The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9), Now Commonly Known as the Black Death

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

From Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica the plague was carried to the Balearic Islands. The three streams of infection met with destructive force at Majorca. The historian Zurita declares that in less than a month 15,000 persons had perished on the island. Another writer estimates the total loss of life during the epidemic at double that number, and some ancient records have been quoted as stating that in the island eight out of every ten people must have died, a proportion, of course, exaggerated, but sufficient to show local tradition as to the extent of the misfortune. In the monasteries and convents, according to this authority, not one religious was left; and the Dominicans are said to have been obliged to recruit their numbers by enrolling quite young children.[85]

The scourge fell upon Spain in the early part of the year 1348. It is supposed to have first appeared at Almeira, and in Barcelona whole quarters of the city were depopulated and rendered desolate by it. In May, 1348, it was already raging in Valencia, and by midsummer 300 persons a day are reported to have been buried in the city. At [p059] Saragossa, where Pedro IV. then was, the malady was at its height in September. The people here, as elsewhere, became hardened, and charity died out in the presence of the terrors of death. They fled from the sick, leaving them to die alone, and abandoned the corpses of the dead in the streets. Most of the cities and villages of Spain suffered more or less severely, and the sickness appears to have lingered longer here than in most other countries. The new Queen of Aragon had been one of the earliest victims; Alphonsus XI. was one of the last. In March, 1350, he was laying siege to Gibraltar, when the plague broke out suddenly with great violence amongst his troops. He refused to retire, as his officers desired him to do, and fell a victim to the epidemic on Good Friday, March 26th, 1350.[86]

An interesting account of Northern Spain during the plague is given in the chronicle of Li Muisis, Abbot of St. Martin's, Tournay, from which much was cited in the previous chapter. The writer says that he learnt the details from "a pilgrim, who, in going to St. James' (of Compostella), passed by Notre Dame de Roc Amadour[87] and by Toulouse, because by reason of the wars he could not travel the usual way." This pilgrim to Compostella, in the middle of the 14th century, would consequently have crossed the Pyrenees by one of the passes into Navarre, and so travelled along the north of Spain to Santiago. Having performed his pilgrimage, Li Muisis informs us that he returned through Galicia, and "with his companion, reached a town named Salvaterra," probably the place now called Salvatierra, situated below the Pyrenees, and just above the Sierra de la Pena. This town, as the traveller reported, "was so depopulated by the mortality that not one person out of ten had been left alive. The city itself was fairly large. The said pilgrim related," says Li Muisis, "that after supping with the host (who, with two daughters and [p060] one servant, had alone so far survived of his entire family, and who was not then conscious of any sickness upon him), he settled with him for his entertainment, intending to start on his journey at daybreak, and went to bed. Next morning rising and wanting something from those with whom they had supped, the travellers could make no one hear. Then they learnt from an old woman they found in bed that the host, his two daughters, and servant had died in the night. On hearing this the pilgrims made all haste to leave the place."[88]

From North Italy the pestilence soon spread to the country across the Adriatic, if indeed it had not already been infected independently, as seems more than probable, by ships from the East. The port of Ragusa, in Dalmatia, is said to have been attacked as early as January 13th, 1348, and more than 7,000 are reported as having been swept away by it. A letter sent in April to the authorities "condoles with them on the terrible mortality, by which the population had been so greatly diminished."[89] At Spalatro, on March 22nd, 1348, the Archbishop Dominic de Lucaris died of the disease, and it is known to have raged for some months in the city. An anonymous chronicler of Spalatro in the 15th century, who professed to take his account of this period from ancient records, declares that it is impossible to picture "the terrors and miseries of these unhappy days." To add to the horror of the situation, as he declares, wolves and other wild animals came down from the mountains and fell upon the plague-stricken city and boldly attacked the survivors. The same writer notes the rapidity with which the disease carried off those it attacked. According to him, when swellings or carbuncles appeared on any part of the body all hope of saving the life of the patient was abandoned. As a rule, those stricken in this way died in three or at most four days, and so great was the general mortality that bodies were left lying unburied [p061] in the streets because there were none to carry them to the grave.[90]

