THE PThis one noegra this is how the plaguebubonic, disease caused by bacteria Yersiniapestis, which reached the European continent in the middle of the 14th century. Historians believe that the disease arose somewhere in Central Asia and was carried by the Genoese to the European continent.
The result was catastrophic, as the disease affected virtually the entire continent and resulted in the death of millions of people. The most traditional estimates say that about 1/3 of the European population died because of the Black Death crisis, but some statistics suggest that the death toll may have exceeded half of the European population.
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Where did the Black Death come about?
Bubonic plague is a disease caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that is found in fleas that stay on contaminated rats. When infected fleas come into contact with humans, disease transmission takes place. From there, the plague can be transmitted from human to human by body secretions or by airway.
Historians believe that the Black Death arose in the Central Asia. There are numerous theories about the specific place where the disease arose, but the most widely accepted one suggests that the place of origin is China and that, for a long time, the plague has operated exclusively in Asia Central. From the 14th century onwards, it spread by land and sea in the East.
Regions such as Mongolia, part of China, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt would have been hit in the beginning of the 14th century, causing the death of about 24 million people in these places|1|. The disease came into contact with Europeans through a conflict that took place in coffee, Genoese colony located in Crimea (a region currently disputed by Ukraine and Russia).
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In 1343, Caffa was besieged by Tatar troops from the Khanate of the Golden Horde. The conflict continued with interruptions until, in 1346, the Tatar troops were decimated by an outbreak of the Black Death. The Tatars decided to use the disease as a weapon and launcheddead bodiescontaminated into the city.
The result was immediate and the city of Caffa also began to succumb to the outbreak of plague. Fleeing the disease, Genoese began to abandon Caffa, returning to the Italian Peninsula. In that return, the Genoese took the disease to places like Constantinople, Genoa and Marseilles, which resulted in its spread throughout the European continent.
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Spread of the Black Death across Europe
Starting from ports on the Mediterranean coast, the Black Death spread across Europe. In 1347, the disease reached Sicily, an island south of the Italian Peninsula; in 1348 he reached Marseilles, southern France; in 1349 it reached Genoa and northern Italy, and from there spread throughout Europe.
The spread of this disease led to death across the European continent, as no one knew what caused it. This naturally gave rise to all kinds of speculation about the causes of the plague. Some said it was a divine punishment, for example; others accused the Jews of being responsible.
Soon Europeans identified that the disease was highly contagious. One of the forms of contagion is the respiratoryThus, an infected person can easily transmit the disease by air or through their clothes, for example, to others. The Black Death worked with a stroke, and the person who contracted it died in a matter of days.
Airborne plague is known as pneumonic plague. According to historian Hilário Franco Júnior, the sick person died within three days after contracting it|2|. Historian Jacques Le Goff says that many of the people who showed the symptoms of the plague died within 24 hours after manifesting the first signs|3|.
What was life like for people during the Black Death?
The spread of the Black Death resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. The disease spread through cities and the countryside, although it had a more deadly action in large urban centers. Entire places were devastated, and the chaos spread-if. Some parts of Europe began to persecute the sick, isolating the sick and letting them die. In some cases, patients were executed.
the italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio he witnessed the Black Death with his own eyes and left accounts of what he saw. He spoke about the symptoms, the high degree of contagion of the disease, but he also addressed the collapse of order with the spread of the plague, as many of the authorities became contaminated and eventually died. Boccaccio's account focuses on what he witnessed in Florence, an Italian city.
Boccaccio also spoke of the different reactions people had during the period of the disease's crisis. He reports that many searched the isolation, avoiding having any kind of contact with people, especially those who were sick. Those who were richer and owned country estates fled the cities and took shelter in these remote places.
Over time, doctors realized that contact with the sick and the bodies of the dead should not happen. With that, the sickthey wereisolated and contact with them was limited to those who performed medical treatment. Priests also kept in touch with those affected, mainly because they performed the religious rites related to the forgiveness of sins and the funeral.
![Doctors caring for those sick with the plague wore a black leather suit and a bird-beak-shaped mask.[1]](/f/5f73b8fde4d815de06294fcc23dc0b34.jpg)
This perception that contact with the sick contributed to the spread of the disease caused families to stop meeting at the edge of those who were sick. Funeral meetings also stopped happening, and those who treated the sick started to use clothesspecific, made of leather, to prevent the patient's secretions from penetrating the tissue. Doctors also started to use a mask in the shape of a bird's beak, which was filled with aromatic herbs. These clothes were believed to prevent contamination.
You priests they were one of the groups that suffered the most, as they had direct contact with the sick and the bodies of those who died. How many of the priests lived in monasteries, places where there was a great agglomeration of religious – many in advanced age –, when a priest contracted the disease, it was quickly transmitted to others.
Historian Tamara Quírico brought an account of a cenobio (residence of monks) in Florence, where about ¾ of the religious who lived there died as a result of the plague.|5|. This affected the funeral rites practiced, since there were no priests to attend to the number of dead.
In addition to not having enough priests, there were not gravediggers, and the burials began to be performed in large scale, that is, in mass graves, so many people died. However, with the perception that corpses were also vectors of contamination, many started to abandon burial practices and began to burn the bodies of the deceased. Even the clothing worn by illnesses and other items began to be burned.
As already mentioned, many authorities have begun to impose some isolation to prevent the spread of the disease. Surgeon Guy de Chauliac, from Avignon, France, said that parents could not visit their children and vice versa because of the high risk of contagion. Boccaccio also reported that some works to improve the city's cleanliness and hygiene conditions and the ban on the entry of patients also took place in Florence|4|.
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Black Death Symptoms
Dr. Drauzio Varella states that the Black Death can cause 41 fever° degrees, Besides vomiting with the presence of blood and complicationsat thelung. For those with lung problems, death was virtually guaranteed|6|. Boccaccio also left some accounts of how the disease manifested itself in people. He says the plague started:
[…] with the appearance of certain swellings in the groin or armpits of men and women, some of which they reached the size of an ordinary apple and others the size of an egg, some more and some less, and the people called them buboes. And those deadly buboes, not limited to the two aforementioned parts of the body, soon began to be born and appear indifferently elsewhere, after which the quality of the disease began to change, turning into black spots or livid, which in many appeared on the arms, thighs and any other part of the body, some large and thin, others tiny and thick. And, as had happened and still occurred with bubo, such spots were undeniable signs of near death for all those in whom they appeared.|4|.
Through this report, we can see that the swollen regions of the body due to the disease were called buboes, so bubonic plague. The expression black Plague, in turn, refers to the black spots that appeared in the bodies of victims who contracted the disease.
Consequences
The first and largest outbreak of Black Death occurred between 1348 and 1350, but other outbreaks took place throughout the 14th century. Plague was a disease that was present in the lives of Europeans until 1720, when the last outbreak was registered in Marseille, France. The role of the disease in Europe throughout the 14th century contributed to a drastic population reduction.
Traditional estimates say that the disease was responsible for the reduction of 1/3 of the population of the European continent, but some historians, such as Jacques Le Goff, have brought new data, showing that the death toll may have been greater than that. Le Goff says enter half and 2/3 of the European population powow have died for cause of the disease and in some places, such as England, it suggests that mortality was in the 70s range.|7|.
Grades
|1| REZENDE, Joffre Marcondes de. The great epidemics of history. To access, click on here.
|2| JUNIOR, Hilário Franco. The Middle Ages: birth of the West. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 2006, p. 29.
|3| LE GOFF, Jacques. The medieval roots of Europe. Petrópolis: Voices, 2011, p. 227.
|4| BOCCACCIO, Giovanni. Decameron. Porto Alegre: L&PM Pocket, 2013.
|5| CHIRICO, Tamara. Black Death and eschatology: the effects of the expectation of death on 14th century religiosity. To access, click on here.
|6| The Black Death. To access, click on here.
|7| LE GOFF, Jacques. The medieval roots of Europe. Petrópolis: Voices, 2011, p. 228.
Image credits:
[1] matrioshka and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves Silva
History teacher
