In October 1347, Italian ships on the Black Sea dock in Messina, Sicily -- their crews are dead or dying. Whatever is killing them quickly spreads ashore. Within a month, it passes through Sicily and moves back out over water. By January 1348, it has penetrated France via Marseille and North Africa via Tunis, and by July 1348, it spreads through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Eastern Hungary, and Southern England. This is all the more amazing given that at this time it took a person one to three months to travel from London to Rome. The plague died out in the winters and was resurrected in the springs. At the end of 1349, it had spread throughout the British Isles and Scandinavia and continued to move east.
The death toll was massive -- the "official" figure is one-third of Europe dead between 1348 and 1351, when it temporarily abated, but keep in mind that in some towns the death toll was 90 percent -- in others 10 percent. Further, the poor and anyone else living in close quarters (monks, for instance) died at a higher rate. Many monasteries were completely wiped out, but the death rates among the nobility and the nobility of the church were very low. Understandably, people wanted to know why this was happening to them. Here are the four prominent hypotheses of the day:
The claim of academics and physicians: The plague was the result of a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on March 20, 1345.
The Roman Catholic Church's claim: God's wrath -- it was a punishment for the people's sins.
The claim of the mayors and town-controlling nobles: Poor sanitation. Dumping waste in the streets leads to sickness (a revolutionary claim at the time -- no one actually knew this to be true).
The claim of the masses (i.e., everyone else): The Jews are poisoning the wells.
Here is the "evidence" used by each group, respectively, to support its claim:
Medicine at the time was based on astrology and astronomy. Most physical sickness was attributed to poor alignment of the stars. The conjunction had happened, and it was a rare celestial event. Other events had been tied to celestial causes. Many were waiting to see what the triple conjunction would cause, and when the Black Plague occurred, they felt that they had found out.
The Church said, "Look around." Plunder, looting, rape, prostitution, war, and drinking were everywhere. God's wrath had shown itself in destructive ways before -- the people of Noah's time were hit with a flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.
The sanitation workers were among the first to die, and other diseases were suspected to be related to poor sanitation.
Christians tortured "confessions" out of Jews. The Jews were believed to be "jealous" of the Christians (because, it was thought, the Jews knew "in their hearts" that they were damned). The lepers had been blamed for poisoning the wells and causing the typhus outbreak in 1320 (after the Black Plague, it was believed that the Jews set them up to it).
Here are some problems people at the time saw with the evidence:
Nobody but the academics and physicians believed their explanation!
If God's wrath already has descended, there's no reason to change one's behavior. The attitude was roughly, "If we're already doomed, why alter our behavior?"
Later sanitation workers appeared to be immune (unknown to the people, they'd been exposed and had developed a resistance). If it really was poor sanitation, why weren't they still dying? In fact, this immunity among sanitation workers caused many people to think the sanitation workers had magical powers. People followed them on their street-cleaning routes, trying to absorb some of the immunity. Others, more desperate, actually applied waste to themselves, thinking that it would keep the disease away.
So many Jews died too (Why would any community poison itself?). The other problem is that the plague was present in areas where no Jews lived.
Just by what the reading states and my own assumptions, I do beleive that the Jews were not the cause of the "Plague". But you say that the Jews were the population that was picked on and blamed on for the cause of the plague. But, why were they picked on? Why would anyone choose them over anyone else?
ReplyDeleteI think that it is peoples ignorance which is responsible for blaming the Jews. People were helpless at that time whom to blame and the Jews were the easy target. I would love to have statistics to know how many Jews really died. In that case, we could say if the Jews were really responsible or not. Then I could really have an solid answer of N. Goris's question. As the fact goes so far, I can not blame the jews although the mass people had believed that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion, such as it is false hypothesis that poionous wells can keep killing the people in entire year, but stop during the winter. i think this is just a excuse for people to blame Jews, and maybe for a result that they can knick all Jews out of countries for whatever religion benefits.
ReplyDeleteI complete;y agree with you because of the religious fight people used to have and blame each other. it was not the poison in the water but a disease which was spread allover in town to town. And instead of praying for the the innocent people who died poeple are blaming each others relgion and creating more problems
ReplyDeleteI agree. There was no proof given that the Jews did in fact cause the Black Plague. The Roman Catholic church was the most powerful presence in Europe at the time and had overwhelming control over so many people. The Roman Catholic church communicated to its people that no other religion should be recognized. And when it came to Jews, it is known that they were treated by the Roman Catholics as less than human. I also agree that it is not logical to believe that the Jews were poisoning the waters, as the Black Plague was affecting people during the warmer months only, which is an obvious occurrence of nature and not of humans. It is not believable that the Jews would organize during the warmer months to poison the waters. It certainly is a great shame that the Roman Catholics at the time believed the leaders of their church.
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