So, it's the 14th century. A bright time of endless wars, epidemics and religious fanaticism. The main engine of progress in those days was trade. As you know, the Great Silk Road ran through the eastern countries. It was on him that the infamous pestilence went. Merchants and Mongol troops carried the plague westward. The first infectious ships headed for the Crimean peninsula, leaving from different ports.
There they found shelter and there they spread the pestilence.
In 1346, Khan Janibek led the troops of the Golden Horde to the walls of the trading city of Kaffa. According to the testimony of the notary who worked there, Gabriel de Mussia, the Mongols suffered from a formidable disease that destroyed their troops. Khan ordered to throw the corpses of the dead into Kaffa from catapults. Soon an epidemic began there. The defenders did not surrender the city and the Mongols, weakened by the plague, retreated.
The Genoese merchant ships stationed in Kaffa headed home. Some of the ships headed for Messina and got there in serious condition. When the epidemic broke out, the Messinians realized that strangers were to blame for the trouble and drove the sick Genoese into the sea so that they would stop spreading the disease in their city. But it did not help. Frightened residents of Messina rushed to Catania, where they were not at all welcome. In Genoa itself, they were ready for the return of fellow countrymen from Kaffa. They were greeted with flaming arrows and catapult shells. The deadly ships left, but this did not save the city for long.
In November 1347, part of the Genoese ships reached Marseille. The hospitable townspeople accepted the sick sailors, but when they were struck by the same disease, they hastened to drive the ships with the crews away. Alas, it didn't save them either.
So about 20 plague ships sailed across the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, spreading death. They stayed in large and small ports, from where they were in most cases driven out. Further, abandoned ships littered with corpses drifted in the open sea, coming across to mariners as black spots on the horizon.
The Genoese plague ships probably contributed to the development of the ghost ship legends. It is impossible to say for sure whether anyone came to the decks of the extinct ships until they disappeared on the seabed.
Promotional video:
Plague is an acute natural focal disease. Its causative agent is the plague bacillus (Yersinia pestis), discovered in 1894 by the French physician and bacteriologist of the Pasteur Institute, Alexander Yersin (1863 - 1943). The putative natural primary reservoir of the bacillus is unicellular soil organisms. The plague rod can live in the blood of more than two hundred species of mammals, but its most common habitat is rodents. Fleas live on them, feeding on the blood of their hosts, and with it absorbing the cells of the pathogenic bacteria. Under the influence of global climatic changes destroying the Yersinia pestis habitat ecosystem, its release from the natural reservoir into the soil can occur. From there, it enters plants or other natural objects that contribute to the infection of rodents and their parasites.
As a result, secondary plague reservoirs are formed, which are also ecosystems, however, less stable than soil ones. In them, the pathogen can persist for decades, causing individual epizootics and outbreaks of disease among people. Due to the low resilience, secondary ecosystems are destroyed over time, and outbreaks of plague stop. After the collapse of new ecosystems, significant territories remain - relict natural foci, in which the pathogen continues to persist as a parasite of unicellular organisms, having the possibility of a new transition to other forms under the influence of external factors. It should also be emphasized that humans, like other warm-blooded animals, are not a natural reservoir of Yersinia pestis. Therefore, its existence is not important for the maintenance of the parasite in nature and does not limit the ability to transmit the bacillus to the need to preserve the life of its victims. This can explain the extremely high mortality rate of plague epidemics.
Plague has been known since ancient times. There are many references to her. For example, the biblical First Book of Kings tells of the bubonic plague that struck the Philistines who captured the Ark of the Covenant. At the same time, it speaks not only of the disease, but also of its spreading rodents: “And they said: what sacrifice of duty should we bring to Him? They said, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, five growths of gold and five mice of gold; for there is one penalty for you all and for your rulers; so make statues of your growths and statues of your mice, which ravage the earth, and give glory to the God of Israel. maybe He will lighten His hand over you and over your gods and over your land."
However, not in all cases it can be confidently asserted that the plague was the cause of the epidemics of antiquity, since people of the past could not always distinguish it from other serious infections. This can be seen in the example of individual episodes of the Antiquity era. In 2006, Greek scientists carried out a DNA examination of teeth from the remains of the burials of those who died during the famous Athenian plague of the 5th century. BC e. According to its results, it was established that the epidemic was in fact an outbreak of typhoid fever. The ancient Roman "plague of Antoninus" (165 - 180) is also controversial. A contemporary of events, physician Claudius Galen, wrote: "The disease was accompanied by a rash on the skin of a black rash." In this regard, some researchers argue that we are talking here about smallpox. At the same time, it is believed that this epidemic was caused by a completely separate strain of the plague bacillus,very different from later species.
In the Middle Ages, in addition to regular local outbreaks of plague, two colossal pandemics are known, which claimed millions of lives. The first of these is Justinian's Plague. It appeared in the middle of the 6th century. during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. The second pandemic is the famous "Black Death", which swept in the XIV century. countries of Asia, Europe and North Africa. On the example of two global epidemics, the main causes of the emergence and development of plague can be identified.
