire, the Gallows: gold to pay the costs, fire to burn suspect goods, and the gallows to hang poor men who disputed the authority of the Board of Health. 59 In the heavily governed Italian city states where power relationships among the great families had been regularized by 1450, the new controls were applied relatively easily. Here the threat of plague strengthened order-conscious bureaucrats' sense of collective responsibility. Thus in Milan when the ruling duke was assassinated during the plague of 1476 the health 18 Epidemics and History magistracy carried out plague-control measures as efficiently as if the duke had still been alive.
- Robert Hymes, Monica H. Green, Carol Symes(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Arc Humanities Press(Publisher)
125 Monica Green and Nahyan Fancy have shown that the 1258 Mongol siege of Baghdad was accompanied by an epidemic outbreak that was almost cer- tainly plague (buboes were unmistakably mentioned), yet historical memory of this was erased by the fourteenth century when the western Asian component of the Black Death arrived in force; vague awareness of an epidemic in 1258 was swamped by the memory of the death and destruction of the Mongol siege itself and by more recent and more wide- spread plague. 126 Citing Alfred Crosby, who has characterized American historical memory as having virtually “forgotten” the 1918 flu pandemic that overlapped with the last stages of the First World War, 127 Fancy and Green ask “Is there something about the combination of epidemics and the trauma of war that produces a special kind of amnesia?” 128 This jibes well with my suggestion that the experience of plague in Jin–Yuan China was folded into the overall experience of destructive conquest and dynastic change. But I have generally been conceiving that conflation as a virtually society-wide act of psy- chological and historiographic processing. Yet “society” did not write Chinese history. If we move to a smaller, individual-level scale and consider just the particular people in outer damage and on the damage of eating, drinking, and exhaustion, that I realized the mistakes of common physicians.” See Yuan Haowen wen biannian jiaozhu, ed. Di, 1018–19. This is the only place in Yuan’s extensive surviving works where he mentions an epidemic that he personally lived through and that left around a million dead. But this preface was a favour to his close acquaintance Li Gao, who occasionally treated his illnesses too. 125 Brook, “Comparative Pandemics” (2020). 126 Fancy and Green, “Plague and the Fall of Baghdad” (2021). 127 Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic (2003). 128 Fancy and Green, “Plague and the Fall of Baghdad” (2021), 177.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
