In England the plague was soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the cattle. Of what nature this murrain may have been can no more be determined than whether it originated from communication with the plague patients or from other causes. There was everywhere a great rise in the price of food. For a whole year, until it terminated in August, 1349, the black plague prevailed and everywhere poisoned the springs of comfort and prosperity. In other countries it generally lasted only half a year, but returned frequently in individual places. Spain was uninterruptedly ravaged by the black plague till after the year 1350, to which the frequent internal feuds and the wars with the Moors not a little contributed. Alfonso XI, whose passion for war carried him too far, died of it at the siege of Gibraltar, March 26, 1350. He was the only king in Europe who fell a sacrifice to it. The mortality seems to have been less in Spain than in Italy, and about as considerable as in France.
The whole period during which the black plague raged with destructive violence in Europe was, with the exception of Russia, from 1347 to 1350. The plagues which in the sequel often returned until 1383, we do not consider as belonging to the "great mortality."
The premature celebration of the Jubilee, to which Clement VI cited the faithful to Rome 1350, during the great epidemic, caused a new eruption of the plague, from which it is said that scarcely one in a hundred of the pilgrims escaped. Italy was, in consequence, depopulated anew; and those who returned spread poison and corruption of morals in all directions.
The changes which occurred about this period in the North of Europe are sufficiently memorable. In Sweden two princes died—Haken and Canute, half-brothers of King Magnus; and in Westgothland alone four hundred and sixty-six priests. The inhabitants of Iceland and Greenland found in the coldness of their inhospitable climate no protection against the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from happier countries. The plague wrought great havoc among them. In Denmark and Norway, however, people were so occupied with their own misery that the accustomed voyages to Greenland ceased.
In Russia the black plague did not break out until 1351, after it had already passed through the South and North of Europe. The mortality was extraordinarily great. In Russia, too, the voice of nature was silenced by fear and horror. In the hour of danger, fathers and mothers deserted their children, and children their parents.
Of all the estimates of the number of lives lost in Europe, the most probable is that altogether a fourth part of the inhabitants were carried off. It may be assumed, without exaggeration, that Europe lost during the black death twenty-five million inhabitants.
That her nations could so quickly recover from so fearful a visitation, and, without retrograding more than they actually did, could so develop their energies in the following century, is a most convincing proof of the indestructibility of human society as a whole. To assume, however, that it did not suffer any essential change internally, because in appearance everything remained as before, is inconsistent with a just view of cause and effect. Many historians seem to have adopted such an opinion; hence, most of them have touched but superficially on the "great mortality" of the fourteenth century. We for our part are convinced that in the history of the world the black death is one of the most important events which have prepared the way for the present state of Europe.
He who studies the human mind with attention, and forms a deliberate judgment on the intellectual powers which set people and states in motion, may, perhaps, find some proofs of this assertion in the following observations. At that time the advancement of the hierarchy was, in most countries, extraordinary; for the Church acquired treasures and large properties in land, even to a greater extent than after the crusades; but experience has demonstrated that such a state of things is ruinous to the people, and causes them to retrograde, as was evinced on this occasion.
After the cessation of the black plague, a greater fecundity in women was everywhere remarkable; marriages were prolific; and double and treble births were more frequent than at other times. After the "great mortality" the children were said to have got fewer teeth than before; at which contemporaries were mightily shocked, and even later writers have felt surprise. Some writers of authority published their opinions on this subject. Others copied from them, without seeing for themselves, and thus the world believed in the miracle of an imperfection in the human body which had been caused by the black plague.
The people gradually consoled themselves after the sufferings which they had undergone; the dead were lamented and forgotten; and in the stirring vicissitudes of existence the world belonged to the living.