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Europe had experienced a remarkable period of expansion during the High Middle Ages (1050-1300 CE) but that age of growth reached its limit in the later part of the thirteenth century (the late 1200's CE). By then, good farmland had been overworked, and new fields were proving only marginally productive. As the population began to surpass the capacity of the land to feed its inhabitants, famine was imminent.
Worse yet, the climate of Europe was for reasons which are still unclear entering a cooling phase. Whereas in the High Middle Ages a warm, dry climate had predominated, by the turn of the fourteenth century global weather patterns changed for the colder and wetter. Scientists today find evidence of this so-called "Little Ice Age," in polar and Alpine glaciers which the data show began to advance at this time. Moreover, historical records from the day confirm that the winter of 1306-7 was unusually frigid, the first such lingering cold snap Europe had endured in nearly three centuries.
While the drop in global temperature was probably no more than one degree on average, it was enough to make a significant impact on agriculture. For instance, grain and cereal production had to be abandoned in Scandinavia, and viticulture (wine-production) became impossible in England, as it still is for the most part. Not only cooler but wetter, too, the change in climate brought with it increased rainfall which precipitated other problems, such as flooding. In particular, the Arno River which flows through Florence (central Italy) swept away many bridges with the force of its waters.
But the first real pan-European catastrophe resulting from the onset of the "Little Ice Age" was a widespread failure of crops. Beginning in 1315, the weather was so rainy that most grains sown in the ground suffered root rot, if they geminated at all. Also, the lack of sun, high humidity and cooler temperatures meant water evaporated at a slower rate, which caused salt production to drop. Less salt made it more difficult to preserve meats and that, combined with the losses in agriculture, led to famine by year's end.
When the same happened again in 1316 and then once more in 1317, peasants were forced to eat their seed grain. With little hope of recovery even if weather improved, despair spread across the continent. Frantic to survive, people ate cats, dogs, rats and, according to some historical records, their own children. In places, the announcement of a criminal's execution was seen as an invitation to dinner.
Nevertheless, these emaciated souls could not have known that worse, far worse, lurked on the horizon. A holocaust of unprecedented fury was stalking them and their children. Out in the hinterland of Asia there was a biological menace massing, a blight that would forever change the face of Europe, the bubonic plague.
Yet, it was, in fact, not the first time bubonic plague had raised an angry hand to Europe. As far back as 664 CE when it was known as the "Plague of Cadwalader's Time," this disease had swept the continent. But in that age there were far fewer people in Europe and it moved much slower from place to place since there was little trade or travel in the aftermath of Rome's collapse (see Chapter 8). The more well-connected and vital Europe of the years following the High Middle Ages proved a much better host for this plague.
All the same, knowing the life cycle of Yersinia pestis is essential to the modern understanding of its impact on human history and the course the disease took in the 1300's. This bacillus lives normally as a low-grade infection in the bloodstream of rats. It moves from rat to rat via fleas, in particular, the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis),which is in medical terms the vector ("carrier") of Plague. When a rat flea bites an infected rat, it sometimes drinks in Yersinia pestis along with the rat's blood. If so, the bacillus lodges in the flea's digestive tract where it begins to reproduce prodigiously until it forms a solid mass and blocks the flea's digestion.
With its digestive tract obstructed, the flea begins to starve. Frantic from hunger, it hops from rat to rat and repeatedly bites them, but because of the intestinal blockage caused by the clot of bacilli in its gut it can't swallow the blood it's ingested, so it vomits what it drinks back up into the rat's bloodstream. Along with the regurgitated blood come clumps of Yersinia pestis disgorged from the flea's belly. This causes an uninfected rat to become contaminated and, if the rat's immune system is slow to react, the fast-multiplying pathogen overwhelms the animal which dies. But if the rat's immune response is quick, it can counter and suppress the infection. Then, the bacillus continues to exist as a non-fatal parasite living in the rat's bloodstream where it waits until an uninfected flea by chance ingests it. And so the life cycle of Yersinia pestis continues as it volleys back and forth between its two hosts, the rat and flea, using each to infect the other.
