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Chester - Plague

Black Death

The Mongols were besieging the trading post of Kaffa in the Crimea , ridden with the plague the Mongols decided to retreat , but before they departed they catapulted the plague ridden bodies into the town . The Genoese were soon riddled with the disease, it was to rapidly spread through North Africa, Italy, Spain, and England in a little over 2 years more than quarter of the population of Europe 25,000,000 souls were to fall victim . The problem was exasperated by crop failures in Europe providing a poor diet there was no understanding of the disease . .

There were two types of plague refereed to by Guy de Chauliac physician to Pope Clement VI. Pneumonic and bubonic the symptoms of the first were described as the spitting of blood and fever with death following in three days the second also had continuous fever but with abscesses, on the external parts of the armpits and groin death followed within five days .

In 1348 the plauge swept across Europe and England. a disease, which had started in Asia and spread across Europe, was brought into England by sailors who had been to the Continent in trading ships. In the Middle Ages, plagues were able to spread through a population very quickly because the people had no knowledge of disease and its causes. There was no sanitation, the streets of the towns were narrow and filthy, houses were small and dirty with very little air, and the people wore thick woollen clothing which was very rarely washed. People did not realize that these were the causes of disease spreading. They believed the plague was the work of the Devil or a punishment for the wicked things they had done.

Outbreaks occurred in Bristol, Gloucester and London.People died within three days of first beginning to feel ill. In their fear and misery they huddled together, not realizing that this was making the plague spread more quickly and certain. Life resolved itself into an hourly fear of death. Once a man discovered on his limbs the dreaded boils or dark blotches, he knew that his end was at hand.

In that terrible year the Black Death, as the plague was called, carried off perhaps as many as a third of all the people in England.

The Pope was to declare 1350 a Holy Year, many made the trip to Rome, which help spread the disease . The medieval streets of Europe were cleansed to help combat the disease, but the Black Death was to reoccur throughout the century .

One result of this terrible disease was that there were no longer sufficient men to till the fields. For a long time there had been a rising discontent among the workers on the land. The plague brought it to a crisis, labourers were determined to improve conditions, and increase their wages. But times were already bad for the landholders and they resisted strenuously.

The government met the situation by passing the Statute of Labourers in 1351, which sought to fix wages and living costs at the old rates. But the law proved ineffective and an obstinate class struggle ensued between the angry landholders and the repressed and sullen labourers. The next reign was to show its further development. The movement is worth pondering over. For the first time in our history the silent masses were taking the stage in a leading part.

The Black Death, the great pestilence which first visited England in 1349, was the most important influence in social change; it perhaps destroyed half the population. The three principal visitations were used sometimes as eras from which to date events or deeds, and were thus computed:
The first or great pestilence, from May 31st to September 29th, 1349.
The second pestilence, from August 15th, 1361, to May 3rd, 1362.
The third pestilence, from July 2nd to September 29th,1369.

It was not until 1894 that a French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin was able to isolate the bacillus responsible for the Black Death, four years later another Frenchman Paul -Louis Simond discovered that the Rats carried fleas that transmitted the disease .