The Black Death Influence On Medieval Society Essay, Research Paper

THE BLACK DEATHS INFLUENCE ON MEDIEVAL SOCIETY by charles stergios The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, or the BubonicPlague killed one third of the population of Europe during its reign in the13th and 14th centuries. The arrival of this plague set the scene for yearsof strife and heroism. Leaving the social and economic aspect in astandstill. The phantom of death became a subject of art, music andfolklore and it influenced the consciousness of the people. The impact ofthis mass killer caused enormous chaos and havoc to the Medievalsociety because of its unknown origin, the unknown causes andpreventions, its deathly symptoms and its breakdown of orderly life,therefore religion was greatly affected and changed. In 1347, a Tartar army under Kipchak khan Janibeg had beenbesieging the Genoese cathedral city and trading ports of Caffa on theBlack Sea for a year. A deadly, ruthless plague hit the besieging armyand was killing off soldiers at an unstoppable rate. It was plain to JanibegKhan that he must call off the siege. But before he decided to retreat, hewanted to give the defenders a taste of what his army was suffering. SoJanibeg used giant catapults to hurl the rotting corpses of the plaguedvictims over the walls of the town. By this means the infection spreadamong the Genoese defenders. Before long the Genoese were dyingfrom the plague as fast as the Tartars on the outside. A few who thoughtthemselves free of plague took to their ships and headed for theMediterranean. The deathly disease was unleashed at every port the shipand its crew set foot on. The trading routes contributed to the spread ofthe disease throughout the continent. In October of 1347, several Italianmerchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea. These ships carrieda cargo of flea infested rats, which had guts full of the bacillus Yersiniapestis (the bacteria which causes the plague). Inspectors attempted toquarantine the fleet, but it was too late. Realizing what a deadly disasterhad come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathersabandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out willsfor the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, andmonasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken,too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to givethem a Christian burial. The terror of this seemingly unstoppable march ofdeath was the unknown nature of its origin. The absence of an identifiableearthly cause gave the plague supernatural and sinister quality. The plague had stunned Europe and everywhere people weredesperate for explanations and answers to their many questions. Mostexplanations were based on folklore, superstition, and rumor. Blame wasfrequently placed on travelers and other suspicious outsiders. Someblamed invisible particles carried in the wind, others talked of poisonedwells. An earthquake, which had a carved a path of wreckage fromNaples to Venice in the summer of 1347, was blamed for releasing gasesinto the air which poisoned all on whom they fell. The scholars of theUniversity of Paris stated that the Black Death resulted from a tripleconjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius,occurring on the 20th of March 1345′ but added they didn’t know how. Others blamed Jews for poisoning wells which inspired more than 350massacres across Germany and Switzerland. Many Jews who escapedfled to Poland. Also, hysterical charges of sorcery and witchcraft were brought againsteccentric or unpopular people. The violence against outsidersdemonstrated, in a tragically negative manner, the nature and the limits ofcitizenship in Europe. This was a society which defined itself as Christiansand recurrent plague changed religious practice, if no belief. Ordinaryfolk had their own theory about the plague: It was plainly God’spunishment for man’s wickedness. Bands of hooded men, wearing robesmarked front and back with a red cross also believed in this theory andthat by scourging themselves they can show mankind’s repentance. They

traveled in parties of 50 to 500, led by a layman. Moving from town totown, singing hymns and sobbing, the men beat themselves with scourgesstudded with iron spikes. The ritual was performed twice a day in public. The masses worshiped the flagellants, as they were known, as livingmartyrs. Religious donations soared, pilgrimages swelled. A millionChristians trudged to Rome in 1350, a holy year by decree of ClementVI. The pope himself remained at Avignon, sitting between two fires inhis private chamber, even in the summer, and rubbing an emerald ring,practices recommended to him to ward off the plague. Many peasantsand uneducated folk believed the cause of the plague was a beautiful butan evil witch called the “plague maiden.” It was said that when shepassed by a house she could infect those inside simply by waving a redscarf through an open window. People seeking tips on avoiding infectionwere counseled to eat lots of figs and filberts before breakfast or not tosleep on their backs, and less pestilential air ran down their nostrils intothe lungs. The plague occurred from the bite of an infected flea or by a scratchor bite while handling animals. Also it could be contracted from breathingin airborne droplets from people who already had the infection in theirlungs. The first symptoms of the bubonic plague often appear withinseveral days: headache and a general feeling of weakness, followed byaches and chills in the upper leg and groin, a white coating on the tongue,rapid pulse, slurred speech, confusion, fatigue, apathy and staggeringgait. A blackish pustule usually would form at the point of the fleabite. By the third day, the lymph node begins to swell. Because the bite iscommonly in the leg, the lymph nodes in the leg swell, which is how thedisease got its name. The Greek word for “groin’ is bubon, thus thename. The swelling then becomes tender, and perhaps as large as anegg. The heart begins to flutter rapidly as it tries to pump blood throughswollen, suffocating tissues. Subcutaneous hemorrhaging occurs, causingpurplish blotches on the skin. The victim’s nervous system began tocollapse, causing dreadful pain and bizarre neurological disorders. By thefourth day, wild anxiety and terror overtake the sufferer and then thesense of resignation, as the skin blackens and the rictus of death settles onthe body. During all this confusion the church’s leadership in the lives of people weakened. Before the arrival of the Black Death the church was seen as one of the wealthiest and most powerful landlords in all of Europe. Unsurprisingly, monasteries, converts, prisons, and other closedcommunities were doomed when plague was introduced to them. TheConvents of Carcassonne and Marseille lost everyone. At Montpelier133 Dominican Friars died out of 140. When the plague subsided, manytowns were left without a priest. Those priests who had not fled butministered to the dying during the plague were constantly exposed to thedisease; many died. Consequently, new priests were often ordainedwithout adequate training, and frequently the selection of priestlycandidates was hasty and ill-advised, thus reducing the esteem peoplehad for the church. Everywhere the Church was forced to resort toextraordinary ends to assure at least the semblance of the sacraments forthe dying. Bishops in England, faced with a loss of priests to minister thesacraments gave permission to laymen to make confession t each other. Without the guidance and support which the church was recognized saintsas models of the godly life and as mediators before God. A whole newseries of “plague saints” came into existence along with new religiousbrotherhoods and shrines dedicated to protecting the population from theplague. With the start of the plague Europeans looked desperately for helpto answer their many questions, on why God would allow such a thing tooccur. People throughout Christendom had prayed devoutly fordeliverance form the plague and when their prayers weren’t answeredthey began to change their methods of administering the traditions whichwere attached to the church. They were left alone to live life without thepowerful God which left awe and fear in all, during a very difficult era.Religion affected every aspect of everyday life and without it a newperiod of philosophical questioning lay ahead.