The Black Death: London, 1348
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01:20most of us have heard of the black death.It's one of the deadliest pandemics in human history,killing millions across Asia, Africa and Europe.But what was the cause of this great?medical catastrophe, and how did the black death spread?What were people's reactions and remedies at the time?And how did something so devastating to medieval societyhelp to shape a brighter future for many?
01:51We'll answer these questions and more tonight.So just relax and let your mind driftas we explore the sleepy history of the black death.We begin in March 1348, in one of Italy and Europe's wealthiest cities.Florence is a hub of trade and commerce, home to bankers, textile workers, tradesmen, and many others.It's a bustling city that feels vibrant and alive.At least it did until last autumn, when rumours of a plague reached the city.Since then, Florence has become increasingly subdued.
02:59A palpable tension hangs thick in the air,where friends and acquaintances might have embraced or shook hands.Many now keep their distance.Visitors who previously would have been welcomed to the cityare turned away at the gates at the slightest sniffle.The streets have become quieter and the church is busieras people pray to keep the disease at bay.Some breathe in the perfume of scented pendants around their necks,
03:36so as not to breathe in what they believe is poisonous air.Alas, rumour has it, that it's reached the city.A local merchant is said to have returned home from business,complained of a fever, and died three days later.He is soon after followed by his family and servants.And though they stayed mostly at home, it's said that others are now ailing.Today, the city streets are eerily quiet, except for the church bells that mark a locals passing.The haunting death toll seems to confirm the rumours and make clear to all that Florence won't be spared.
04:28The tragic situation that played out in Florence was sadly all too common in the mid-14th century.None could comprehend the enemy that they were facing, the plague that later became known as the Black Death.It was an unseen foe that didn't discriminate, ravaging families and communities, subduing cities, even continents,Sweeping across Asia, Europe and Northern Africa, it's thought to have killed numbers in the tens of millions.Some estimates even say as many as 200 million people died as a result.Tonight, we'll delve into the history of one of the deadliest pandemics ever known.We'll trace the plague spread and its impact in different regions and consider howpeople reacted at the time. We'll also look at the long-term consequences and how the Black
05:40Death transformed Europe in particular. Many of these changes were surprisingly positive,resulting in better days for many and paving the way for progress. Let's begin now with a modernexplanation of what the Black Death actually was. This wasn't discovered untiluntil centuries after the pandemic, following developments in germ theory in the later 19th century.It was in 1894 that Alexandra Yersin was able to determine what caused the disease.The Swedish-French physician studied the bacteria under a microscope during an outbreak of the plaguein Hong Kong. What was named Yersinia Pestis in his honor is widely agreed to be.be the cause of the disease. Studies in recent decades have found the bacteria still present in the
06:50DNA of Black Death victims buried in mass graves. Furthermore, a study in 2013 found the same bacteriain victims of other outbreaks. This included the Black Death's ancestor, the Plague of Justinian,a major pandemic from the 6th century CE.Named after the Byzantine Emperor who caught it and survived,it brought death to the Near East, the Mediterranean Basin and beyond.Furthermore, a study published in 26 suggests earlier outbreaks,dating back to the late Stone Age.Analysis of cemeteries near Lake Bical, Siberia,
07:44revealed traces of Yersinia pestis in the teeth of hunter-gatherers.All this is to say that the 14th century pandemic wasn't the pathogen's first encounter with humans.Where it stands out is in the sheer scale of devastation and the deep historical impact,specifically in medieval Europe.Where the black death originated is a matter of debate.One theory is that it began in the Tian Shan Mountains,located on the border between China and Kyrgyzstan.Recent findings from cemeteries in Kyrgyzstan reveal a spike in deaths
08:31between 1338 and 1339.DNA evidence confirms the presence of plague bacteria in victims whose gravestones attributetheir deaths to pestilence.Some posit that it spread from China, one of the places it remains active and prone to reoccurring.Others argue that it began in Siberia, where, as we've mentioned, there had been outbreaks since the Stone Age.We might never have a definitive answer, as an argument could be made for any number of places.After all, the bacteria are endemic to populations of wild rodents in many parts of rural Africa and Asia.Wherever it began, experts believe that the source was most likely a plague reservoir.
09:34These are populations of wild animals, able to carry the disease, including rats, marmots, ground squirrels and more.Yersinia pestis can survive for centuries amongst these animals, even without an outbreak in humans.So really, the danger was always looming, hiding in plain sight amongst these animal populations.How it crossed over to humans is something else we can't be sure of, but we can certainly hazard an educated guess.In the simplest terms, it probably began with a tiny flea, which fed on an infected rodent from the plague reservoir.The infected flea then bit another host, either infecting a human directly or a rat which lived near people.When the rat succumbed to plague, the flea vacated the body, jumping to the nearest warm-blooded host,including humans. Once a human was infected, the bacteria spread like wildfire,
10:51through villages and cities across borders and trade routes. We'll come back to the specificsa little later on and consider the different strains and how they behaved and spread. For now,let's look at the Black Death's timeline and trace its likely journey from place to place.Whilst the plague's origins remain unclear, we have records of an early outbreak in Mongol,China. Since Genghis Khan had founded the empire in the early 13th century, the Mongols had earneda far-reaching reputation as fearsome warriors and ruthless conquerors. They built a vastempire that spanned Europe and Asia, reaching its greatest extent under the Emperor KubanKhan. To many, the Mongols seemed near invincible. But then, they met an enemy that they could
11:58neither see nor fight. Some estimates put the death toll in the millions in the Hubei provincein northern China. The imperial capital, Dardu, in present-day Beijing, may have been theepicenter of plague in the region. While exact numbers are impossible to come by,it's clear that the plague devastated China.A comparison of medieval censusesreveals a huge drop in populationfrom more than 120 million in the year 1200to 65 million in 1393.
12:45Even if we account for the tens of thousandswho would have died from a range of unrelated reasons,losing nearly half the populationis a strong indication of a deadepidemic that spread throughout the country. Running a government and military, maintaining food productionand trade, these all rely on having healthy workers. Such a loss in population made it nearlyimpossible for Mongol China to properly function. It would be unfair to blame the black deathentirely for the eventual collapse of the Mongol Empire. But it certainly accelerated.
13:30its demise, destabilizing an already fractured kingdom.At the same time, Mongol trade routes proved to be a catalyst for the disease to spread far and wide.The longest unbroken land empire in global history, it boasted a sprawling trade network,including the Silk Road.At its greatest extent, in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Silk Road spanned a distanceof more than 4,000 miles. The Mongols didn't invent it. Rather, they made it safe to use,ensuring Mongol protection for all who traveled. Subsequently, the Silk Road became thego-to route for merchants, diplomats, and many others besides. It allowed for the possibility
14:30of long-distance travel, from Europe and the Mediterranean to the middle and far east. Unfortunately,This likely provided an opportunity for infected rats and their fleas to stow away in merchants' caravans.And travelers stopped to rest at caravansarize along the route.The fleas spread their germs to other animals and humans.This is probably how the disease moved westward across Asia,alongside the merchants selling spices and silks.By 1335, it had reached the Middle East.specifically Persia in modern-day Iran.
15:18The sudden death of the Persian ruler in that yearis potentially the result of bubonic plague.A relatively new theory has arisenthat said Abu Saeed met the same fateas an estimated third of the Persian populationin dying from the plague.However, some still believe he was poisoned by his wife.As an aside,
15:46bubonic plague stemsfrom the word buboes, meaning swollen, painful lymph nodes, which were a symptom of the condition.It's hard to imagine how people must have felt in a world where suddenly no one was safe,not even the rich and powerful, the kings and Karns, nor the seemingly healthiest, the holiest,almost devout. Some responded by fleeing their homes, hoping to avoid the plague elsewhere.Likely, many were already infected, or travelling with rats, who spread the disease to new places.Legendary cities fell like dominoes in Central Asia, Tallas in Kyrgyzstan, Samakand in Uzbekistan.It had reached the Golden Horde, or the western part of the Mongol Empire, by the mid-1340s.
16:50It was most likely the Golden Horde's army that indirectly brought the plague to Europe.The Mongols suffered an outbreak while laying siege to Kaffa, a thriving trade hub on the Crimean Peninsula.Kaffa was under the rule of Genoa at the time, a powerful city-state in what is now northern Italy.The city's inhabitants, mostly Genoese traders, fled by sea as the plague drew closer.Infected ships sailed to a number of locations, where they unknowingly unleashed disease on the local population.Some fled to Genoa and other Mediterranean ports, including Venice and Messina in Sicily.Others traversed the Black Sea to Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, in present-day Turkey.Contemporary accounts of ships arriving in Messina report dead bodies and dying passengers.
