As historians look at history, they seek to discern the forces or people that have shaped the past. My own historical convictions have led me to focus on people as the main actors on the stage of history, not economic force or ideologies per se. Yet, there is definitely a place to evaluate the impact of such forces as these, or that of pandemics.
For instance, consider the impact of pestilence on the forces of the Athenian Empire during the early stages of the Peloponnesian War with Sparta and her allies, a war made famous by the Greek historian Thucydides. The loss of the Athenian general Pericles (c.495‒429BC) to this plague may well have affected Athenian fortunes in that war. The conquest of the Aztec world by the Spaniard Hernán Cortés was largely facilitated by a smallpox epidemic that the Spanish conquerors brought with them and against which the Aztecs had no natural immunity.
The bubonic plague
Understandably, the church has not been unaffected by various epidemics/pandemics down through the years. In the 14th century, for instance, Europe experienced the devastation of the bubonic plague, which first reached Europe in 1348, and which carried away at least one third and possibly as many as 40% of the entire European population (which was around 25 million at the time). Episodes of the plague reoccurred down to the 17th century: in the 14th and 15th centuries alone there were recorded outbreaks in 1362, 1368, 1374, 1381, 1390, 1399, 1405, 1410, 1423, and 1429.
In the medieval era, this pestilence was rooted in the unsanitary conditions of the Middle Ages, which have been described as ‘a thousand years without a bath’! The bubonic plague – or Black Death as it came to be known – was caused by the bacillus Pasteurella pestis, which likes to live in the stomachs of those fleas that reside in the hair of rodents, sometimes a squirrel, but preferably the black rat (rattus rattus). These rats usually make their homes close to human habitations and in this way those rats that were infected became spreaders of the plague. The initial wave of the plague may well have been caused by rats on board the ships of knights returning from the fighting Muslims in Palestine.
The bubonic plague was so-called since it produced swollen lymph nodes, or ‘buboes’. When it spread to the lungs, it produced the less common, but deadlier, pneumonic plague. The latter is caught by inhaling infected respiratory droplets from people who are sick. Today, it is easily curable with antibiotics if treated within 24 hours of its onset.
The church responds
What was the impact of this medieval plague on the church? Well, first of all there was an exacerbation of anti-Semitism. Since Jewish ghettoes in Western European cities tended to be more sanitary environments due to the observance of the cleanliness laws of the Old Testament, Jewish deaths from the bubonic plague were fewer. But this only convinced their fellow Europeans that they were poisoning the wells of the Christians and led to a distinct rise in anti-Semitic sentiments.
A distinct increase in Marian devotion is also traceable to this era, since it was commonly believed that Mary played a critical role in convincing her Son to end the plague in the course of the 14th century. Trust in Mary’s saving power increasingly became a key element of late medieval spirituality. In time, this devotion to Mary would lead to the addition of the clause ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death’ by Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) to the prayer known as the Ave Maria (‘Hail Mary’).
Finally, the artistic portrayal of the death of Christ became much more realistic – and gruesome. Portrayals of the crucified Christ prior to the advent of the bubonic plague usually displayed Christ reigning from the cross, crowned and fully clothed. Such portrayals were not at all realistic. But after the waves of the bubonic plague in the 14th century Christ’s death was portrayed in all of its physical horror, and meditation on his physical sufferings became a key part of medieval piety.
In other words, some of the key elements that disturbed the Reformers about medieval piety are traceable to this era. How should the church have responded? Next month we shall consider one possible answer in the response of the Puritans to a wave of the bubonic plague that hit London in 1665.