Further north again, Sebenico, through intercourse with which, very possibly, the plague was carried into Hungary, was attacked in the spring of the same year, 1348. By the 8th of May the Count of Sebenico had written a description of the wretched condition and state of the city, by reason of the great mortality in those parts, through which it had been left almost without inhabitants.[91] Istria, on August 27th, 1348, was declared in a Venetian State paper to have suffered greatly. The people left, especially in the city of Pola, were very few, so many having been swept away "by the late pestilence."[92]

From Venice the epidemic spread northwards into Austria and Hungary. Attacking on its way Padua and Verona, it passed up the valley of the Etsch and was already at Trent on June 2nd, 1348. Thence it spread quickly through Botzen up the Brenner Pass, in the Tyrolese Alps, and was at Muhldorf on the Inn, in Bavaria on June 29th, 1348.[93] Here it seems to have lasted for a considerable time. One chronicler, writing of the subsequent year, 1349, says "that from the feast of St. Michael, 1348, there perished in Muhldorf 1,400 of the better class of inhabitants."[94] Another, speaking of the plague generally, says "that it raged so terribly in Carinthia, Austria, and Bavaria that many cities were depopulated, and in some towns which it visited many families were destroyed so completely that not a member was found to have survived."[95]

In November of the same year, 1348, the epidemic is found in Styria, at Neuberg, in the valley of the Mürz. [p062] The Neuberg Chronicle, giving an account of it, says, "Since this deadly pestilence raged everywhere, cities became desolate which up to this had been populous. Their inhabitants were swept off in such numbers that such as were left, with closed gates, strenuously watched that no one should steal the property of those departed." After speaking of Venice, it continues, "The pest in its wanderings came to Carinthia, and then so completely took possession of Styria, that people, rendered desperate, walked about as if mad."

"From so many sick pestilential odours proceeded, infecting those visiting and serving them, and very frequently it happened that when one died in a house all, one after the other, were carried off. So certain was this that no one could be found to stop in the houses of the sick, and relations, as if in the natural course of events, seem to die all together. As a consequence of this overwhelming visitation cattle were left to wander in the fields without guardians, for no one thought of troubling himself about the future; and wolves coming down from the mountains to attack them, against their instincts, and as if frightened by something unseen, quickly fled into the wilds again. Property, too, both moveable and immoveable, which sick people leave by will, is carefully avoided by all, as if it were sure to be infected. The sickness . . . declined about the feast of St. Martin (November 11th), 1348, and at Neuberg it had carried off many monks and inhabitants."[96]

It is necessary to return once again to North Italy, from which another wave of pestilence rolled on to Switzerland. The contemporary—but not very accurate—notary of Novara, Peter Azarius, speaks to the fact of the plague being at Momo, Gallarete, Varese, and Bellinzona, on[97] the great highway over the Alps through the St. Gothard Pass, and all in the immediate neighbourhood of his home. [p063] What Azarius says from personal experience of this terrible time is of interest. He had left his house at Novara for fear of the disease, and resting for a while in the town of Tortona, he occupied himself in philosophising upon the misfortunes which had fallen upon Lombardy, and the strange unchristian neglect of the sick he could hardly help noticing. "I have seen," he says, "a rich man perish, who, even by offering an immense sum of money, could get no one to help him. Through fear of the infection I have seen a father not caring for his son, nor a son for his father, nor a brother for a brother, nor a friend for his friend, nor a neighbour for his neighbour. And what was worse than this, I have seen a family, although one of high position, miserably perish, not being able to get any help or assistance. Medicine being useless, the strong and the young, men and women, were struck down in a moment, and all the infected were so shunned that none dared even to enter their houses."[98]

From the pass of St. Gothard the epidemic passed down the Rhine Valley, and before the close of 1348 was in the neighbourhood of Dissentis; whilst by May, 1349, the district round about the monastery of Pfäffers, half way between the pass of St. Gothard and Lake Constance, had been attacked. Shortly afterwards the country near the celebrated Abbey of St. Gall was likewise greatly afflicted.[99]