The Black Death itself originated in the area of Lake Issyk-Kul around 1338. The mechanism of primary infection was also formed there: fleas became carriers, in whose stomachs a lump of plague bacteria, visible even in a strong magnifying glass, formed, which did not allow them to be saturated with blood. The starving flea in a frenzy began to bite one warm-blooded after another, spreading the disease further and further. It was transmitted to humans either from the caravan camels that died on the way at the time of carcass cutting, or from the bobak marmot, whose fur was valued both in Asia and in Europe. Hunters, who found many dead or dying animals, removed their skins and, not thinking about the consequences, resold them to traders. When bales with such fur were opened for resale or tax collection, fleas rushed at everything and the plague gathered an abundant harvest.
By the way, this channel of plague transmission works to this day - for example, in 2013, teenagers caught a marmot in order to make a barbecue out of it became infected in Kyrgyzstan. Of course, synanthropic rodents - mice and rats, accompanying humans in all their endeavors, became another group of carriers.
The initial area of the epidemic's spread is best described, oddly enough, in the Russian Resurrection Chronicle of 1346:
“In the same summer, the execution was from God on people under the eastern country on the city of Ornach (the mouth of the Don) and on Khavtoro-kan, and on Sarai and Bezdezh (the Horde city between the Volga and Don rivers) and on other cities in their countries; Byst the pestilence is strong against the Bessermen (Khivans) and the Tatars and Ormens (Armenians) and the Obes (Abaza) and the Zhids and Fryaz (residents of the Italian colonies on the Black and Azov Seas) and Cherkasy and all those living there there is the lower reaches of the Volga, the Northern Caspian region, the Northern Caucasus, the Transcaucasus, the Black Sea region and the Crimea. Why, at the same time, the Black Death did not come to Russia immediately, but only 5 years later and in a roundabout way is a mystery.
The starting point for the spread of the epidemic to Europe was the Crimean port of Kaffa (Feodosia), which belonged to the Genoese, which at that time was the most important logistics hub on the way of goods from Asia to Europe. The fact that just in the year the epidemic began, the city was besieged by the Mongol army under the command of Khan Janibek, gave rise to the version that the outbreak of plague was the result of the use of a kind of biological weapon by the Tatars.
Allegedly, it was the besiegers who began to fall ill, and then the khan ordered to cut the corpses of the dead into pieces and throw them over the wall with the help of catapults. After the siege was lifted, the Genoese spread the plague on their merchant ships throughout Europe.
At the same time, Janibek himself died only 11 years later and not at all from the plague, although the disease devastated the Mongolian capital Sarai. And his army, although it suffered losses, retreated from the walls of Kaffa, and did not remain to lie under them - and in fact in Europe the plague then gave almost one hundred percent lethality. Most likely, the point was not at all in biological weapons, but in rats, freely scurrying between the besieged city and the Mongol camp. And also that Kaffa, in addition to spices, sandalwood and silk, also traded in slaves. The shortest trade route from it led straight to Constantinople - that is, to the largest metropolis of the Christian world. The conditions for the victorious march of the black death across Europe and the rest of the world were the most favorable.
Further, with the formidable queen, things went without delay. In the spring of 1347, a plague struck Byzantium, killing up to a third of the empire's subjects and half of the population of Constantinople. Among the dead was the heir of Vasilevs, Andronicus, who burned out from illness literally in a few hours from dawn to noon. It was then that the Black Death revealed its new feature, which allowed it to deliver such a terrible blow to medieval European civilization.
It should be noted that with the old versions of the disease, European and Arab healers, at the very least, have learned to fight by isolating the infected and opening the plague buboes, followed by cauterization. Not God knows what, but some of the patients still survived after such treatment. The problem was that this time the bubonic version of the plague itself was picked up by very few - about 10-15% of the total, and in most cases the disease spread in the form of so-called plague pneumonia. It was transmitted similarly to the flu - that is, by airborne droplets, developed instantly, spread immediately through the circulatory system, and plague buboes at the same time did not appear on the external lymph nodes, but on the internal organs. Until a person fell exhausted and began to cough up blood, he did not even realize that something was wrong with him,and continued to live his usual social life: he went to church, to the market and with friends to a tavern, while infecting everyone who came in contact with him. Plague pneumonia developed extremely rapidly - from several hours to one and a half days, and 99% of the sick were doomed. Queen Jeanne of Burgundy, nicknamed Chromopod, went to Mass in Notre Dame, someone in the back coughed - and the very next day the seat of the first lady of France was vacant. The medieval historian Jean Favier wrote:someone in the back row coughed - and the very next day the seat of the first lady of France was vacant. The medieval historian Jean Favier wrote:someone in the back row coughed - and the very next day the seat of the first lady of France was vacant. The medieval historian Jean Favier wrote:
The cities paid the greatest tribute: crowding killed. In Castres, in Albi, every second family has completely died out. Perigueux lost a quarter of its population at once, Reims a little more. Of the twelve chapters of Toulouse noted in 1347, eight were not mentioned after the 1348 epidemic. In the monastery of the Dominicans in Montpellier, where there were formerly one hundred and forty brothers, eight survived. Not a single Franciscan of Marseille, like the Carcassonne, survived. The Burgundian lament may be exaggerated for rhyme, but conveys the author's amazement:
Year one thousand three hundred forty eight -
In Nui, out of a hundred, eight remained.
