The Great Mortality - book

The subtitle of this book says most of it: An Intimate History of the Black Plague, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. The Black Plague, something of a misnomer, is commonly used to refer to the three types of plague that exist: Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicemic. These vary in their intensity and symptoms, with bubonic being the least likely to inevitably kill, to pneumonic, a much more serious form, and septicemic which almost always kills and does so very quickly. These various forms can sometimes be found at the same time, especially bubonic and pneumonic, septicemic being, thankfully, much more rare. For the people that lived through this terrible time the plague was known more commonly as the “Big Death,” or the “Great Mortality.”

Kelly attempts to trace the spread of the Black Plague from its presumed origins somewhere in inner Asia, spreading slowly to the west through the Middle East and thence to Europe. It also spread eastward into China, following the international trade routes that existed in the 1300’s. Virtually no nation was spared. Before this version of the plague ran its course in the 1350’s it had spread throughout Europe, both from north to south as well as from east to west. It devastated China as well as Syria, Egypt, Iran and Iraq, and extended all the way to Greenland and Scandinavia. No one knows how many died but it is estimated that at least 33% of the entire population of Eurasia, with some places losing anywhere from 30 to 70% of their citizens. Only WW II exceeded the total number of deaths. Not bad for a disease primarily of rodents: turbots, marmots, rats, squirrels, gerbils, prairie dogs, and some 200 other rodent species, where human deaths were basically collateral.

For people like me, who knew very little about the plague, this is a very informative work. The author traces the movement of the disease from country to country, and in some cases virtually from city to city. Because of the nature of transportation in the 14th century the disease spread rather slowly, by caravans and ships, while it made its way steadily across Eurasia. Cities often were aware that the disease was coming, but as they had no idea what caused it, whatever precautions they tried to take were pathetically ineffective, as were their attempts to cope with it. It is difficult to imagine how overwhelmed people were in the face of this epidemic, even though Kelly does a fine job of describing the situation. People commonly refused to help each other, parents deserting their children and vice-versa because of their fears. There were, of course, some who sacrificed themselves to help others but this was more rare than not. Deaths on such a massive scale completely disrupted the ordinary ways of life of those caught up in it. People made out wills but often by the time they might have been used all the beneficiaries were themselves dead. Church services had to be modified as so many clergy succumbed. Funerals were often abandoned completely because there were not enough living to carry them out, and so on. Business and agriculture was directly affected because the labor pool shrank, driving wages up, and banks were in trouble and were unable to collect on their loans, or make new ones, and so on.

What I personally found of the most interest, however, was not the plague itself, but the relationship of the plague to the cultural practices of the time, especially those dealing with sanitation and cleanliness. It is difficult for us to imagine people who bathed only rarely, if at all, who changed clothes perhaps once or twice a year, who threw the contents of their chamber pots directly into the streets, and who were perennially lice infested and diseased in many other ways, making them even more susceptible to the plague. Factors of weather, diet, personal hygiene, and many other customs and beliefs were all involved in the movement, even in a sense the inevitability, of the Black Death.

Perhaps of even greater interest to me was the scapegoating. As the people had no idea what was causing this terrible carnage they tended to blame others, sometimes lepers and other diseased persons, but much more commonly, the Jews. Rumors abounded that the Jews were poisoning the wells because they wanted to take over the world, and they were also targeted because of being moneylenders, and because they were believed to want to kill Christian children, and so on. Jews were rounded up and killed, often burned to death, by the thousands, all over Europe. Indeed, this was so common I wonder that the Jews and Judaism survived at all. Even when it was pointed out by some of the more reasonable people that the Jews could not be responsible for the plague because they, themselves, were dying of it in large numbers, few paid any attention, It was not a time for reason. I think my favorite example might be the claim by some that the Jews were killing Christian children because they all suffered from hemorrhoids which could only be cured with Christian blood.

There have been many plagues since the Great Mortality, they still occur periodically, but they are generally more localized and result in far fewer deaths. And we have learned much more about the causes and nature of the plague, as well as much more about preventive measures. Reading about how our ancestors lived in the Middle Ages, and even up to the 1900’s, makes me wonder how the human species has survived at all. This is a fine book for those interested in such disasters, and certainly makes one thankful for living in somewhat more enlightened times. Of course we have our own serious problems at the moment.