The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic, which reached England in June 1348. It was the first and most severe manifestation of the second pandemic, caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. The term Black Death was not used until the late 17th century.
Originating in Asia, it spread west along the trade routes across Europe and arrived on the British Isles from the English province of Gascony. The plague was spread by flea-infected rats, as well as individuals who had been infected on the continent. Rats were the reservoir hosts of the Y. pestis bacteria and the Oriental rat flea was the primary vector.
The first-known case in England was a seaman who arrived at Weymouth, Dorset, from Gascony in June 1348. By autumn, the plague had reached London, and by summer 1349 it covered the entire country, before dying down by December. Low estimates of mortality in the early 20th century have been revised upwards due to re-examination of data and new information, and a figure of 40–60% of the population is widely accepted.
The most immediate consequence was a halt to the campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. In the long term, the decrease in population caused a shortage of labour, with subsequent rise in wages, resisted by the landowners, which caused deep resentment among the lower classes. The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was largely a result of this resentment, and even though the rebellion was suppressed, in the long term serfdom was ended in England. The Black Death also affected artistic and cultural efforts, and may have helped advance the use of the vernacular.
In 1361–1362 the plague returned to England, this time causing the death of around 20% of the population. After this the plague continued to return intermittently throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, in local or national outbreaks. From this point its effect became less severe, and one of the last outbreaks of the plague in England was the Great Plague of London in 1665–1666.
Background
England in the mid-14th century
It is impossible to establish with any certainty the exact number of inhabitants in England at the eve of the Black Death, and estimates range from 3 to 7 million. The number is probably at the higher end, and an estimate of around 6 million inhabitants seems plausible. Earlier demographic crises—in particular the Great Famine of 1315–1317—had resulted in great numbers of deaths, but there is no evidence of any significant decrease in the population prior to 1348. England was still a predominantly rural and agrarian society; close to 90 per cent of the population lived in the countryside. Of the major cities, London was in a class of its own, with perhaps as many as 70,000 inhabitants. Further down the scale were Norwich, with around 12,000 people, and York with around 10,000. The main export, and the source of the nation's wealth, was wool. Until the middle of the century the export had consisted primarily of raw wool to cloth makers in Flanders. Gradually though, the technology for cloth making used on the Continent was appropriated by English manufacturers, who started an export of cloths around mid-century that would boom over the following decades.
Politically, the kingdom was evolving into a major European power, through the youthful and energetic kingship of Edward III. In 1346, the English had won a decisive battle over the Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross, and it seemed that Edward III would realise his grandfather Edward I's ambition of bringing the Scots under the suzerainty of the English crown. The English were also achieving military success on the Continent. Less than two months before the Battle of Neville's Cross, a numerically inferior English army led by the king himself won a spectacular victory over the French royal forces at the Battle of Crécy. The victory was immediately followed by Edward laying siege to the port city of Calais. When the city fell the next year, this provided the English with a strategically important enclave that would remain in their possession for over two centuries.
The Black Death
The term "Black Death"—which refers to the first and most serious outbreak of the second pandemic—was not used by contemporaries, who preferred such names as the "Great Pestilence" or the "Great Mortality". It was not until the 17th century that the term under which we know the outbreak today became common, probably derived from Scandinavian languages. It is generally agreed today that the disease in question was plague, caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. These bacteria are carried by fleas, which can be transferred to humans through contact with rats. Flea bites carry the disease into the lymphatic system, through which it makes its way to the lymph nodes. Here the bacteria multiply and form swellings called buboes, from which the term bubonic plague is derived. After three or four days the bacteria enter the bloodstream, and infect organs such as the spleen and the lungs. The patient will then normally die after a few days. A different strain of the disease is pneumonic plague, where the bacteria become airborne and enter directly into the patient's lungs. This strain is far more virulent, as it spreads directly from person to person. These types of infection probably both played a significant part in the Black Death, while a third strain was more rare. This is the septicaemic plague, where the flea bite carries the bacteria directly into the blood stream, and death occurs very rapidly.
A study reported in 2011 of skeletons exhumed from the Black Death cemetery in East Smithfield, London, found Yersinia pestis DNA. An archaeological dig in the vicinity of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire was reported in the science section of The Guardian for 30 November 2016, not only confirming evidence of the Y. pestis DNA in the human remains exhumed there but also dating the remains to mid-1349.
Genotyping showed that it was [at that time] a newly evolved strain, ancestor of all modern strains and proved the Black Death was bubonic plague. Modern medical knowledge suggests that because it was a new strain, the human immune system would have had little or no defence against it, helping to explain the plague's virulence and high death rates.
The Black Death seems to have originated in Central Asia, where the Y. pestis bacterium is endemic in the rodent population. It is unknown exactly what caused the outbreak, but a series of natural occurrences likely brought humans into contact with the infected rodents. The epidemic reached Constantinople in the late spring of 1347, through Genoese merchants trading in the Black Sea. From here it reached Sicily in October that same year, and by early 1348 it had spread over the entire Italian mainland. It spread rapidly through France, and had reached as far north as Paris by June 1348. Moving simultaneously westward, it arrived in the English province of Gascony around the same time.
