Dear Folk,
On October 1, 1348, the citizens of Florence looked around and breathed a shaky relief. It appeared the Black Death was over... at least for the moment. Shall we talk about a force greater than a crusade, greater than a king or emperor or even pope?
Most of what we remember about this particular epidemic in Florence comes from Marchione di Coppo Stefani's The Florentine Chronicle. Marchione di Coppo Stefani was born in Florence in 1336. He wrote his Florentine Chronicle in the late 1370s and early 1380s
In March 1348 the first cases started appearing. The illness seemed to strike like wildfire. Houses which had servants taking care of the ill suddenly had everyone dying of the same illness. None of the ill lasted past four to six days. Nothing, not doctor nor medicine effected any help at all. It killed almost everyone who became ill. It started with a painful swelling in the groin where the thighs met the trunk or a smaller swelling under the armpit. These they called buboes. The victim would develop a sudden fever and might also be spitting up blood. Those who had bloody spittle were invariably terminal within three days.
The citizens were in such fear of the disease that if someone coughed, the rest of the household might run away. One house abandoned led to another. Soon those in towns ran to villages. Those who fled to safety in the outlying villages often brought the plague with them to the surrounding areas. Physicians died like the rest. Those few doctors who could be found demanded and received large sums of money to visit the sick. When they got there, the doctors would take the pulse with their faces turned away. They examined the patient's urine at a distance. Priests were likewise not there to deliver the consolation of the Church.
Family members deserted the sick and dying. Many died of hunger unattended because when one became sick, the other members might say, "Wait here, I'll get a doctor" and then slink away. The more thoughtful ones left a little food and water for the victim before they left. If the victim did survive a little longer, they might make it to a window to call for help. Help seldom came. Folks did not want to enter the houses of the sick and even shunned those who had exited from them.
And so the victims died unseen, remaining in their death beds until they putrefied. Neighbors, if there were any left alive, might put the unfortunate corpse in a shroud and send it off for burial. Burial was usually in a church yard pit or trench. All night long the dead were carted in; the next morning the few attendants would shovel dirt over the bodies. More bodies were added and then more dirt, they layered them like cheese and noodles in lasagna.
Life was not easy or cheap for those who were not stricken. The cost and scarcity of food made living difficult. Eggs, chicken, sugar, were extremely hard to find and horribly expensive. Wax for candles, a necessity of life and a luxury for funerals, would have disappeared entirely had the government put a limit on the number of large candles (two) allowed per funeral. The price of funerary equipment such as biers, pillows, mourning gowns also went through the roof.
The churches were forbidden to sound their bells for funerals. No one would have gotten any rest, for the bells would have had to be rung continually. The sick hated the sound of it and rather discouraged the healthy as well.
Those priests and friars who did brave the fear of disease and tended to the ill chose to serve the rich. They received such gratitude from their wealthy parishioners that they became wealthy from it themselves. The authorities did what they could to limit this. They passed ordinances that said that one could not have more than a certain number of clerics of a local parish church at hand nor more than six friars at a time.
Shops, guild houses, restaurants all closed. Soon nothing but churches and apothecaries (another suddenly wealthy trade) were open. Small groups of men would have a dining circle where one would host one night and another the next. At first it might work but then one by one members would not show up. The word came back that they had been stricken. The streets were empty. If a rich person went out to church, he was carried on a litter with four beccamorti (means "vultures") paid heavily to be in attendance and a tonsured clerk paid to go before holding a cross.
When the plague disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared, the survivors were left to try to pick up their lives. There now were houses and possessions just standing around vacant. No master would claim so much of the goods. Cloth was hard to find. Moths and mold claimed raw and processed wool. Nevertheless, folks claiming inheritance became almost catastrophically rich.
How many did the Plague take? The best estimates had that in Florence alone some 96,000 men, women and children died between March and October. Deaths across Europe and Asia from this wave of pestilence reached the tens of millions. This was only one wave. The first recorded wave was in the sixth century and continued until the seventeenth. The plague seemed to come inexplicably in 11 year cycles.
There were effects other than those of depopulation. Laws were made to restrain survivors from raising prices beyond reason. Judges were quick to enforce ordinances against folk like farm workers and servants who suddenly sensed how valuable their services were. Laws covering the minute details of how many wedding guests one could have, what kind of clothing folks could wear on the street and at parties were quickly passed and enforced. After all, weddings brought large groups of people together, a perfect way to spread contagion. Sumptuous clothing increased the scarcity of cloth.
A deeper effect was that on the feudal society. The top of the hierarchical pyramid was taken away – both actually as the rulers of Church and State became plague victims and mentally as commoners noticed that God protected neither king nor pope. Surely God would protect His own. What did that say about the "Divine Right of Kings" and the sacredness of the clergy? Peasant revolts spread throughout Europe with this realization.
What have we learned from this? Some will always profit during a disaster? It is hard to find good help? Governments when it suits them will try to limit inflation? The plague actually helped democracy? How about blessed are the nurses? That's one of my mottoes as anyone who has read my poetry can attest.
So if you are out there starving for attention, treating the suffering, bringing out your dead, or just carrying some rich dude to church and you want to forward these missives, do but please leave my name and sig. attached. May St. Roche, patron saint of plague victims, protect you all from anything which plagues you.
Feeling much better, really,
J. Ellsworth Weaver
SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis