Environment, Society and the Black Death

by Desconhecido

  Fig. 2. Wall painting from the fifteenth century in Tensta Church, the province of Uppland, middle Sweden. A man (probably Cain) is plowing the field with an ard pulled by a horse. In the pasture we see two cows, four sheep, a goat and a pig. Trees in the background are pollarded, probably for leaf fodder. The painting gives a good summary of medieval agriculture in Sweden (photo: Per Lagerås)

  Land ownership varied and did not necessarily affect the agricultural practice. Most important from a social point of view was the shift from an estate system based on slavery to a system of manors based on rent-paying tenants and crofters.2 This process was gradual but finally completed during the thirteenth century. From then on the great landowners were the nobility, the Crown and the church, but there were also numerous freeholders who owned their own land and only paid taxes to the Crown. Demesnes with farms dispersed over large regions now replaced the earlier large estates with continuous land. It was not unusual that farms in the same village paid rent to different landowners, and farms of freeholders were mixed with tenant farms. Because of scarcity of documentary sources the distribution of land ownership cannot be estimated with accuracy before the early sixteenth century. However, by then the nobility in Sweden owned 24%, the church 25%, the Crown 6% and peasants (freeholders) as much as 45%.3 In Denmark the nobility had a stronger position and peasants owned a much smaller part of the land. This was true also for Scania, which today is the southernmost province of Sweden (and included in the studies presented in this book) but during the Middle Ages belonged to Denmark.

  The agricultural society as outlined above was far from static through time. Before the crisis of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was characterised by strong expansion all over Europe. The European population doubled between 1100 and 1300 and Sweden was no exception.4 Population increased, partly because of expansion of arable land and partly because of increased land productivity (production per hectare). The latter was due to seemingly small but important technological innovations and improvements.5 In particular the more widespread use of iron for agricultural tools increased the productivity. Iron was used for cutting tools like sickles and scythes already during the Iron Age but during the Middle Ages they became longer and more efficient. More important however was the development of heavy and large ard shares of iron that facilitated deeper and more efficient tilling. (Mouldboard ploughs were introduced to Denmark, including Scania, but were rare in Sweden where the ard was used throughout the Middle Ages.) Also iron-shod spades was an important improvement. Hence, the agricultural expansion went hand-in-hand with expanding iron production.

  In Sweden the agricultural expansion started already in the Viking Period but was stronger from the eleventh century onwards. This time also saw the foundation of towns and the building of more than a thousand stone churches. New farms and fields were established in the already densely populated lowlands and particularly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was a strong expansion also in marginal uplands. In some areas this meant the colonisation of uninhabited land, for instance along the old boarder zone between medieval Sweden and Denmark, but most of the uplands were sparsely settled already since the Iron Age or before.6 The upland environment was completely different from the agricultural plains. It was to a larger degree covered by woodland and the Quaternary deposits were dominated by sandy till, rich in stones and boulders. To clear new land among roots and stones was not an easy task. Today millions of moss-covered clearance cairns in the woods bear testimony of the sweat and hard work invested in the land by early settlers.7 However, soils may have been more fertile in the initial phase than later, due to nutrients that had accumulated slowly but steadily in deciduous woodland, and the settlers were also favoured by the good climate of the Medieval Warm Period.8 Later, in the course of the Little Ice Age, climate and soils deteriorated and deciduous woodland was gradually outcompeted by spruce and pine.

  During the fourteenth century the agricultural expansion that had characterised much of Europe for several centuries came to an end. A major factor was the Black Death, which ravaged Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, but many areas saw stagnation and decline already before that. The reason for this has been much debated, in particular for England, which has a wealth of documentary sources from the time. According to an influential interpretation by Michael Postan, the stagnation was due to overpopulation combined with a lack of technological innovations and investment.9 Most of the fertile soils of England were put under the plough already in the eleventh century. Continued population growth during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries resulted in a reduction in the average amount of land per head. The numbers of small cottagers increased and so did the number of landless. Land reclamation continued but now on poor soils that had hitherto been avoided. To add to the burden, the expansion of arable at the expense of pastures resulted in fewer animals per farm and consequently a shortage of manure. All together, land productivity dropped and living standards declined, producing poverty and malnutrition.

  The impoverishment of the population was also due to the inequality of medieval society.10 Even under normal conditions, heavy burdens of taxes, rents, tithes and labour duties left little surplus for ordinary people. The number-one priority for the upper classes and the central power was to keep up their luxury consumption and life style while little resources were invested back into the agricultural system. When they experienced declining incomes due to poor yields their immediate reaction was to compensate by further raising taxes and rents. This counterproductive reaction is partly to blame for the stagnating economy and the non-sustainable agriculture.

  For the above-mentioned reasons people were on the edge of starvation. When bad weather resulted in a series of harvest failures in 1315–17 the consequences were disastrous. Both crop and hay harvests failed due to constant raining leading to widespread famine – maybe the worst food shortage ever recorded in Europe. The harvest failures were accompanied and followed by livestock epidemics, first among sheep and later among cattle. In 1320–21 harvests failed again and it was not until 1322 the situation slowly started to improve.11

  The famines of 1315–22 put a definitive end to the medieval expansion in much of Western Europe. In Sweden there is however no evidence of the Great Famine. The lack of evidence may simply be due to the scarcity of documentary sources from the time. But it is important to note that Sweden was not as densely populated as England and there was still room for expansion, in particular in wooded uplands. Even though the years of bad weather in England and on the Continent may have resulted in harvest failure also in Sweden, the agricultural society was probably still expanding and therefore not as vulnerable.

