The Great Mortality

I recently finished a simultaneously fascinating and horrifying account of the Great Plague in Europe. The author does a masterful job of following the disease in its bloody march through the medieval world. From its arrival in Italian harbors to its last burning embers in England, he uses first hand accounts, court records, and any other document he can get his hands on to trace the devastation in graphic detail. I highly recommend a look through the book. It will reintroduce you to an infamous but not well understood period in human history. Without a doubt it was the closest humanity has come to extinction in the historical period.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks mulling over how exactly to discuss The Great Mortality. With health care in the public mind it seems obvious to deal with the municipal responses. Certainly, the areas like Venice and Sicily that developed coordinated public responses (such as forming groups to gather and burn dead bodies, making illegal the practice of leaving a dead loved one on the doorstep to solicit pity donations from passing citizens, and setting up rudimentary quarantines). But their success was measured in a pitiful mitigation of the horror. They managed a mortality rate of 50%, as opposed to 60 or 70 in less coordinated areas. The Plague blasted through Europe unimpeded by human interference. The only thing mankind did that actually stopped the disease was die so fast that it ran out of hosts.

When searching for a contemporary lesson, there is the interesting story of Marseilles, France. As the disease spread, leaving Sherman-esque scorched earth in its wake, people desperately sought explanations. Unsurprisingly, the first group blamed for the death was the Jews. Even in 1350, they were the first choice of paranoid conspiracy theorists. An elaborate story followed the plague throughout Europe. The basic tale was agreed upon and tailored to fit local needs. The leader was always named Rabbi Jacob. He led a band of savage Jewish characters, like the kind-hearted but deceptive merchant, Agimentus. They spread their web of deceit throughout the continent using lepers to poison wells with the Plague. It’s not hard to imagine the response of the medieval mind to such a story.

Thus, the Jews were faced with two mortal enemies: the Plague and the terrified Christian citizens. They were attacked, murdered, and cast out of towns. One of the few cities that provided sanctuary was Marseilles.

Marseilles suffered death on the same level as the rest of Europe, losing between 40 and 60 percent of its population. Their openness, however, benefited them in two ways. First, because their citizens didn’t turn on one another, their civil system endured throughout the devastation. A great many medieval societies simply descended into anarchy amidst the plague. The death of city officials and other leaders coupled with a terrified, ignorant population caused the complete dissolution of anything resembling law and order. The lawlessness led to starvation, and the starvation, in some cities, to cannibalism. Marseilles, however, stood strong largely because of its tolerance.

Second, because Marseilles served as a safe-haven for expelled Jews, it was able to rebuild its population much quicker than its sea-trading rivals. In much of Europe, the plague left towns and cities so depopulated that labor was literally non-existent. Marseilles took advantage of their human capital and thrived in the years following the Black Death.

The lesson is certainly a good one. Even in a society radically different from ours, cooperation across racial and cultural lines proved massively beneficial. Yet it’s a minor point in the epic story of the Great Mortality, a momentary glimmer of light escaping a pit of midnight black.
As I considered the scope of the story, I was overcome by the tragic, desperate attempts of people to explain and rise against their assailant. At once, humanity shines in its refusal to meekly accept death and seems pitiful and ridiculous, trapped by ignorance. And so the lesson for modern times is simply a reminder of how we arrived here, from there.

There are a number of terrifying, potentially apocalyptic issues facing the contemporary world. Nuclear war, overpopulation, and global warming all have the potential to result in terrible death and chaos (as an interesting aside, when the United States and Soviet Union were studying the potential effects of an exchange of ICBM’s, they examined the Plague’s effect in Europe. Estimated casualties from a nuclear strike were identical to the actual mortality of the Black Death. So our medieval ancestors, as the book's author points out, faced the equivalent of a nuclear weapon exploding in every city on the European Continent). But they differ from the Plague in that even if we cannot stop them, we understand how they operate. When a nuclear weapon goes off, the result is known and predictable.

Early in the Plague’s run, an ill man decided to set his affairs in order and receive last rites. 24 hours later the man, the priest, the notary and several witnesses were dead. They were all buried together the next day.

