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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

Meanwhile another wave of pestilence passed into Switzerland from the side of France. Avignon had been attacked, as it has been shown, in the early part of 1348, and thence the infection was carried up the Rhone Valley to the Lake of Geneva. Thence one stream passed in a north-easterly direction over Switzerland, and a second followed the course of the river Rhone. By the 17th of March, 1349, the plague was at Ruswyl, in the neighbourhood of Lucerne, having passed through Berne on its way.[100] At Lucerne alone 3,000 people are said to have died of the [p064] disease. It must have remained about the neighbourhood of this lake for some months, for it was not until September, 1349, that it is known to have manifested its presence in the high and healthy valley of Engelberg. "This year (1349)," says the chronicler of the Abbey of Engelberg, "the pestilence or mortality was great, and, indeed, most great, in this valley, so that more than twenty houses were left empty without an inhabitant. In the same year from the feast of Our Lady's nativity, September 8th, to the feast of the Epiphany 116 of our nuns died in the cloister. One of the first to die was the Superior Catherine; about the middle (of the epidemic) the venerable Mother Beatrix, Countess of Arberg, formerly Superior; and on the morrow of Holy Innocents, Mechtilde of Wolfenschiessen, the new Superior likewise passed away. And of our own numbers (there died) two priests and five scholars."[101] Basle was attacked, and is said to have lost some 14,000 people about the middle of the year; Zurich about September 11th; and Constance some time during the winter.

It is unnecessary to follow the wanderings of the great mortality in detail further through Europe. The annals of almost every country prove incontestably that most places were in turn visited, and more or less depopulated, by the epidemic. By April 4th, 1349, it was reported in Venice that the pestilence was raging in Hungary, and by June 7th the King could declare "that by Divine mercy it had now ceased in our kingdom." It must consequently have commenced in the country in the early part of the year, although there is evidence that it was still to be found in some parts in October of the same year. Poland was attacked about the same time as Hungary. Here it is said many of the nobility died. There seemed no help for the daily misfortunes. The sickness rendered desolate not alone numberless houses, but even towns and villages.[102] [p065]

It has been already pointed out that the pestilence had reached Neuberg, in Styria, by the autumn of the year 1348. It was only the following year, about the feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24th, 1349, that such a plague as never before was either heard or seen was raging in Vienna.

It commenced seemingly about Easter time, and lasted till St. Michael's, and a third part of the population was carried off by it.[103] Each day there died 500 or 600, and one day 960.[104] The dead were buried in trenches, each of which, according to one chronicle, contained some 6,000 corpses. The parish of St. Stephen lost 54 ecclesiastics during the course of the epidemic, and when it passed some 70 families were found to be entirely extinct, whilst the property of many more had passed into the hands of very distant relations.

Another account declares that in the city and neighbourhood barely a third of the population survived. "Because of the odour, and horror inspired by the dead bodies, burials in the church cemeteries were not allowed; but as soon as life was extinct the corpses were carried out of the city to a common burial-place (called) 'God's acre.' There the deep and broad pits were quickly filled to the top with the dead. And this plague lasted from Pentecost to St. Michael's; and not alone in Vienna, but in the surrounding country it raged with great fury. It spared not the monks and the nuns, for in (the Cistercian Abbey of) Heiligenkreuz 53 religious at the same time passed out of this life."[105]

In Bohemia the winter cold apparently put a stop to the sickness at its commencement. "The mortality commenced to be severe in Bohemia, but the recent cold and snow stayed it." However, "in the year 1350 the plague again [p066] devastated various countries, and then in Bohemia likewise it was to be found."[106]

The wave of pestilence which passed up the Rhine Valley and attacked Basle passed on to Colmar, and appeared in Strasburg in July, 1349.[107] At the end of the same year, about December 18th, it had reached Cologne. "In the first year of archbishop William von Gennep (who succeeded to the See of that city on the above date) there was," says the chronicle, "a great pestilence in Cologne and its neighbourhood."[108]

Meanwhile the wave had divided lower down the valley of the Rhine, for in the summer of 1349 the plague was raging at Frankfort. "In that year," writes Caspar Camentz, "from the feast of St. Mary Magdalene (June 22nd) to the feast of the Purification following (February 2nd, 1350) the universal pestilence was at Frankfort. In the space of 72 days more than 2,000 people died. Every second hour they were buried without bell, priest, or candle. On one day 35 were buried at one time."[109]

During 1349 and 1350 the pestilence was rife in the towns and country places of Prussia. In the latter year it attacked Bremen in the far north, and in the following year the authorities of the city took a census of the numbers that had been carried off by it. "In the year of our Lord 1350," the account says, "the plague had gone round the world and had visited Bremen, and the Council determined to take the number of the dead, and it was found that of known and named people there were (entered on the list) in the parish of St. Mary 1,816; in that of St. Martin, 1,415; in St. Anschar's, 1,922; and in St. Stephen's, 1,813; moreover, numberless people had died in the fields beyond [p067] the walls and in cemeteries, the number of whom, as known and described, reached almost 7,000."[110]

From Flanders, where the pestilence was at Tournay in December, 1349, as before reported, the epidemic spread into Holland. Here in the following year its progress was marked by the same great mortality, especially among those who lived together in monasteries and convents. "At this time," writes the chronicler, "the plague raged in Holland as furiously as has ever been seen. People died walking in the streets. In the Monastery of Fleurchamps 80 died, including monks and lay brethren. In the Abbey of Foswert, which was a double monastery for men and women, 207 died, including monks, nuns, lay brethren, and lay sisters."[111]