The Black Death

1. The Black Death For over 100 years scientists have believed that the Medieval Black Death was the same disease as the modern Bubonic Plague. We're told it was spread by fleas on rats and is now easily controlled with antibiotics. Today, though, there are those who doubt the two diseases are the same and how ready we are to deal with this ancient disease if it surfaces again. Your task is to fill in your “Investigation Journal” as you explore the exhibits.

2. The Black Death Could this tiny insect be the cause of death for 25 million people?

3. Where Did the Bubonic Plague Begin? • Believed to have moved from rodent population of the Gobi desert to humans around the 1320s • Spread along trade routes of the Mongol Empire through China, India, Russia, North Africa into the great trading cities of Asia Minor (ca 1330s -1340s) • From there spread into Europe (1348-1351)

4. Mongol Empire & Trade Routes

5. How Did It Get to Europe? • Mongols (Genghis Kahn) Empire: • Eastern Europe, through Mesopotamia, across central Europe to China. • Silk road re-opened and otherroutes through steppes opened. • Genoese (Genoa) opened the Straits of Gibraltar to Christian shipping in 1291. • Mediterranean was connected by ship to northern Europe.

6. Republic of Genoa ca 1400

7. Spread of the Bubonic Plague

8. What is the Bubonic Plague? • Also called the Black Death • Caused by a bacteria named Yersiniapestis • People usually contract the disease by being bitten by a rodent flea carrying the bacteria. • Middle Ages – most homes and places of work were inhabited by flea-infested rats • Today – antibiotics are effective, but without treatment death can occur

9. Flea drinks rat blood that carries the bacteria Bacteria multiply in flea’s gut Human is infected Gut clogged with bacteria Flea bites human, regurgitate blood into open wound

10. Three Forms of the Disease • Bubonic Plague - painful lymph node swellings, buboes • Pneumonic Plague - attacked the respiratory system • Septicemic Plague - also called “blood poisoning”, attacked the blood system

11. #1: The Bubonic Plague • Painful lymph node swelling, called buboes • In groins and armpits • Oozing pus and blood

12. #2: Pneumonic Plague • Kills 90-95% of people infected • Symptoms develop within 1-3 days • Occurs when bacteria infects the lungs, causing pneumonia • Contagious—when infected individual coughs, he releases bacteria in respiratory droplets which can be inhaled and infect another person

13. #3: Septicemic Plague • More virulent strain—nearly always fatal • Occurs when bacteria reproduces in blood stream instead of lymph nodes • Symptoms present themselves on the same day as infection and include fever, chills, internal bleeding • Septicemic plague difficult to spread • Clotting and bleeding beneath the skin • Dark blotches = Acral necrosis  Black Death!

14. Population Decline in Europe • Florence lost 60% of its population • Avignon lost 50% of its population • At the height of the plague Venice was losing 500-600 people a day • Europe lost between 1/3 and 1/2 of its total population • Europe’s population did not recover until the 17th century

15. Population Decline

16. Pre/Post Plague Populations

17. Comparative Death Toll

18. Economic Aftermath • Decreased population • Labor shortage- higher wages paid, property prices drop • Standard of living improved for those who survived the plague • Higher wages, paid on the basis of supply and demand • Led to the beginnings of capitalism

19. Socio-Political Aftermath • Persecution of marginal groups in society • Jewish people accused of poisoning wells, causing Black Death • Led to increasing persecution, burning of Jews, confiscation of Jewish property and eventually expelling them from towns and cities

20. Jewish Persecution Representation of a massacre of the Jews in 1349

21. Jewish Persecution

22. Religious Aftermath • Preoccupation with death • Leads some people to abandon their faith and live in the moment • Leads some to embrace faith and become repentant for world’s sins (flagellants) • Flagellants: practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments.

23. Cultural Aftermath • Preoccupation with death presents itself in art and literature • Boccaccio’s Decameron: • Novella containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death

24. Cultural Aftermath • Preoccupation with death presents itself in art and literature • Dance of Death (DanseMacabre) • Plays that consist of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave

25. Cultural Aftermath • Legend of the Three Living and Three Dead • 15th-century English poem • In the poem, an unnamed narrator describes seeing a boar hunt. Three kings are following the hunt; they lose their way in mist and are separated from their retainers. Suddenly, out of the woods comes three walking corpses, described in graphically hideous terms. The kings are terrified, but show a range of reactions to the three Dead, ranging from a desire to flee to a resolve to face them. The three corpses, in response, state that they are not demons, but the three kings' forefathers, and criticize their heirs for neglecting their memory and not saying masses for their souls: • Once, the three Dead were materialistic and pleasure-loving, and they now suffer for it. Eventually, the Dead leave, the red daylight comes, and the kings ride home. • The final message of the Dead is that the living should always be mindful of them.

26. Legend of the Three Living and Three Dead

27. Cultural Aftermath • Preoccupation with death presents itself in art and literature • Transi Tombs or Cadaver Tombs • Latin for "reminder of death“ • A church monument or tomb featuring an effigy in the macabre form of a decomposing corpse. • Intended as a didactic example of how transient earthly glory is, since it depicts what we all finally become.

31. Intellectual Aftermath • Technological development • Fewer people meant people had to work more efficiently • Led to the development of machines that allowed work to be done more quickly • Example: the Gutenberg Press and moveable type printing press • Medical inquiry • Re-evaluation of ancient theories of medicine, turning to more modern conceptions of the body

32. Intellectual Aftermath • Broke traditional ways of thinking • Destroyed the dominant mode of thinking about humanity’s relationship with the world • New modes of more secular thought were allowed to break through the dominant narrative of Christian teaching– helps lead to Renaissance/Reformation

33. The Children • Ring a-round the rosy = rosary beads give you God’s help • Pocket full of posies = used to stop the odor of rotting bodies through to cause the plague • Ashes, ashes! = the church burned the dead when burying became too laborious • We all fall down! = dead

34. The Children • Children suffered mentally and physically • Children were not thought worth the trouble to raise

35. Doctors wore a beak-like mask which was filled with aromatic items, commonly lavender. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air.

36. "The nose half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils, but that can suffice to breathe and to carry along with the air one breathes the impression of the drugs enclosed further along in the beak. Under the coat we wear boots made in Moroccan leather (goat leather) from the front of the breeches in smooth skin that are attached to said boots and a short-sleeved blouse in smooth skin, the bottom of which is tucked into the breeches. The hat and gloves are also made of the same skin… with spectacles over the eyes.”