18:07Those still alive were said to carry a disease so contagious that just speaking to a person would result in death.There was clearly an awareness that the disease was infectiousbecause survivors were forbidden from leaving their ships.Of course, no one paid attention to the infected rats,scurrying over the mooring ropes onto the docks and into town.In Asia, the plague could travel across landand followed a fairly linear path,but its reach widened dramatically once it took to the seas.
18:51often via the rats which thrived on merchant ships.An infected vessel might spread the infection from Western Asia to Constantinople.Another might go from there to a port on the Mediterranean,in Italy perhaps, or Alexandria in Egypt.Cairo, Egypt's capital, was Africa's largest city at the time,and is thought to have lost more than half its population.The Egyptian historian Al-Masriki reported that there was so many dead that the government waived funeral rights.Countries that boasted multiple trade links put them at greater risk of an outbreak.
19:43Egypt traded goods via the Mediterranean and Red Sea, as well as on the Nile further into southern Africa.Caravans of merchants journeyed by camel, west.into northern Africa and east into Arabia. This probably contributed to the pandemic spread furtheracross the Muslim world, south into Nubia and modern-day Sudan, as well as westwards across theMediterranean coastline. By 1348, it was sweeping through northern Africa, Libya, Algeria,Tunisia and Morocco. For a long time, it was thought that the plaguedidn't cross the Sahara Desert, meaning that sub-Saharan Africa was probably spared.But recently, this theory has been called into question.
20:47Archaeologists have found evidence of depopulation and settlements being abandoned in the mid-14th century, in West and East Africa,and down the Red Sea coastline, all the way to Madagascar. Research is still underway, but the timing looks high.highly suspicious. It fits the pattern of what we'd expect to see had the black death spread furtheracross the continent. That the pandemic traveled eastwards seems more transparent. By 1347, it was inGaza. Months later, Syria was infected. The contemporary Moroccan traveler Ibn Batuta notedthat 2000 died daily in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Palestine, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia had all seenoutbreaks by 1348. The Muslim practice of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, is perhaps what todaywe'd call a super-spreading event. Religious practices in general accelerated the plague's transmission
22:05wherever they brought people together,whether making pilgrimage or taking part in communal worshipor gathering in prayer to ward off the plague.This was true of practices throughout the Islamic world,and it was true of practices in Christian Europe.The black death didn't discriminate between East and West,between Muslims or Christians, young or old.Let's return now to the outbreak in Europe, which began around the summer of 1347.
22:50The springs and summers were particularly lethal, being that the fleas were most active in warmer seasons.You might remember that the Genoese escaped from Kaffa, fleeing both the Mongols and the plague,only for the infected galleys to bring unseen misery to the various ports at which they did.docked. The outbreak in Messina might be the first in Europe, and is thought to have quicklyswept across all of Sicily. Around the same time, it reached Constantinople, spreading in severaldirections from the major trade hub. By the later part of 1347, it had arrived at mostprominent ports on the Mediterranean. It was in Genoa, Venice and Peasers.in Italy, Dubrovnik in Croatia, and Valencia in Spain. One infected galley was expelled from Italy,
23:57but sailed on to Marseille in January 1348. By spring 1348, southern France was infected,as was northern Spain and almost all of Italy. It was only a matter of time before it moved inlandacross France to ports on the west coast, the country's Atlantic coastline.It's thought to be a ship from Bordeaux in southwest France that first brought the plagueacross the channel to England. It began with an outbreak in late June 1348 at the southern portof Malcolm Regis. Less than two months later, the plague had reached London.and by the end of 1349, the entire kingdom was infected.The Bishop of Bath issued an emergency decree,
25:01waiving death rights throughout the diocese.If sick parishioners couldn't find a priest,they were permitted to make confession to another man,and, if there were no men, a woman.It was an English merchant ship that brought the Black Death to Scandinavia,the first outbreak being in Norway in late 1348.Winter gave the country temporary respiteas the cold weather halted the plague spread.
25:37But it came back with gusto the following springwhen a ship of English wool merchants sailed into Bergen.Legends tell of an English ghost ship drifting into port,all crew dead on board.It's likely an exaggeration, but in keeping with Norwegian folklore.Storytelling was a means of conveying the horrors of the time.In Norway, the plague was often depicted as a haunting old woman,wandering from house to house, deciding people's fate.
