The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

by John Kelly

  227 A third of Scotland: Ziegler, The Black Death, pp. 190, 191.

  227 “We see death”: Jeuan Gethin, “The Black Death in England and Wales as Exhibited in Manorial Documents,” ed. by W. Rees, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 16, part 2 (1920): 27.

  228 Madoc Ap Ririd: Ziegler, The Black Death, p. 192.

  228 “cut down the English”: le Baker, “Chronicon Galfridi le Baker,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 82.

  228 Irish historian: Maria Kelly, A History of the Black Death in Ireland (Stroud, Glouchestershire: Tempus, 2001), p. 38.

  228 plague seems to have landed: Ibid., pp. 21–42.

  228 death rate: Ibid., p. 41.

  229 “And Here it seems”: in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 82.

  Chapter Ten: God’s First Love

  232 “anyone suffering the effects”: Confession of Barber Surgeon Balavigny, “Strassburg Urkundenbuch,” in The Black Death: Manchester Medieval Sources, trans. and ed. by Rosemary Horrox (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 214.

  232 “on pain of excommunication”: Ibid.

  232 surgeon’s transcript: “Strassburg Urkundenbuch,” Ibid., pp. 212–14.

  233 “it has been brought”: Pope Clement VI, “Bull: Sicut Judeis,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 221.

  233 “No human condition”: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York: Collier Books, 1961), p. 23.

  234 “this is the spring”: Balavigny Confession, “Strassburg Urkundenbuch,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 214.

  234 “We Go”: Friedrich Heer, God’s First Love: Christians and Jews over Two Thousand Years, trans. by Geoffrey Skelton (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1967), p. 5.

  234 Jewish casualty figures in uprising: Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1987).

  234 Dio Cassius and Tacitus: Ibid., p. 148.

  234 “a sad people”: Ibid., p. 143.

  235 Benjamin of Tudela: The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. by A. Adler (London: 1840).

  235 from eight million: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 171.

  235 Ashkenazi community: German-Jewish History in Modern Times, ed. by Michael A. Meyer and Michael Brenner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), vol. 1: Tradition and Enlightenment 1600–1780, by Mordechai Breuer and Michael Graetz, p. 17.

  235 skilled, nonnational elite: Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (New York: Doubleday, 2003).

  236 “By virtue of their experience”: Breuer and Graetz, Tradition and Enlightenment, p. 13.

  236 “Jews and other merchants”: Ibid.

  236 “greatest misfortune”: Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders, trans. by S. D. Goitein (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 207.

  236 “the term ‘dark early’”: Breuer and Graetz, Tradition and Enlightenment, p. 13.

  236 Aaron of Lincoln: James Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community (New York: Hermon Press, 1976).

  237 Abraham of Bristol: Heer, God’s First Love, p. 85.

  237 Adversus Judaeos: Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2002), pp. 36–39.

  238 Mention of Jews in gospel: Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Vintage, 1995), pp. 99–105.

  238 “May the minim”: Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism, p. 45.

  238 orthodox establishment also disparaged Christ: Heer, God’s First Love, p. 33.

  238 “I know that many people”: John Chrysostom in James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), p. 213.

  238 Bodo, father-confessor: Heer, God’s First Love, p. 60.

  239 “Now he lives in”: Ibid., p. 60.

  239 expelled and their goods confiscated: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 213.

  239 policy of expulsion: Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx, A History of the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1927), pp. 399–400.

  239 “wild with grief”: Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions, book 5, ch. 8, trans. by R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), p. 100.

  240 “lovely brainwave”: Mendelssohn in Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, p. 219.

  240 “Judaism endured”: Neusner in Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, p. 218.

  240 Ashkenazi settlements: Breuer and Graetz, Tradition and Enlightenment, p. 15.

  241 “We depart to wage war”: Ibid., p. 21.

  241 “In a great voice”: “Chronicle of Solemon bar Simson,” The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades, trans. and ed. by Shlomo Eidelberg (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), pp. 30–31.

  241 “Hear, O Israel”: Ibid., pp. 23–24.

  241 pretty young Jewess taunted: Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, p. 247.

  242 Civitas Dei: Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 241.

  242 “hateful to Christ”: Geoffrey Chaucer, in Philip S. Ziegler, The Black Death (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 99.

  242 blood libel: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 209.

  243 hemorrhoidal suffering: Ibid., p. 210.

  243 “Wherefore the leaders and rabbis”: Marc Saperstein, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), p. 22.

  243 “Jews and Saracens”: Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, p. 266.

  243 English Jews: Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism, p. 56.

  243 petty degradations: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 214.

  244 “That the Jews were victims”: Norman Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Free Press, 2001), pp. 151–52.

  244 “most of our people”: Rabbi Solomon, in Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, p. 54.

  245 “not every Louis”: Ibid., p. 70.

  245 “have partnerships with Christians”: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 218.

  246 “One would be accusing God”: Heer, God’s First Love, p. 68.

  246 The Treasure and the Law: Rudyard Kipling, in James Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community, p. 345.

  247 lender could charge: Ibid., p. 373.