Year one thousand three hundred forty nine -
In Bon, out of a hundred, nine remained.
The picture was the same throughout Europe, from Sicily to Norway. England was not saved neither by the English Channel, nor by the minimal quarantine measures adopted, nor by the general prayers and processions of the cross, held in all parishes at the initiative of the Archbishop of York. On August 6, the first cases appeared in the small coastal town of Melkom Regis. A few weeks later the plague came to Bristol, where "the living could hardly bury the dead." In November, she took London by storm … In total, England lost 62.5% of its population, or approximately 3.75 million people.
The Black Death came to Russia only in 1352, and, as already mentioned, in a roundabout way, brought either by the Poles or by the Hanseatic merchants. The first on her way was Pskov, where the number of the dead was so great that 3-5 corpses were placed in one coffin. The population, distraught with horror, sent for the Novgorod archbishop Vasily Kalika, so that by his prayer he would take the wrath of God away from their city. Vasily arrived, walked around the city with a procession of the cross, prayed over the sick - and he himself died of the plague on the way back. Novgorodians arranged a magnificent burial for him and exhibited the body in the St. Sophia Cathedral, after which an epidemic also broke out in Novgorod. It was aided by the Russian custom, in the event of pestilence, to erect a church in one day by the whole world - the joint work of many people, as well as the processions of the cross made its terrible work easier for the plague.
In 1387 the Black Death completely destroyed the population of Smolensk. According to the chronicler, only 5-10 people survived, who left the dead city, closing its gates behind them. In Moscow, the plague took the entire family of Prince Simeon the Proud: himself, two young sons, his younger brother Andrei Serpukhovsky and Metropolitan Theognost.
The instant death of many people over vast territories gave rise to concomitant mortality. For example, if both parents died from the plague, and their little child miraculously turned out to be immune, then he still hardly survived. Since the peasants of those times lived in crowded rural communities, they died no less than the townspeople. Whole villages perished, and those who survived were afraid to leave their homes, were afraid to sow grain, and even more so to take it to infected cities. So plague survivors often starved to death. In England, the unattended livestock was destroyed by the foot and mouth disease epidemic, and the total number of livestock decreased 5 times. If fires broke out in the deserted cities, there was no one to extinguish them. States lost all levers of control, as the epidemic mowed down soldiers and officials just like other mortals. The messengers sent with royal orders either died of the plague on the way, or they were shot from the walls of quarantined cities and castles, and the messages they brought were burned without reading, for fear of infection. Hunger, crowds of refugees wandering from edge to edge and the destruction of the entire way of life created the basis for new epidemics.
Outbreaks of plague were often accompanied by Jewish pogroms, monstrous in their cruelty. Jews who lived in closed communities were always suspected of practicing witchcraft, it was believed that they poisoned wells, throwing there conspiratorial fetishes from toad skins and human hair. In France, mass burnings of Jews began as early as 1348. Almost the entire Jewish community of Paris was exterminated, and the bodies of those killed were thrown into the forests surrounding the city. In Basel, a huge wooden building was specially built, where they drove all the Jews and burned them. Mass burnings were also carried out in Auxburg, Constance, Munich, Salzburg, Thuringen and Erfurt. In total, during the Black Death epidemic in Europe, 50 large and 150 small Jewish communities were destroyed.
Having completed its terrible tour of Europe and Western Asia, the plague went to sleep in abandoned villages, dead swamps and mass graves. However, not for long: three more times with an interval of 10 years (1361, 1371 and 1382) she tried to return, but the survivors of the first and most terrible wave had already managed to develop immunity, so that with each new round of sickness appeared less and less, and recovered - More. The Black Death had to retreat and begin to change, adapting to new conditions.
In addition, humanity, taught by bitter experience, managed to develop the basic principles of personal quarantine: when even rumors of an epidemic appear, leave for a remote and sparsely populated area, avoid port cities and any cities in general, do not visit the shopping arcade, general prayer services and mass meetings, do not participate in funerals dead from illness, and do not take food or things from strangers. Unfortunately, all of these generally correct principles were based on the miasmatic theory of the spread of epidemics, which held that plague, like other infectious diseases, spreads with bad air. Hence the old Russian word "wind". The most effective remedy against miasms, until the discovery of the plague bacillus in the mid-19th century, was considered to be fumigating contaminated premises and city streets with smoke from odorous chemicals and aromatic herbs. In Russia, huge bonfires were made for the same purpose.