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The Black Death, reaching England in the autumn of 1348, killed approximately 2 million people. they had never been mortality on such a scale, nor has there been since.

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Dinesh ^club

The people had in any case far more serious matters with which to deal when, in 1348, all the forces of infection and death were unleashed in an epidemic without parallel.

It was named as ‘the pestilence time.’ The disease itself was called ‘the plague’ or ‘the Black death’. It may not have been bubonic plague, however; it has been variously described as anthrax or influenza or a form of haemorrhagic fever. It may have been a disease that no longer exists. Contrary to popular superstition it is unlikely to have been carried by rats.

It came out of Central Asia in the early 1330s and then spread through the known world by means of the trade routes. It had reached Italy by 1347 and, in the summer of the following year, touched Bristol and other ports. By the autumn of 1348 it had reached London before travelling north. It manifested itself in buboes, ulcerated swellings in the groin or armpit; a contemporary described a bubo as in ‘the form of an apple, or the head of an onion. . . it seethes like a burning cinder, and is of the colour of ash’. In some cases the body erupted in abscesses filled with pus. This was accompanied by aching limbs, vomiting and diarrhoea; the victims were generally dead within three days.

They were buried in mass graves, laid side by side in long trenches, the adults carrying their dead children on their shoulders. An old belief still persists that the parts of certain graveyards mus tnever be disturbed for fear of ‘letting out the plague’. It is not completely without justification; the spores of anthrax can survive for hundreds of years. The cemeteries of London were soon filled, and 13 acres of land were purchased on the borders of Smithfield and converted into a vast graveyard. One third, of even perhaps one half, of the population died. There had never been mortality on this scale, nor has there been since. At the best estimation a population of approximately 6 million was reduced to 3 million or 4 million. It remained at this level until the early sixteenth century. ~ Page 260/261

The plague was generally considered to be an act of God, punishing sinners for their pride and presumption, their vanity and faithlessness. It represented an evil so great that, according to William Langland in ‘Piers Plowman,’ ‘prayers have no power to prevent this pestilence.’ Langland also started that the south-west wind, blowing in the evening, was baleful sign. It was the breath of the devil. It was said that all those born after the arrival of the pestilence had two fewer teeth than those born before. In 1361 the pestilence time returned. It was known as t\’the mortality of children.’ A third epidemic followed in 1369, and a fourth in 1374. It was noticed at the time that the wealthier classes were not so severely affected as the rest of the population; they were not forced into close or intimate contact with the sick. ~ Page 262

14 months ago. Edited 14 months ago.

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