In 1347, the second and most terrible plague invasion of Europe began. For three hundred years, this disease raged in the countries of the Old World and took with it to the grave a total of 75 million human lives. She was nicknamed "Black Death" because of the invasion of black rats, who managed to bring this terrible epidemic to the vast continent in a short period.
In the previous chapter, we talked about one version of its spread, but some medical scientists believe that it most likely originated in southern warm countries. Here, the climate itself contributed to the rapid decay of meat products, vegetables, fruits, and just garbage, in which beggars, stray dogs and, of course, rats were digging. The disease took with it thousands of human lives, and then began to wander from city to city, from country to country. Its rapid spread was facilitated by the unsanitary conditions that existed at that time both among the people of the lower class and among sailors (after all, there were a great many rats in the holds of their ships).
According to ancient chronicles, not far from Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, there is an ancient gravestone with an inscription that testifies that the plague began its march to Europe from Asia in 1338. Obviously, it was carried by the nomadic warriors themselves, the Tatar warriors, who tried to expand the territories of their conquests and in the first half of the XIV century invaded Tavria - present-day Crimea. Thirteen years after the penetration of the peninsula, the "black disease" quickly went beyond its borders and subsequently covered almost all of Europe.
In 1347, a terrible epidemic began in the trading port of Kafa (present-day Feodosia). Today's historical science has information that the Tatar khan Janibek Kipchak besieged Kafa and was waiting for her surrender. His huge army was stationed by the sea along the stone defensive wall of the city. It was possible not to storm the walls and not lose soldiers, since without food and water, the inhabitants, according to Kipchak's calculations, would soon ask for mercy. He did not allow any ship to unload in the port and did not give the residents themselves the opportunity to leave the city, so that they would not escape on foreign ships. Moreover, he deliberately ordered black rats to be allowed into the besieged city, which (as he was told) got off the ships that had arrived and brought disease and death with them. But by sending the "black disease" to the inhabitants of Kafa, Kipchak himself miscalculated. Mowing the besieged in the city,the disease suddenly spread to his army. The insidious disease did not care who to mow, and it crept up to the soldiers of Kipchak.
His numerous army took fresh water from streams descending from the mountains. The soldiers also began to fall ill and die, and up to several dozen of them died a day. There were so many corpses that they did not have time to bury them. Here is what was said in the report of the notary Gabriel de Mussis from the Italian city of Piacenza: “Countless hordes of Tatars and Saracens suddenly fell victim to an unknown disease. The entire Tatar army was struck by a disease, thousands died every day. Juices thickened in the groin, then they rotted, a fever developed, death came, the advice and help of doctors did not help …”.
Not knowing what to do to protect his soldiers from the general illness, Kipchak decided to take out his anger on the inhabitants of Kafa. He forced local prisoners to load the bodies of the dead on carts, take them to the city and dump them there. Moreover, he ordered to load the corpses of the deceased patients with guns and fire them at the besieged city.
But the number of deaths in his army did not decrease. Soon Kipchak could not count even half of his soldiers. When the corpses covered the entire coast, they began to be dumped into the sea. Sailors from ships that arrived from Genoa and docked at the port of Kafa, impatiently watched all these events. Sometimes the Genoese dared to go out into the city to find out the situation. They really did not want to return home with the goods, and they waited for this strange war to end, the city would remove the corpses and start trading. However, having become infected in the Cafe, they themselves unwittingly transferred the infection to their ships, and besides, city rats climbed onto the ships along the anchor chains.
From Kafa, the infected and unloaded ships sailed back to Italy. And there, of course, hordes of black rats landed ashore together with the sailors. Then the ships went to the ports of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, spreading the infection on these islands.
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About a year later, all of Italy - from north to south and from west to east (including the islands) - was covered by a plague epidemic. The disease was especially rampant in Florence, the plight of which was described by the short story writer Giovanni Boccaccio in his famous novel "The Decameron". According to him, people were falling dead in the streets, lonely men and women died in separate houses, whose death no one knew. The decaying corpses stank, poisoning the air. And only by this terrible smell of death, people could determine where the dead were. It was scary to touch the decomposed corpses, and under pain of imprisonment, the authorities forced ordinary people to do this, who, taking this opportunity, engaged in looting along the way.
Over time, in order to protect themselves from infection, doctors began to put on specially sewn long gowns, put gloves on their hands, and special masks with a long beak, in which there were fragrant plants and roots, on their faces. Tied to their hands were plates filled with smoking incense. Sometimes it helped, but they themselves became like some monstrous birds carrying misfortune. Their appearance was so terrifying that when they appeared, people scattered and hid.