  247 Guillaume, Lord of Drace: Ibid, p. 355.

  247 “One should not”: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 174.

  247 “Jewish moneylenders”: Norman Rufus Colin Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium (Fair Lawn, N.J.: Essential Books, 1957), p. 124.

  248 Jewish moneylenders: Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 174.

  248 Attacks on Minna and Jacob Tam: Margolis and Marx, A History of the Jewish People, p. 366.

  248 major outbreaks: Breuer and Graetz, Tradition and Enlightenment, p. 24.

  249 lepers of France were exterminated: Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, trans. by Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Pantheon, 1991), p. 33.

  249 “You see how the healthy Christians”: Ibid., p. 41.

  249 Pregnant lepers: Ibid., pp. 33, 34.

  249 “Beware the friendship”: Ibid., p. 38.

  250 secret covenant: Ibid., p. 45.

  251 Around Narbonne: Ibid., p. 46.

  251 Pedro the Ceremonious: David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 237.

  252 “some wretched men”: Heyligen, “Breve Chronicon Clerici Anonymi,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 45.

  252 In Cervera: Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, p. 238.

  252 “Without any reason”: Ibid., pp. 245, 240.

  252 “rivers and fountains”: Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), p. 109.

  252 tried for contaminating local wells: Ginzburg, Ecstasies, p. 65.

  253 “it cannot be true”: Pope Clement VI, “Bull: Sicut Judeis,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 222.

&
nbsp; 253 Marrying the Jews to the well poisonings: Ginzburg, Ecstasies, p. 65.

  253 “poison which killed the Jews”: Margolis and Marx, A History of the Jewish People, p. 406.

  253 Belieta’s interrogation: Belieta, “Strassburg Urkundenbuch,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 215.

  254 Aquetus told his interrogators: Aquetus, in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 216.

  254 turning point in the pogroms: Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague, p. 154.

  254 “forbids his wife and family”: Balavigny Confession, “Strassburg Urkundenbuch,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 213.

  254 another plotter: Ibid., pp. 214–19.

  255 notion of conspiracy: Ibid., pp. 215–17.

  255 “Within the revolution of one year”: Heinrich Truchess, “Fontes Rerum Germanicarum,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 208.

  256 “The people of Speyer”: Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague, p. 156.

  256 pogroms reached Strassburg: Alfred Haverkamp, “Zur Geschichte Der Juden Im Deutschland Des Spaten Mittelalters Und Der Fruhen Newzeils,” in Judenverflogugen zur Zeil des Schwarzen Todes im Gesellschaftsgefuge deutscher Stadte (Stuttgart: Hiersmann, 1981), pp. 62–64.

  256 half of Strassburg’s Jewish population: Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague, p. 157.

  257 A few weeks later: Johannes Nohl, The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague Compiled from Contemporary Sources, trans. C. H. Clarke (London: 1926), pp. 184–94.

  257 “They were burnt”: Truchess, “Fontes Rerum Germanicarum,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 209.

  257 “Not a single one”: Jizchak Katzenelson, in Heer, God’s First Love, p. 12.

  Chapter Eleven: “O Ye of Little Faith”

  259 arrive in force in Central Europe: Jean-Noël Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France (Paris: Mouton, 1975), pp. 75–76.

  260 Balkans infected: Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353: Complete History (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2004), p. 72. See Also: Francis Aidan Gasquet, The Black Death of 1348–49 (London: George Bell & Sons, 1908), pp. 68–69.

  260 condolence to survivors: Gasquet, The Black Death of 1348–49, p. 68.

  260 Muhldorf misdating: Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353, p. 189.

  260 Description of plague encirclement of Germany: Ibid., pp. 186–200.

  261 Mortality in German cities: Philip S. Ziegler, The Black Death (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 84–86.

  262 “small children”: Johannes Nohl, The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague Compiled from Contemporary Sources, trans. C. H. Clarke (London: 1926), pp. 34, 35.

  262 “race without a head”: Henrici de Hervordia, “Chronicon Henrici de Hervordia,” in The Black Death: Manchester Medieval Sources, trans. and ed. by Rosemary Horrox (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 150.

  262 “naked and covered in blood”: Norman Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 124.

  263 “Your hands above”: Nohl, The Black Death, p. 229.

  263 walked in a circle: Ibid., p. 230.

  263 position of the particular sin: Ziegler, The Black Death, p. 89.

  264 “iron spikes”: de Hervordia, in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 150.

  264 “Come here for penance”: Nohl, The Black Death, p. 228.

  264 Heavenly Letter: Ibid., p. 231.

  265 enthusiastic self-floggers: Ziegler, The Black Death, p. 87.

  265 appease divine wrath: Ibid.

  265 origins of Flagellants: Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, pp. 124–30.

  265 German wing: Ibid., pp. 127, 129, 137.

  266 “gigantic women from Hungary”: Nohl, The Black Death, p. 227.

  266 spiritual home in Germany: Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, pp. 124–27.

  266 “now laughing now weeping”: Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana 1272–1422, in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 154.

  266 rules of Flagellant behavior: Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 132.

