Photo: Students of History
While it was impossible to determine the exact biological cause of the disease known as the Black Death, modern research documents have determined the pathogen with the highest probability of responsibility to be the bacterium known as the Yersinia pestis; one that manifested in various forms.
The true origins of the disease are still debated in countless theories, yet the primary consensus declares that the Black Death began in the Central Asian dry plains; traveling along the Silk Road and finally arriving in Crimea by the year 1343. The theory continues by stating that the disease traveled via Oriental rat fleas that were feeding on black rats that were carried on merchant ships.
Failing to fully recover from the mass devastation until as late as the 17th century, the plague killed an estimated 30 to 60% of the total population of Europe.
To make matters worse, the plague saw an occasional recurrence for the next 200 years. Causing extreme atrocities on an inconceivable scale, the Black Death left an unforgettable scar on humanity’s history; destroying economic and cultural life whilst creating limitless religious and philosophical upheavals that profoundly affected the future of Europe.
Due to the time of the disease occurring centuries past, scientific descriptions of the biological symptoms are often imprecise. However, of all the symptoms that crippled the victims of the Black Death, the symptom most commonly discovered was the visible display of buboes (the swelling of lymph nodes) in the areas of the neck, groin, armpits which excreted blood and pus.
The plague caused the skin and flesh to decay, creating a black and deathly appearance. Subsequently, victims would suffer from acute fever and vomit up blood; dying up to a week after infection. Despite the various symptoms, the Black Death manifested in numerous forms; a jeopardizing problem that allowed it to exist for centuries after it initially appeared.
According to accounts from Lodewijk Heyligen, a servant whose master was taken by the plague during the height of its existence, noted one such distinct form of the disease known as the pneumonic plague. An inevitable death sentence for its victim and taking place in three forms, patients would struggle to breathe due to the initial lung infection, boil sprout in the armpits in the second, and thirdly visible infection in the groin.
The timing of the plague was marked by an arrival near the end of the Middle Ages; a time in which “urban life reemerged, long-distance commerce revived, business and manufacturing innovated, manorial agriculture matured, and population burgeoned, doubling or tripling”.
As the disease unforgivingly decimated entire populations, it violently shattered the socioeconomic structure of Europe. Friends and family members were instantly abandoned, cities were fled and emptied with the surviving population inside cutting their ties with the rest of the world. Many individuals believed the plague to be the wrath of God and attempted to battle it with the act of praying.
When it was discovered that the prayers went unanswered due to the continuation of death, faith in religion saw an extreme decline. Abrupt, mass inflation followed the economy due to the difficulty and danger associated with procuring/trading goods and services. In consequence, the prices of local and imported goods skyrocketed in value.
For all laborers extending even to patients, wages increased substantially due to the scarcity of workers and an extreme level of demand for people to work the land. This severed all required ties that serfs possessed with their masters and allowed them the freedom to work for anyone they want; becoming hired instantaneously by any lord they wished to work for.
As a result, the pay from wages far exceeded prices and substantially raised the standard of living for those still alive and healthy to work. The exponentially rising cost of labor blurred the lines drawn between socioeconomic classes and employers responded by wearing more fashionable apparel in order to maintain the distinction.
With the peasants now empowered and possessing increased resources at their disposal, they revolted against the aristocracy when the government tried to resist the changes that the plague brought. These peasant revolts saw the irreversible change of Europe’s socioeconomic structure.
After the year 1350, the culture of Europe became incredibly morbid; with the most popular mood/way of thinking extremely pessimistic and modern art becoming eerie/dark with representations of death.
The infamous “Dance of Death” selecting its victims at random became an image widespread amongst the populations, and far more graphic descriptions of the plague were produced in writing. For example, Peire Lunel de Montech produced a lyrically styled literary work describing the peak of the Black Death in Toulouse by stating: “They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ditches and covered with earth…and I buried my five children with my own hands…so many believed it was the end of the world”.
Furthermore, as medicine was depicted in its most feeble state during the time of the Black Death, much of the study that succeeded the field after the plague focused on studying physiological changes in human anatomy after the body grew ill.
This also pushed the field of surgery and operations of the like. Finally, the Black Death’s perception manifested in other forms of art including European Architecture, transforming it in two ways. The first in the style of Greek/Roman stones demonstrated the love Petrarch had for antiquity, and the second a deepened extrapolation of the Gothic style.