Under normal conditions this cycle is restricted to rats and fleas, but if some sort of biological disruption occurs, the disease can spill out of its normal limited niche. For instance, if the rat population declines precipitously for some reason, fleas will be forced to move to other hosts, such as other types of rodents, domestic animals or even humans. While rats are the preferred host of Xenopsylla cheopis, when facing starvation this flea will feed off of almost any mammal.
If infected rat fleas begin biting humans, most of whom do not have resistance to Plague, the disease can reach epidemic levels. In that instance, individuals usually die within five days from the first onset of symptoms, in some cases, overnight. The human immune system is typically overwhelmed by Yersinia pestis which reproduces wildly within the victim's bloodstream. But if it responds quickly enough, survival is possible. If so, the body remembers the infection and pre-empts any second assault. Very few people ever contract Plague twice.
Because of the terror inspired by this disease and the large number of people afflicted, the progress of bubonic plague as it courses through its victims has been well-documented. Starting with a fever once the immune system has sensed the presence of a foreign organism, the victim's lymph nodes begin to swell as the body tries to flush out the contagion. These nodes are located in the neck, armpits and groin and become visibly enlarged. Called buboes (sing. bubo), swollen lymph nodes are among the most distinctive and painful features of the disease and give it the name "bubonic" plague.
Usually by the third day, the victim experiences high fever, diarrhea and delirium, and black splotches begin to appear on the skin, especially on the tips of the fingers, the nose and anywhere there's a concentration of capillaries. The reason for the black splotches is that the body's smaller blood vessels clog with bacilli and rupture, and blood begins to leak so profusely it becomes visible beneath the epidermis. This is often, though wrongly, said to be the reason the outbreak of Plague in 1347 came to be called the "Black Death," from the darkening of the victim's skin. The "black" in Black Death more likely derives from the Latin word atra, meaning "black, dreadful." Death usually follows soon afterwards, most often from septicemia (blood-poisoning), due to massive internal hemorrhaging as the bloodstream grows congested with bacteria.
There is worse yet. An even more virulent type of Plague exists which can pass from human to human directly, without employing fleas as vectors. In this form called pneumonic plague, the bacilli are transmitted directly from one human host to another on particulate matter exhaled by the infected. Since the lungs are designed to move air-born material efficiently into the bloodstream, pneumonic plague is especially quick in attacking its victims and almost always fatal. Those who contract pneumonic plague tend to collapse suddenly, cough up blood and die, sometimes within a matter of hours.
There was no cure for bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, none indeed until the discovery of antibiotics in the modern age. In the face of this unknown and irremediable onslaught, Medieval peoples attributed the disease to several factors: "bad airs," witches, astrology and a rare alignment of planets. Its appearance, in fact, brought out the worst in all groups and classes. Moslems blamed Christians, Christians blamed Moslems, and everyone blamed the Jews.
The Black Death was, thus, destructive not only to the physical well-being of Medieval Europe but also its general mental health, a situation which had as much to do with the timing of its onset as anything else. Coming off the peak of the High Middle Ages, people had already been rattled by the disintegration of the Church, the Famine of 1315-1317 and the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War. After the Plague erupted and in just five years killed a quarter to a third of Europe's inhabitants, not only population but morale hit record lows.
There can be little doubt that the Black Death began before the first historical accounts record its presence, but where or how is unclear. Even so, history offers some tantalizing prospects. In researching its origins, it's well to remember a central feature of bubonic plague: it's not at heart a human disease, but one that generally circulates through rat populations. The likelihood is, then, the Black Death began well before 1347 with some sort of disturbance in rodent communities, most likely ones in Central Asia since all historical data point to that as its geographic origin.
As one moves forward in time nearer to the first appearance of Plague in Europe in 1347, the picture becomes better, if still blurry. For some reason, the disease spread on a wide scale to the marmots of central Asia, a mammal resembling a woodchuck or "rockchuck." It's reasonable to assume these animals had little resistance to Plague, causing their population to begin dying quickly en masse. Around the mid-1340's, Asian trappers who hunted marmots for their hides found many dead ones lying around, a seeming boon but with a terrible price tag attached. Ignorant of the danger facing them, the trappers skinned the animals, packed up their hides and sold them off to dealers.
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