26:19If Pesta arrived with a rake, it meant some would survive,but if she carried a broom, all would die.Similar folk tales emerged in different parts of Europe.In Poland and Lithuania, the plague maiden was said to wave a red handkerchief before the victim's door.In Slovenia, she was an outsider, shunned by the townsfolk, until one local man gave her a ride into town.She repaid his kindness by letting him live, bringing death to the door of every house but his.The ghost ship that arrived in Bergen, Norway, also became entwined with Norse mythology.It was likened to the ship Naglfar, unleashed at Ragnarok,
27:18ferrying monsters and chaos to the world-ending battle.To many, that's exactly how it must have seemed, as if the world was ending beset with chaos.From Bergen on the west coast, the plague spread inland.eventually reaching Norway's capital.Oslo was a major trade hub for the Hanseatic League,a group of powerful trading towns in northern and central Europe.Oslo was the doorway to Scandinavia,as well as other trading towns from the North Sea to the Baltic.
28:01Norwegian merchants unknowingly carried plague to Denmark,Sweden, northern Germany and beyond.This is plausibly how it came to Novgorod in Russia, where it's thought to have arrived in late 1351.After a pause during winter, it resumed the next summer, spreading across the northwest to the capital, Moscow.Alternatively, it might have spread upwards from the south, where the golden horde had long been suffering.You might remember that it was the Mongol army who brought the plague to Kaffir,the gateway to Europe. In fact, the only reason it hadn't spread sooner is that the goldenhorde, having converted to Islam, had cut off trade routes with Christian Europe. This had bought Europe
29:02a little time until now, when the pandemic completed its journey full circle.Iceland and Finland were the only European countries unaffected, likely due to theircold climates and remote locations. The rest of Europe had been brought to its knees, like much of Asia,and possibly Africa too. In the words of Moroccan historian Ibn Caldun, the East and West were visitedby a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. He wrote that,Quote, cities and buildings were laid to waste.Roads and way signs were obliterated.Settlements and mansions became empty.
30:00Dynasties and tribes grew weak.The entire inhabited world changed.First-hand accounts and contemporary literaturepainted a truly haunting picture of life during these times.Picaccio's, the Decameron, is a first-hand.famous example, detailing the horrors of Florence during the plague.Picatio's Florence is oblique and lowly, he wrote, many died daily in the public streets.Of many others who died at home, the departure was hardly observed by their neighbors.
30:49He also described the way the disease progressed in a patient, including buboes or swollen lymph nodes,as large as eggs or common apples.Despite these buboes, the patient might well feel fineuntil the more severe symptoms emerged three days later.It'd be headaches, fever, chills and muscle weaknessuntil, in the majority of cases, the patient passed away.Pubonic plague was the most common strainand what most of us imagine when we think of the black death.
31:30It was transmitted via flea bites and human parasites, which could survive on things like rarely washed clothing.Bear in mind that we're talking about an era centuries before an understanding of germs and germ theory.Towns and cities were often hotbeds of disease.Public health and hygiene were virtually non-existent.Overcrowding was common across parts of medieval Europe.Baths were a rare luxury, as were clean clothes and bedding.It's evident that there was some awareness of contagion, from person to person, and throughcontact with their clothes.
32:23Some towns and cities closed their gates to outsiders.A few made attempts at isolating the sick.But without a basic understanding of germs and how they spread, most people were essentiallysitting ducks. Even where they thought to separate the infected people, they didn't pay a thoughtto flee infected animals. They wouldn't have suspected that there was any danger in seemingly healthypeople gathering together. Such places were a breeding ground for the black death to flourish,both bubonic and pneumonic plague. Neumonic plague was the faster acting strain that occurred whenthe disease became concentrated in the lungs. It worked a lot like pneumonia, hence the name,
33:23and could kill a person within as little as two hours. Although it appears to have been the rarerform of black death, it was highly contagious and could be transmitted easily through the air.Patients were prone to coughing or sneezing, expelling droplets and disease, as it is,His bad air was thought to be behind the pandemic and was the most widely accepted medical explanation at the time.According to miasma theory, a victim became infected by breathing in noxious fumes.That's why so many of the medieval plague remedies involved neutralizing foul-smelling odors.Some bathed in vinegar or used it to wash their clothes.They burnt incense and fragrant wood to cleanse the house of bad air.
34:29People carried herbs and flowers in their pockets.The wealthy wore pommanders around the neck or nose.These lockets held anything from scented wax and expensive spices like saffronto musky ambergris from the stomach of a sperm whale.Other archaic treatments were also common.Things like bloodletting and leaching as a means to restore balance.Lansing the buboes might have helped to relieve pressure,though it did little to stop the infection progressing.