There is a story of a traveler in England. He arrived one night at a well-staffed inn with several guests taking up residence in neighboring rooms. There were cooks, kitchen aids, cleaning women, the owners, and perhaps a dozen other people. He went to sleep in a bustling little world. He awoke the next morning to a silent building. Everyone had died during the night.
The virulence of the Great Mortality has recently led to a debate about whether or not the Black Death was the plague. Some researchers argue that it was a version of Ebola or some other equally horrible ailment. No other plague outbreak in history spread as fast or wiped out communities with the same haste. The book provides a strong, definitive argument that it was, indeed, Y. pestis, the plague bacterium, that caused the damage.

But place yourself in the mind of a man who wakes up in an empty inn, death all around him. He has no concept of microorganisms. The only explanation he can arrive at is that either Satan is destroying humanity in front of an uncaring God, or the Creator of the universe is punishing his bretheren. Such terror cannot possibly be recreated in our world.

When arguments over the existence of God and the role of religion in society are engaged, one often hears the mournful complaint, “why do you want to destroy something that brings such comfort to people?” The story of the Great Mortality should tell us what it is, in fact, that actually provides comfort.

One medieval theory of the Plague’s origin was an amusing combination of astrology and homeopathy. The alignment of the heavens in 1345 caused a deadly corruption of air. Mars ignited a blight of hot, dry air that was causing the sickness. The only remedy was to balance the four humors, combating the dry air with wet air. Doctors noticed that sanitation workers were not falling ill, and concluded it was because they breathed in the humid air of the latrine. Thus, medieval people flocked to latrines to bask in the wet air. Imagine the horror of your world that you would willing subject yourself to that kind of vomit-inducing situation.

The traditional Christian explanations and recommendations were equally moronic. In addition to the scapegoating of the Jews, medieval Christians saw the plague as a punishment for the sins of man. Scantily clad jousting tournament groupies were undoubtedly the cause. Strict morality was the only sure-fire protection from God’s wrath. Rome represented the epitome of moral excess and debauchery, thus it was concluded that people behave in direct contrast to a Roman.
Rome was famous for, among other things, their baths. Such things were viewed by the medieval clergy as sinful beyond words, so bathing was condemned. St. Francis of Assisi said bathing was a waste of God’s water, and St. Benedict held that bathing “shall seldom be permitted.” This stood in direct contrast to the Greek and Roman maxim that cleanliness was a virtue.

And, of course, the clergy died just like the rest of humanity, culled despite their desperate prayers. The total failure of the Church to lessen the spread of the plague caused people to ignore its dictates. Surprisingly modern concepts of morality emerged in the wake of the plague, as people decided to enjoy what little life they had. The Christian doctrine of self-abnegation was often abandoned.

Clearly humanity of the 21st century lives a life of comfort beyond the wildest dreams of the Europeans watching their world evaporate. So I ask, why? What happened over the last 700 years that gives me such comfort, while my European ancestors lived in such terror?

Was it religion? I would argue that no new passages of the Bible explaining the proper means of combating microorganisms were uncovered. No new prayers were developed. No, the difference is the result of the science's relentless march forward. Never again can a malady eliminate half of the world’s population in complete mystery. Even epidemics like AIDS or potential outbreaks of H1N1 can be fought against and effective treatments developed. And our knowledge grows at a staggering pace. The scientific community has already learned more in the few years of the 21st century than in the seven preceding that.

If the good religion provides to the world derives from its ability to comfort, it has been a peerless failure. I suppose an elaborate apology could be made on God's behalf for failing to include a message about lethal bacteria, but the Bible didn't even manage to provide basic health guidelines in terms of contemporary technology. The ghastly Greeks and the lascivious Romans discovered a basic truth about human health that eluded those in contact with the Infinite Intelligence.

If we simply take the modern Western world, 99.9% of the things offering us comfort come directly from science. We have cheap vaccinations that immunize our children from maladies that have killed millions over the years. Our water is made clean by methods derived from experiment, and our transportation made quick and safe by the scientific process.

So if in the sanctuary from uncaring nature provided by science someone takes solace in a chance at meeting their departed grandmother in the afterlife, I have no qualms with that belief. But as we all know, religion is never that innocuous. We are constantly confronted by people using the comforting power of religion as a justification for belief, who, in turn, use the dictates of that religion to halt the progress of science. These people have ignored and completely taken for granted the wonderful life given to them by the very process they try to destroy.

The phrase, "there are no atheists in foxholes," is often used by the religious to show where loyalties actually lie in times of trouble. I would spin that around. If you and your child woke up one morning in 1352 to a silent inn filled with dead bodies, would you be more comforted by a copy of the Bible or a bottle filled with antibiotics?