And the number of victims increased. There were not enough graves in the city cemeteries, and then the authorities decided to bury all the dead outside the city, dumping the corpses into one mass grave. And in a short time, several dozen such mass graves appeared.
Within six months, nearly half of Florence's population died out. Entire neighborhoods in the city stood lifeless, and the wind roamed the empty houses. Soon, even thieves and looters began to fear entering the premises from where the plague patients were taken out.
In Parma, the poet Petrarch mourned the death of his friend, whose whole family passed away within three days.
After Italy, the disease spread to France. In Marseille, 56,000 people died in a few months. Of the eight doctors in Perpignan, only one survived; in Avignon, seven thousand houses turned out to be empty, and the local curés, out of fear, came up with the idea that they consecrated the Rhone River and began to throw all the corpses into it, which made the river water contaminated. The plague, which for some time suspended the Hundred Years War between France and England, claimed much more lives than open clashes between troops.
At the end of 1348, the plague penetrated the territory of today's Germany and Austria. In Germany, a third of the clergy died, many churches and temples were closed, and there was no one to read sermons and celebrate church services. In Vienna, already on the first day of the epidemic, 960 people died, and then every day a thousand of the dead were taken out of town.
In 1349, as if full on the mainland, the plague spread across the strait to England, where a general pestilence began. More than half of its inhabitants died in London alone.
Then the plague reached Norway, where it was carried (as they say) by a sailing ship, the crew of which all died of illness. As soon as the unguided ship washed ashore, several people were found who climbed aboard to take advantage of the free booty. However, on deck they saw only half-decayed corpses and rats running over them. Inspection of the empty ship led to the fact that all the curious were infected, and from them the sailors working in the Norwegian port became infected.
The Catholic Church could not remain indifferent to such a formidable and terrible phenomenon. She strove to give her explanation for deaths, in sermons she demanded repentance and prayers. Christians saw this epidemic as a punishment for their sins and prayed for forgiveness day and night. Whole processions of people praying and repenting were organized. Crowds of barefoot and half-naked penitent sinners roamed the streets of Rome, who hung ropes and stones around their necks, lashed themselves with leather whips, and sprinkled ashes on their heads. Then they crawled to the steps of the Church of Santa Maria and asked the holy virgin for forgiveness and mercy.
This madness, which engulfed the most vulnerable part of the population, led to the degradation of society, religious feelings turned into dark madness. Actually, during this period, many people really went crazy. It got to the point that Pope Clement VI banned such processions and all kinds of flagellantism. Those "sinners" who did not want to obey the papal decree and called for physical punishment of each other, soon began to be thrown into prisons, tortured and even executed.
In small European cities, they did not know at all how to fight against the plague, and it was considered that its main distributors were incurable patients (for example, with leprosy), the disabled and other weak people who suffered from various kinds of ailments. The established opinion: "It was they who spread the plague!" - so took possession of people that merciless popular anger turned to the unfortunate (mostly homeless vagabonds). They were expelled from cities, not given food, and in some cases they were simply killed and buried in the ground.
Other rumors circulated later. As it turned out, the plague is the revenge of the Jews for their eviction from Palestine, for the pogroms, they, the Antichrists, drank the blood of babies and poisoned the water in the wells. And masses of people took up arms against the Jews with renewed vigor. In November 1348, a wave of pogroms swept across Germany; Jews were literally hunted for. The most ridiculous accusations were made against them. If several Jews gathered in the houses, they were no longer allowed to leave. Houses were set on fire and waited for these innocent people to burn down. They were hammered into barrels of wine and lowered into the Rhine, imprisoned, rafted down the river. However, this did not diminish the scale of the epidemic.
In 1351, the persecution of the Jews subsided. And in a strange way, as if on cue, the plague began to recede. People seemed to come to their senses from madness and gradually began to come to their senses. During the entire period of the plague procession through the cities of Europe, a total of a third of its population died.
But at this time, the epidemic spread to Poland and Russia. Suffice it to recall the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow, which, in fact, was formed near the village of Vagankovo for the burial of plague patients. The dead were taken there from all corners of the white stone and buried in a mass grave. But, fortunately, the harsh climatic conditions of Russia did not give a wide spread of this disease.
Only with the advent of new antiseptic means of fighting microbes by the beginning of the 19th century, Europe, like Russia, was completely free from this terrible disease.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev
