Now, if we go back to the symptoms of the disease, the ardent inflammation of the lungs points out, that the organs of respiration yielded to the attack of an atmospheric poison—a poison, which (if we admit the independent origin of the Black Plague at any one place on the globe, which, under such extraordinary circumstances, it would be difficult to doubt,) attacked the course of the circulation in as hostile a manner as that which produces inflammation of the spleen and other animal contagions that cause swelling and inflammation of the lymphatic glands.
Pursuing the course of these grand revolutions further, we find notice of an unexampled earthquake, which, on the 25th of January, 1348, shook Greece, Italy and the neighbouring countries. Naples, Rome, Pisa, Bologna, Padua, Venice and many other cities suffered considerably: whole villages were swallowed up. Castles, houses and churches, were overthrown, and hundreds of people were buried beneath their ruins.[38] In Carinthia, thirty villages, together with all the churches, were demolished; more than a thousand corpses were drawn out of the rubbish; the city of Villach was so completely destroyed, that very few of its inhabitants were saved; and when the earth ceased to tremble, it was found that mountains had been moved from their positions, and that many hamlets were left in ruins.[39] It is recorded, that during this earthquake, the wine in the casks became turbid, a statement which may be considered as furnishing a proof, that changes causing a decomposition of the atmosphere had taken place; but if we had no other information from which the excitement of conflicting powers of nature during these commotions, might be inferred, yet scientific observations in modern times have shewn, that the relation of the atmosphere to the earth is changed by volcanic influences. Why then, may we not, from this fact, draw retrospective inferences respecting those extraordinary phenomena?
Independently of this, however, we know that during this earthquake, the duration of which is stated by some to have been a week, and by others, a fortnight, people experienced an unusual stupor and headache, and that many fainted away.[40]
These destructive earthquakes extended as far as the neighbourhood of Basle,[41] and recurred until the year 1360, throughout Germany, France, Silesia, Poland, England and Denmark, and much further north.[42]
Great and extraordinary meteors appeared in many places, and were regarded with superstitious horror. A pillar of fire, which on the 20th of December, 1348, remained for an hour at sun rise over the pope’s palace in Avignon;[43] a fireball, which in August of the same year was seen at sunset over Paris, and was distinguished from similar phenomena, by its longer duration,[44] (not to mention other instances mixed up with wonderful prophecies and omens), are recorded in the chronicles of that age.
The order of the seasons seemed to be inverted,—rains, floods and failures in crops were so general, that few places were exempt from them; and though an historian of this century assures us, that there was an abundance in the granaries and storehouses,[45] all his contemporaries, with one voice, contradict him. The consequences of failure in the crops were soon felt, especially in Italy and the surrounding countries, where, in this year, a rain which continued for four months, had destroyed the seed. In the larger cities, they were compelled, in the spring of 1347, to have recourse to a distribution of bread among the poor, particularly at Florence, where they erected large bake-houses, from which, in April, ninety-four thousand loaves of bread, each of twelve ounces in weight, were daily dispensed.[46] It is plain, however, that humanity could only partially mitigate the general distress, not altogether obviate it.
Diseases, the invariable consequence of famine, broke out in the country, as well as in cities; children died of hunger in their mothers’ arms,—want, misery and despair, were general throughout Christendom.[47]