Augusta author and syndicated writer E. Randall Floyd can be reached at Rfloyd2aol.com.FILE/STAFF

Plague forever altered European society

Web posted December 27, 1998

By Randall Floyd
Columnist

One of history's worst human disasters was the 14th-century plague known as the Black Death.

In Europe a full quarter of the population, some 25 million people, died within four years (1347-51). It is thought that this devastation was started by flea-infested rats that infected human hosts.

People of the 14th century saw the plague as God's terrible punishment for humanity's sins.

Whole families were wiped out. In some cases, entire villages were decimated, as were large parts of London, Hanover, Rome, Paris and Prague. Particularly disturbing was the large number of victims claimed by the plague who had sought refuge inside church and monastery walls.

The horror is thought to have originated in central Asia. From there it traveled to the Crimea with trade caravans, then by ships to Mediterranean coasts and on across Europe.

``Bring out your dead,'' rang the familiar cry of body collectors whose grim task was to gather corpses as the plague spread from city to city.

Normal life ceased. Fields were left untilled, cattle turned loose to fend for themselves. Corpses were soon being buried, one on top of another, in shallow graves, tipped wholesale into pits, or even left rotting in the streets.

City life ground to a halt as contagion spread and people fled from their homes. The air seemed polluted with what one contemporary chronicle describes as ``an unbearable stench so fetid as to be overpowering.''

Few places were spared. In Milan, the archbishop ordered that if the infection reached the city, the first three houses where it appeared must immediately be walled up, with the dead, sick and healthy all entombed within.

His order was carried out -- and Milan suffered no further.

The archbishop, without knowing how the pestilence had spread, had nevertheless hit upon a reliable barrier: isolation. Thus, an isolated country house might be a good sanctuary.

The writer Giovanni Boccaccio sets his Decameron (1353) in a palace where 10 patrician young people gather to avoid plague-stricken Florence. There, while waiting for the danger to recede, they amuse themselves by telling stories.

Segregation could also work on a larger scale. Vast tracts of present-day Poland were spared, perhaps partly because Polish authorities imposed a quarantine.

It was isolation, too, that saved Pope Clement VI, then resident in Avignon, France. On the advice of his doctors, he withdrew to a private apartment where, despite the warmth of summer, he sat in solitude for weeks between two enormous fires kept permanently stoked.

Although the doctors could not have known it, their advice made medical sense, for the great heat repelled fleas. Fire also preserved a certain English nobleman who ruthlessly ordered a nearby village burned when it was attacked by the plague. Neither the flames nor the fleas reached his property.

Medieval doctors knew nothing about the causes of the plague, and little about possible cures. Remedies varied, but bleeding ``infected blood'' was the most popular method of treatment. ``If the patient faints,'' wrote one physician, ``pour cold water over him and continue as before.''

Various soothing potions were prescribed, ranging from apple syrup and lemon to rose water and peppermint. Powdered minerals were sometimes added to the mixture, as was gold and other precious stones.

The Black Death changed European life forever. Historians point to a sharp fall in moral standards and religious piety brought about by loss of hope and the paralyzing fear that God had abandoned his children. Criminal activity soared in metropolitan areas, while highwaymen prowled the back roads.

People felt, fairly or unfairly, that the church had let them down. It had failed to protect its flock, had forfeited its claim to special status. As faith waned, so did tolerance and respect for God and human authority. The stage was being set for an enlightened new age.

Augusta author and syndicated writer E. Randall Floyd can be reached at Rfloyd2aol.com.