Plague – Part eleven

“…Behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death…” (Rev. 6:8).

This particular prophecy has reference to the period A.D. 250-265. At that time there was a pestilence so severe, that, at one time, five thousand deaths a day were reported in the Roman Empire. There were other similar plagues which, from time to time, decimated the population. One of these occurred during the reign of Justinian. Finally, in the fourteenth century christendom was smitten with a plague so severe that it would be known to history as “The Black Death.”

The age of persecution

Following the Palestinian crusades, the papacy launched a new campaign. It would be aimed against all who in any way opposed the authority and the teaching of the Roman Catholic system. We have seen how effective the papacy had been in destroying the Albigensians. Many others suffered the same fate. This bloody crusade continued through the Middle Ages, but it did not pass unnoticed by the Deity.

“And…I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God , and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:9-10).

The fourteenth century

The fourteenth century began with great promise. There had been throughout Europe a period of sustained prosperity, of expansion and of growth in population. Then disasters began to occur. Italy suffered from earthquakes, then floods and drought. In much of Europe heavy rains destroyed crops for two or three consecutive years, leading to high prices, deprivation and even famine. These conditions probably helped to make the people vulnerable. Certainly they were not prepared for the pestilence that would very soon spread through their lands.

The plague arrives

It seems to have begun in China, then spread to India and the Middle East. It struck Constantinople. Merchant ships returning to the ports of Catholic Europe brought the infection with them. “The Genoans brought the plague home to Genoa in January of 1348, but Venetian sailors brought it to Venice at just about the same time. From Sicily it followed all the major trade routes — probably because the ships that sailed those trade routes carried with them the black rat, which carried the fleas that carried the plague bacillus” (Otto Friedrich: The End of the World, A History, p.115).

The chroniclers of the time reported 63,000 people dying in Naples within two months and more than 100,000 in Florence. In Venice the toll was said to be 600 a day. Pisa was reported to have lost more than half of its people and Verona three quarters. The disaster was almost beyond human ability to contemplate, and this was just the beginning. No part of christendom would be exempt from the awful scourge.

Recent estimates put the death toll throughout Europe at about 30% – 25 million out of a population of about 80 million. Even writers of the time saw the event as a remarkable fulfillment of prophecies in the Revelation. A third part of the population died in the plague.

The reaction of christendom

As the Black Death ran its terrible course, christendom reacted in a variety of ways, but generally a pattern was followed. First, the sudden appalling occurrence of so much sickness and death among the population led to chaos and the breakdown of civil institutions. Those who escaped tended to give themselves over to self indulgence — “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

In time a different attitude developed, and people looked to their religion, such as it was, for strength. Vices — like gambling and adultery — were said to decrease. Men and women actually feared the wrath of God and made some attempts to live better lives.

The third phase of “Christian” reaction to the Black Death was sinister. People passed from simply trying to please God in their lives to the practice of fanaticism. As this extremist reaction turned outward, the result was more persecution against “heretics” and Jews.

The Black Death

Speaking of the events of “that dreadful year 1348,” Petrarch asked, “Will posterity believe that there was a time when, with no deluge from heaven, no worldwide conflagration, no wars or other visible devastation, not merely this or that territory but almost the whole earth was depopulated? When was such a disaster ever seen, even heard of? In what records can we read that houses were emptied, cities abandoned, countryside untitled, fields heaped with corpses, and a vast dreadful solitude over all the world?” This was no exaggeration. The picture was repeated over and over again as the plague took its inexorable toll.

The English people may have thought that the Channel would protect them from the scourge, but they were mistaken. In Bristol, in the year 1348, “there died, suddenly overwhelmed by death, almost the whole strength of the town” (The Grey Friars Chronicle). The plague raged in Britain for two years, killing possibly as many as 1.5 million people.

In late 1349 the plague swept up the Rhine, and in Cologne it was said that half the population died. There was hardly a family in Europe that did not suffer loss. Not only cities, but the whole countryside suffered the ravages of the Black Death. In many places it was so bad that crops were ungathered. Cattle wandered about uncared for. Sometimes there was hardly anyone left to bury the dead.

“The confusion was so great that the citizens, as if deprived of their senses, took leave of life and willingly renounced all earthly possessions. They bore their treasures to the monasteries and churches to lay them on the steps of the altars. But for the monks the money had no attraction, for it brought death. They closed their gates, but the people threw their money over the walls of the monasteries” (Friedrich: The End of the World, quoting a contemporary account).

The flagellants

At the height of the plague there appeared in various places groups of desperate fanatics. In their misguided way they hoped to alleviate the disaster through self sacrifice and mutilation. They marched barefoot, wearing white undergarments and black cloaks and hoods. They devoted themselves to prayer, fasting and singing religious songs. They performed rituals of expiation in churches and in market places, beating themselves with spiked whips until they bled. Their zealous crusade, however, did not end with self immolation. The movement gained so much momentum and so many adherents, that the pope feared they would undermine the institutions of the church.

“Already,” the pope wrote, “flagellants under pretense of piety have spilled the blood of Jews, which Christian charity preserves and protects, and frequently also the blood of Christians.”

Persecution again

The religious practice of christendom was affected by the great plague, but it was a misguided reformation. Again, thinking to do God service, they oppressed His people. Throughout central Europe the purges began. Officially the Catholic church forbade persecution of Jews, but it had imposed rules that would encourage the practice throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. “At the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the church renewed its insistence that no Jew should be employed in any position of authority over Christians; it also forbade Jews to live among Christians, thus founding the ghetto system…all Jews were ordered to wear distinctive clothing, such as a badge of yellow cloth” (Ibid, p. 130). Almost every nation in Europe engaged in some form of anti-Semitism, and it was intensified during this period. The wild claims then made against Jews – ritual murder of Christian children, etc. — have often resurfaced, most notably in Nazi Germany. Before the Black Death had run its course thousands of Jews were driven from their homes, imprisoned and killed.

Extent of the plague

An English ship with a cargo of wool sailed from London to Norway in May, 1349. Its crew was already infected and all died before the ship reached the port. The ship ran aground and the Norwegians went aboard to investigate. Like the Sicilians before them, they found they were welcoming death to their shores. The king of Sweden issued a proclamation warning his people that “God for the sins of men has struck the world with this great punishment of sudden death.”

The Black Death infected both Christian and Muslim Spain. Members of the royal families of Aragon and Castile died from it. And in eastern Europe the pestilence was not stayed. It struck Poland and Russia, going full circle to the region where it had begun.

The plague would return. There were several epidemics after the first great pestilence. “Only after ravaging London in 1665 and Marseille in 1720 did the disease virtually disappear from Europe, as mysteriously as it had first appeared” (Ibid, p. 133).

Conclusion

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Rev. 9:20-21).

The Black Death had a natural cause, of course. We now know, as its victims did not, the source of the pestilence. That does not diminish the fact that such cataclysms have been used by the Deity to serve His purpose.

A decade ago we would have doubted that such a pestilence would again disturb our society. We thought medical science was too advanced to allow it. The HIV epidemic has changed that perception. Men and women will continue to suffer these ills until society is changed, when people are brought to repentance by the coming of the Lord.

“Wherefore we receiving a king­dom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.”