Progress of the plague
In this year, in Melcombe, in the county of Dorset, a little before the Feast of St. John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol, came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence and through him the men of the town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected.
— Grey Friars' Chronicle
According to the chronicle of the grey friars at King's Lynn, the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe (Weymouth) shortly before the Feast of St. John the Baptist on 24 June 1348. Other sources mention different points of arrival, including Bristol and Southampton. Though the plague might have arrived independently at Bristol later, the Grey Friars' Chronicle is considered the most authoritative account. If it is assumed that the chronicle reports the first outbreak of the plague, rather than its actual arrival, then the arrival most likely happened around 8 May.
From Weymouth the disease spread rapidly across the south-west. The first major city to be struck was Bristol. The disease reached London in the autumn of 1348, before most of the surrounding countryside. This had certainly happened by November, though according to some accounts as early as 29 September (Michaelmas). It travelled to London by three principal routes: overland from Weymouth, through Salisbury and Winchester; overland from Gloucester; and along the coast by ship. The full effect of the plague was felt in the capital early the next year. Conditions in London were ideal for the plague: the streets were narrow and flowing with sewage, and houses were overcrowded and poorly ventilated. By March 1349 the disease was spreading haphazardly across all of southern England.
During the first half of 1349 the Black Death spread northwards. A second front opened up when the plague arrived by ship at the Humber, after which it spread both south and north. In May it reached York, and during the summer months of June, July and August, it ravaged the north. Certain northern counties, like Durham and Cumberland, had been the victim of violent incursions from the Scots, and were therefore left particularly vulnerable to the devastations of the plague. Pestilence is less virulent during the winter months, and spreads less rapidly. The Black Death in England had survived the winter of 1348–49, but during the following winter it subsided, and by December 1349 conditions were returning to relative normality. It had taken the disease around 500 days to traverse the entire country.
Medical practice
Various methods of treatment were used, including sweating, bloodletting, and forced vomiting and urinating. Symptoms of the illness included blotches, hardening of the glands under the groin and underarms, and dementia. During the initial phase of the disease, bloodletting was performed on the same side where the physical manifestations of the buboes or risings appeared. For instance, if a rising appeared on the right side of the groin the physician would bleed a vein in the ankle on the same side. To provoke sweating, medicines such as Mithridate, Venice-Treacle, Matthiolus, Bezoar-Water, Serpentary Roots and Electuarium de Ovo were used. Sweating was used when measures were desperate; if a patient had tokens, a severe version of risings, the physician would wrap the naked patient in a blanket drenched in cold water. This was only done while the patient still had natural heat in his system. The desired effect was to make the patient sweat violently and thus purge all corruption from the blood which was caused by the disease.
Oftentimes, the treatment of the Bubonic or Pneumonic plagues in England depended on the treating physician's belief on the cause. During the pinnacle times of the Black Death (1348-1350), many European Christians believed the origin of the Plague was from God. They believed the Plague was sent for punishment of sins as in the Bible "Egypt received seven plagues in the Book of Exodus, in 2
Samuel 24, David punished his people with a Plague for carrying out a divinely forbidden
census, and in 1 Samuel 5, those who stole the Ark of the Covenant were struck with painful swellings, similar to buboes". These buboes (swollen lymphnodes often found in the armpit, groin, or neck) were among the most common and painful symptoms of the English and worldwide epidemic, and were so similar in description to those in the bible that many doctors began to believe in religious causes of the plague than previously. With this said, oftentimes if physicians believed the plague was sent by God as a punishment for sin, they would not treat the patient with traditional medical procedures at all. Instead, the physician would put the patient through confession of sins or prayer in hopes that God would stop the suffering.
On a different note, if physicians believed the cause of the plague in their patient was breathing in bad air, one way treatment would be addressed was through having the patient smell strong-smelled herbs. Examples of these herbs include certain types sweet-smelling flowers. Additionally, lighting a fire and having the patient smell the smoke was a method of treatment.
Another practice was the use of pigeons when treating swellings. Swellings which were white in appearance and deep were unlikely to break, and were anointed with Oil of Lillies or Camomil. Once the swelling rose to a head and was red in appearance and not deep in the flesh, it was broken with the use of a feather from a young pigeon's tail. The feather's fundament was held to the swelling to try to draw out the venom. However, if the swelling dropped and became black in appearance, the physician had to be cautious when drawing the cold from the swelling. If it was too late to prevent, the physician would take the young pigeon, cut it open from breast to back, break it open and apply the pigeon (while still alive) over the cold swelling. The cupping therapy was an alternative method which was heated and then placed over the swellings. Once the sore was broken, the physician would apply Mellilot Plaister with Linimentum Arcei and heal the sore with digence.
Victims
Death toll
Although historical records for England were more extensive than those of any other European country, it is still extremely difficult to establish the death toll with any degree of certainty. Difficulties include uncertainty about the size of the total population, as described above, but also uncertainty about the proportion of the population that died from the plague. Contemporary accounts are often grossly inflated, stating numbers as high as 90%.