35:10People ate and drank all manner of strange concoctions.Some of the recipes read like witchcraft,roasted eggshells mixed with treacle, ale and chives,potions of honey, cinnamon, opium and snake flesh.Europe's wealthy spent wildly in apothecaries,buying lotions of ground-up pearls, gold leaf and precious stones.Demand for expensive saffron boomed across the continent,as people sought it for cooking and various medical treatments.
35:50Few medieval treatments likely made any difference,though some might have had accidental benefits.Isolating sick family members might have helped curb the spread,as might washing more frequently, whether with soap or vinegar.Still, at the time it was an untreatable diseaseand would remain so for centuries until the discovery of antibiotics.Whether a person survived was largely down to luck,rather than any mysterious cream, scent or potion.
36:32In the face of so much death, without any real answers,many naturally grew more superstitious.Some thought that the plague had descended from heavenly bodies,that it was the result of an eclipse or planetary alignment.Physicians were known to consult astrological charts,sometimes timing treatments with the moon, stars or planets.For the majority of people, prayer was the answer, the plague being sent from God to punish people for their sins.Some sought forgiveness by giving to the poor, attending church, or making confession to a priest.
37:23Others, like the flagellants, took a more extreme route, whipping themselves in public to demonstrate their repentance.Some people responded in an entirely different way, as noted by Boccaccio in his account of Florence.They drank, feasted, danced and made merry, resolved to enjoy what might be their last days.And indeed, when it was over by 1353, the black death had seen many live out their last days.It isn't entirely clear what brought an end to the pandemic.though the onset of colder winters likely helped.It could also be the case that the plague was too effective.It killed its hosts so quickly that they weren't able to spread it further.
38:22Either way, its impact was tremendous.Europe, in particular, was dramatically altered.Estimates of the death rate range from a conservative 20% to 60% overall depopulation.Each city and town experienced the pandemic differently,with entire families and communities wiped out in places.Crowded urban centres often suffered heavy losses,disrupting essential services and day-to-day life.The loss of farmers and merchants affected food production and trade,
39:11meaning certain foods and products became hard to come by.Soaring prices were followed by inflation, which lingered for decades across parts of Europe.On top of this, there was the psychological impact, the sense of shared trauma that few knew how to process.In some places, prejudices bubbled to the surface.Minority groups like the Jews were blamed and persecuted for the disease.Simply put, life was very hard in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death.But things would get better as time went on.Indeed, many peasants across Europe found themselves better off than they had been before.
40:08Depopulation led to a shortage of workers, which gave survivors the power to demand higher wages.Workers, known as serfs, who were tied to the land, gained ground.greater freedoms, sometimes leaving for paid work. Some found themselves with more land andlivestock, which in turn resulted in an improved diet. Peasants enjoyed a better standard of livingoverall, albeit far from what we consider fair or equal today. The Black Death weakened feudalismthroughout Europe, reducing the power of wealthy landowners over the local workforce.Though medieval monarchs gradually assumed more control, forming centralized governments and standing armies.In some places, the monarchs and land-owning elite attempted to maintain the status quo.
41:15This led to tension and even rebellion, like the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.English rebels marched on London, demanding lower taxes, fairer treatment, and an end to serfdom.The peasantry seemed more willing to challenge authority, whether that be the local lord or the Catholic priest.While some came out of the pandemic more devout than they had been, others asked why the clergy weren't spared.Academics began to criticize the church openly, condemning what they saw as a greedy, corrupt priesthood.This laid the groundwork for medieval reformers and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.Some historians argue that it also contributed to the Renaissance and the humanist philosophy at the movement's core.To some, the pandemic had made the world seem broken, which prompted the desire to revive classical Greek and Roman culture.
42:35Greater social and economic mobility eventually led to the emergence of the emergence of the world.of a new middle class.And while there were many factors that contributed, the plague may have played a role.Governments became more willing to invest in education for the merchants and skilled workersthat bolstered their economies. This may have aided progress across medicine and scienceand early attempts at organized public health. This included the first quarantine in present-dayCroatia, in which incoming ships were forced to isolate for 30 days. Next came the firstpermanent plague hospital in Venice, where the infected could be separated from the general public.
43:33By the end of the 15th century, a number of Italian city-states had designated health boardsto help prevent future outbreaks. They inspected ships and enforced quarantines, and coordinatedthe response to any sign of disease. None of these efforts stopped the plague from returning,which it did many times over the following centuries, but at the very least they probably kept itmore contained, saving lives that might otherwise have been lost. If there's any silver lining to befound, it's that the black death led to progress. As devastating as it was, it changed thecourse of history. Without it, the world today might look very different.
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