Teaching Resources for the Black Death

Resource task taken from the TES website:

How did people react?

People’s reactions depended on what they thought had caused the plague.

Read the reactions in the table below.  What might the people reacting like this have believed about the causes of the plague (you can tick more than 1)

 

	Bad air	Person to person	Punishment by God
People say you should carry sweet smelling herbs	x
I have heard that you should burn the plague victims’ clothes	x	x
People are walking  through the streets of London whipping themselves and praying			x
The Bishop of Winchester has run away			x
Some plague victims have been locked in their own homes		x
Rich people have left London to go to the country side where there is less infection	x	x

This table helps to gauge contemporary reactions to the plague and perceptions of how and why it was spread.

The Plague song

I have just found this video on youtube.  It is a parody of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” – quite disturbing but also quite catchy!  I’m not sure if I would use it in a lesson but I think if I had a class which I think would respond to it I might be tempted to try it.  I could perhaps print out the lyrics which we could then annotate together highlighting the symptoms described, the consequences of the plague, how it was spread, perceptions about why it arose etc.

Art

The Plague led to a preoccupation with mortality and death.  In art this was displayed in two specific forms.

1.       The Three Living and the Three Dead

The Story of the Three Living and the Three Dead was popular in the centuries following the Black Death.  This image, taken from the De Lisle Psalter illustrates its significance.  Three living brothers who are bedecked with earthly possessions meet three skeletal figures who are covered in shrouds and being feasted on by maggots (I love medieval art!).  The dead warn the living, ‘“I was well and fair and so shall you be like me.  As I am, you so shall be”, illustrating the triviality of excess in life.



The Three Living and Three Dead, De Lisle Psalter



2.       Cadaver Tombs

Cadaver or Transi tombs were effigies which exhibited two bodies – one living and one dead.  Primarily adopted by ecclesiastical individuals, the contrast between the living and the decomposing body acted as a memento mori for the living, reminding the viewer of the inevitability of death and the triviality of earthly possessions.  This is a photograph of Archbishop Chichele’s tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. Although Chichele died in 1443 his tomb was erected seventeen years before this, allowing him to observe his own fate and complete intercessory prayers to help move his soul through purgatory.

Tomb of Archbishop Chichele (d. 1443), Canterbury Cathedral

Warwick Castle

Also, as a side note my family and I visited Warwick Castle to experience everything Medieval!  It was a fantastic day out and extremely educational – definitely a must for a school trip.  While we were there we met the ‘singing plague victims’ who told us tales of their symptoms and even gave me my own plague baby!

The Black Death

The Plague arose in central Europe during the 14^th century.  It swept across the continent, causing an estimated third of the population of Europe to die within three years.  Also known as the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague and the Great Pestilence, the plague was a fast killing pandemic and the medieval inhabitants of Europe were lost as to what had caused it and how it spread.  Attempts were made across Europe to dispose of the dead in an attempt to prevent infection, yet the living found it difficult to bury the dead quickly enough, leading to the burial of the dead in mass graves.  The phrase 'there were hardly enough living to care for the sick and bury the dead' was repeated throughout the period.

William Dene wrote:

‘This mortality devoured such a multitude of both sexes that no one could be found to carry the bodies of the dead to burial, but men and women carried the bodies of their own little ones to church on their shoulders and threw them into mass graves from which arose such a stench that it was barely possible for anyone to go past the churchyard’.  [Source: Schama, p. 230]

What was the Plague and how did it spread?

The bubonic form of the Plague was spread by fleas which were carried by rats.  As the opening up of trade routes across Europe grew as the result of commercialisation, rats were able to spread from Asia to Europe, bringing with them the plague bacteria.  The earliest records of the plague dates to 1338 where its presence in Issyk Kul, present day Kyrgyzstan, is noted.  By 1343 it had spread to Theodosia and by 1348 had spread across the Mediterranean to English shores.  Once it had reached London, the pneumonic form which was spread from person to person was also rife.  The spread of the disease through the city (which had a population of c. 100,000) was aggravated by close living conditions and poor sanitation.  The Scottish took advantage of the plague, raiding Durham in 1349 while the English were weak.  As a consequence, however, the returning soldiers took the plague back with them.  It spread to Wales and Ireland the same year.

The symptoms

-          black pustules which appeared on the armpits and groin which could swell to the size of an apple

-          swelling of the lymph nodes (called buboes)

-          fever

-          deliriousness

-          vomiting blood

Myths about the plague

During the Medieval period people were unsure as to what had caused the Black Death and how it was spread.  Several suggestions were posed:

-          Many blamed the sins of man for the plague, viewing it as the wrath of God on Earth.  This led to the production of images which depicted the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

-          Others in Europe blamed the Jews for purposefully infecting wells (although in England there were no Jewish inhabitants, having been expelled from the country in 1290 by Edward I).

-          Fears that it was spread from person to person meant that bodies were disposed of quickly (where possible)

-          Others saw squalid living conditions as the source, with human and animal waste infecting the air

Remedies

Attempts to stave off the Black Death were extremely varied.  Some physically tried to outrun the Plague, leaving the more densely populated cities for the countryside.  Others carried sweet-smelling herbs to try and clean the air around them to prevent infection. 

The Aftermath

-          Between a third and a half of the population of England died as a result of the Black Death

-          The plague reoccurred several times between 1348 and 1400, evoking an environment of fear

-          Before the Plague there had been a population explosion.  This meant that workers were forced to work for lower wages as they competed with their fellow men for positions.  The rapid decline in the population following the Black Death, however, had the opposite effect.  Fewer workers meant that they held the power to negotiate wages and working conditions.  As a consequence, the wages of workmen rose after the pandemic despite legislation trying to control it: workmen knew that there were less of them and thus they were more valuable and so exploited this fact.  Even the King had to break his own law to keep his own workers as there were large numbers of deserters.

-          People died without having the last Sacraments of the Church administered as there were literally not enough healthy Priests to serve their congregations – Churchmen being disproportionately hit by the plague.  In 1349, it was agreed that the last rites could be given to a member of the laity.  Schama suggests that this led to a crisis of confidence in the Church as many possibly felt abandoned by them.