  267 changing demographic: Ziegler, The Black Death, pp. 94–95.

  267 in Frankfurt: Ibid., p. 93.

  267 In 1349 Strassburg: Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 130.

  267 less enthusiastic: Ibid., pp. 139–40.

  268 “Pope took part”: Heyligen, “Breve Chronicon Clerici Anonymi,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 44.

  268 “Already the Flagellants”: Nohl, The Black Death, p. 239.

  268 King Casimir: Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Free Press, 2001), p. 163.

  268 the plague in Spain: Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353, pp. 77–82.

  269 King Alfonso: Ziegler, The Black Death, p. 114.

  269 stopped at a little country inn: Li Muisis, “Recueil de Chroniques de Flandres,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 47.

  270 the plague in Poland: Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353, pp. 218–21.

  270 the plague in Bohemia: Ibid., pp. 221, 224.

  271 regional data from the Netherlands: W. P. Blockmans, “The Social and Economic Effects of the Plague in the Low Countries, 1349–1500,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 58, 833–63. See also Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353, pp. 203–6.

  271 Flanders, which had: David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London: Longman, 1992), p. 226.

  Chapter Twelve: “Only the End of the Beginning”

  273 –74Norway infected: Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete Story (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2004), pp. 153, 154.

  274 “People did not live”: Ole J. Benedictow, “Plague in the Late Medieval Nordic Countries,” Epidemiological Studies (1992): p. 44.

  274 point to bubonic plague: Ibid.

  274 two recent outbreaks: Wendy Orent, Plague: the Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 57.

  275 sole surviving cleric in the diocese of Drontheim: Aidan Gasquet, The Black Death of 1348 and 1349 (London: George Bell & Sons, 1908), p. 77.

  275 Rype: Philip S. Ziegler, The Black Death (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 112.

  275 “struck the world”: Gasquet, The Black Death of 1348 and 1349, p. 78.

  276 reentered Russia: David Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 25.

  276 Survivors drank intoxicatingly: Matteo Villani, in Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West, pp. 46–47.

  276 “There are three things”: Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe (New York: Free Press, 1983), p. 81.

  276 “It was thought”: Matteo Villani, in Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West, p. 65.

  277 “No one could”: Agnolo di Tura, Cronaca senese, ed. Alessandro Lisini and F. Iacometti (Bologna, 1931–1937), p. 566.

  277 “The life we lead”: Petrarch, “Letter from Parma,” in The Black Death: Manchester Medieval Sources, trans. and ed. by Rosemary Horrox (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 249.

  277 “In 1361, a grave pestilence”: John of Reading, “Chronica Johannes de Reading,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 86.

  278 second pestilence: Gottfried, The Black Death, p. 130.

  278 “Children’s Plague”: Knighton, “Chronicon Henrici Knighton,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 85.

  278 “a multitude of boys”: John Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348–1530 (London: Macmillan, 1977), p. 30.

  278 Modern scientific opinion: Ibid., p. 59.

  278 In the Netherlands: Gottfried, The Black Death, p. 133.

  278 differed from its predecessor: Orent, Plague, pp. 144–45.

  279 “The Black Death became”: Ibid., p. 138.

  279 “There is no doubt”: Ibid., p. 138.

  279 plague foci: Dr. Ken Gage, Chief Plague Division, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, personal communication.

  280 Piers Plowm
an: Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, p. 40.

  280 outbreak of smallpox: Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Plague and Family Life,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 13.

  280 Statistics on infectious disease: “Plagues,” in The Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph Strayer (New York: Scribner, 1982), p. 680.

  281 “Many a man”: Ibid., p. 683.

  281 from 30 to 40 percent: M. Levi-Bacci, A Concise History of World Population (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 31, 53.

  281 as high as 60 to 75 percent: “Plagues,” in The Dictionary of the Middle Ages, p. 681.

  281 Florence shrank: Anne G. Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 60, 66.

  281 England by perhaps as much: Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, p. 38.

  281 Eastern Normandy: David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West, ed. Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 35.

  281 “women conceived”: Jean de Venette, “The Chronicle of Jean de Venette,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 57.

  282 would have replaced: Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, p. 40.

  282 killed their caregivers: Carmichael, Plague and the Poor, pp. 93–94.

  282 “birth dearth”: Klapisch-Zuber, “Plague and Family Life,” pp. 138–42.

  282 “life expectancies were”: Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West, p. 43.

  282 twelve-year-old peasant boy: Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain, 850–1520 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 275.

  283 English peer: Klapisch-Zuber, “Plague and Family Life,” p. 136.

  283 median age on the continent: Economist, Nov. 25, 2003, p. 28.

  283 Florence had the same percentage: Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West, p. 43.

  283 convent of Longchamp: Klapisch-Zuber, “Plague and Family Life,” p. 137.

  284 “The roof of an old house”: Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages, p. 265.

  284 “serving girls . . . want”: Matteo Villani, Chronica di Matteo Villani, ed. by I. Moutier, book 1, ch. 5 (Florence: Magheri, 1825), p. 11.

  284 “all essentials”: Knighton, “Chronicon Henrici Knighton,” in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 80.