Black Death in England

Black Death in England
The year 1348 brought an event of far greater importance than the creation of a new order of chivalry. This was the terrible plague, known as the Black Death, which reached almost every part of Britain during 1348-1349. 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 seventeenth 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. Originating in China, it spread west along the trade routes across Europe and arrived on the British Isles from the English province of Gascony. It is generally believed that The Black Plague was brought to England by people who had been infected on the European mainland who sailed into English ports, and by flea infested ship rats. The rats were the reservoir hosts of the Y. pestis bacteria and the flea principally the Oriental rat flea was the primary vector. In June 1348 a ship crossed the English channel from Gascony in France and docked at the town of Melcombe in Weymouth Harbour in Dorset. Aboard ship was a seaman who was infected with the plague and he became the first case of the Black Death identified in England. The disease may have appeared as early as late June or as late as August 4. We do know that in mid-summer the Channel Islands were reeling under an outbreak of the plague. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences. The effect was at its worst in cities, where overcrowding and primitive sanitation aided its spread.From Weymouth the disease spread rapidly across the south-west. The first major city to be struck was Bristol. London was reached 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. Arrival in London happened by three principal roads: 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 in a haphazard way across all of southern England.
Figur 1. Black Death trail
Over the next two years the disease killed between 30-40% of the entire population. Given that the pre-plague population of England was in the range of 5-6 million people, fatalities may have reached as high as 2 million dead. One of the worst aspects of the disease to the medieval Christian mind is that people died without last rites and without having a chance to confess their sins. Pope Clement VI was forced to grant remission of sins to all who died of the plague because so many perished without benefit of clergy. People were allowed to confess their sins to one another, or "even to a woman". The death rate was exceptionally high in isolated populations like prisons and monasteries. It has been estimated that up to two-thirds of the clergy of England died within a single year.
Peasants fled their fields. Livestock were left to fend for themselves, and crops left to rot. The monk Henry of Knighton declared, "Many villages and hamlets have now become quite desolate. No one is left in the houses, for the people are dead that once inhabited them." The Border Scots saw the pestilence in England as a punishment of God on their enemies. An army gathered near Stirling to strike while England lay defenseless. But before the Scots could march, the plague decimated their ranks. Pursued by English troops, the Scots fled north, spreading the plague deep into their homeland. In an effort to assuage the wrath of God, many people turned to public acts of penitence. Processions lasting as long as three days were authorized by the Pope to mollify God, but the only real effect of these public acts was to spread the disease further. By the end of 1350 the Black Death had subsided, but it never really died out in England for the next several hundred years. There were further outbreaks in 1361-62, 1369, 1379-83, 1389-93, and throughout the first half of the 15th century. It was not until the late 17th century that England became largely free of serious plague epidemics. It symptoms were described in 1348 by a man called Boccaccio who lived in Florence, Italy: "The first signs of the plague were lumps in the groin or armpits. After this, livid black spots appeared on the arms and thighs and other parts of the body. Few recovered. Almost all died within three days, usually without any fever." It is impossible to overstate the terrible effects of the Black Death on England. With the population so low, there were not enough workers to work the land. As a result, wages and prices rose. The Ordinances of Labourers (1349) tried to legislate a return to pre-plague wage levels, but the overwhelming shortage of labourers meant that wages continued to rise. Landowners offered extras such as food, drink, and extra benefits to lure labourers. The standard of living for labourers rose accordingly. The nature of the economy changed to meet the changing social conditions. Land that had once been farmed was now given over to pasturing, which was much less labourintensive. This helped boost the cloth and woolen industry. With the fall in population most
landowners were not getting the rental income they needed, and were forced to lease their land. It has been estimated that 40% of England's priests died in the epidemic. This left a large gap, which was hastily filled with underqualified and poorly trained applicants, accellerating the decline in church power and influence that culminated in the English Reformation. Many survivors of the plague were also disillusioned by the church's inability to explain or deal with the outbreak. The short term economic prosperity did not last; the underlying feudal structure of society had not changed, and by the mid-15th century standards of living had fallen again. Yet for most levels of English society the Black Death represented a massive upheaval, one which changed the face of English society in a profound way. The plague only finally stopped at the end of the Seventeenth century.
Bibliografie: An Illustrated History of Britain The Black Death, 1347, George Deaux, Weybright and Talley, New York, 1969, p. 117 www.bbc.co.uk

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Black Death in England

Figur 1. Black Death trail

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