  How troublesome the early part of the fourteenth century may have been, the real disaster came with the Black Death. This very deadly pandemic swept through Europe in a few years in the mid-fourteenth century, leading to immense suffering and killing a large part of the population. The symptoms as far as can be judged from historical documents showed similarities with those of later outbreaks of bubonic plague, in particular the one that struck Canton and Hong Kong in 1894. (The most characteristic symptom of bubonic plague is swollen lymph nodes, buboes, in groins and armpits.) In Hong Kong the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis was identified for the first time and the role of rats as transmitters was observed.12 Further research in connection to the plague outbreaks in India in the beginning of the twentieth century confirmed that Yersinia pestis lives in the blood of rats and may be transferred between rats and from rats to humans by the bloodsucking oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis. Hence, most historians have concluded that the Black Death probably was an outbreak of plague, spread by the black rat and its fleas. However, in the absence of firm evidence, some have argued that it may have been some other disease.13 In particular the very fast spread and high mortality of the Black Death seemed to differ from later plague outbreaks. Furthermore, the oriental rat flea – which was the documented transmitter of the disease
from rats to humans in India – is today restricted to areas with high temperatures and would not have managed in medieval Northern Europe.14

  It was not until recently that the plague hypothesis finally proved to be correct. Evidence came from advances in genetics and the identification of Yersinia pestis DNA in skeletons of Black Death victims.15 However, the question still remains of how the plague was spread. If the oriental rat flea was not present in Europe, or at least restricted to its southern parts, other fleas may have been responsible for the transmission from rats to humans. Best candidates are the European rat flea (Nosopsyllus fasciatus) and the human flea (Pulex irritans), both of which can stand lower temperatures than the oriental rat flea.16 But were the rats and their fleas really necessary as transmitters or could the pathogen spread directly from human to human? Here Iceland gives us an important example.17 The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century never reached Iceland because ship trade broke down in the wake of the plague and Iceland fell into isolation. Luck lasted for some decades but eventually in 1402–04 and in 1494–95 Iceland was struck by two severe epidemics. These outbreaks resulted in a population drop of 50–60% and 30–50%, respectively, and showed great similarities with the Black Death and its succeeding outbreaks in the rest of Europe. But Iceland during the Middle Ages had no rats, at least as far as we know from present evidence. It therefore seems that medieval plague epidemics could spread without rats.

  Based on the Iceland example it has been suggested that the Black Death perhaps should be associated with the type of plague called pneumonic plague. It is caused by the same bacteria as bubonic plague but infects the lungs and may easily spread human-to-human by respiratory droplet transmission through coughing. It is extremely lethal and usually leads to death within one or a few days. The Black Death was certainly a combination of both bubonic and pneumonic plague, since they are just two different symptoms of the same disease, but if the latter has played a larger role than what is generally believed it may help to explain the very fast spread and high mortality. Occasionally the disease may have been transmitted directly human-to-human also by the human flea.18

  An additional explanation to the force of the Black Death may be the fact that Yersinia pestis was new to the medieval population, which therefore had a very low level of immunity. Also for other epidemic diseases, like measles, smallpox and syphilis, the very first outbreak was much more virulent, fast spreading and deadly than later ones.19 This is because exposure to a deadly pathogen leads to natural selection by which succeeding generations become more resistant. Recently it was proved also that the so-called Justinian Plague, which hit the Mediterranean and much of Europe in 541–543, was caused by Yersinia pestis.20 Therefore this species of bacteria was not entirely new to Europe at the time of the Black Death. However, the reconstructed draft genomes show that the branch of Y. pestis that caused the Justinian Plague – referred to as the first plague pandemic – has no known contemporary representatives and that it is genetically distant from the strains associated with the second pandemic (from the Black Death to the early eighteenth century) and the third pandemic (late nineteenth and twentieth centuries). While the branch of the second pandemic via rodent populations lead on to the third, the branch responsible for the first pandemic probably became extinct when the pandemic died out in Europe in the eighth century.

  Finally, social factors certainly played an important role in the fast spread of the Black Death. In medieval society the strong traditions of religion and charity aided the spread of diseases. Neighbours and relatives visited the sick and they also visited houses where someone had died to mourn the diseased and to comfort the bereaved family. Clergy went from house to house to the give the last rite and people gathered at funerals. Relatives inherited not only houses but also clothes and other personal belongings. In spite of the circumstances people held on to their traditions, and possibly these traditions became even more important in difficult and uncertain times. Cemeteries from the years of the Black Death testify that plague victims as far as possible were buried in a decent way according to religious customs. In the few cases when mass graves were dug, bodies were placed orderly side by side, sometimes in coffins (see Chap. 6 for further discussion.).21 All together the impression is gained of a population who desperately tried to keep the social and religious structures intact and to a large degree succeeded. There is no doubt, however, that this facilitated the spread of the plague.

  Many questions remain regarding the dissemination mechanisms and the complexity of factors that resulted in the fast spread of the Black Death. There is less controversy on the geographical pattern of spread, at least for Europe. The pandemic originated in the Black Sea region or possibly further east – its very origin is not known22 – and arrived in Europe in 1347. It was introduced to Europe by ships from Caffa on the Crimean peninsula, via Constantinople to Greece and Italy, but there may also have been other routes, both on land and by sea. The arrival of the plague by ships to Messina on Sicily was described by the Franciscan friar Michael of Piazza, and is frequently referred to as a starting point for the Black Death’s conquest of Europe:

  twelve Genoese galleys were fleeing from the vengeance which our lord was taking on account of their nefarious deeds and entered the harbour of Messina. In their bones they bore so virulent a disease that anyone who only spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could evade death …23

  Also some other seaports like Marseille, Genoa and Venice were hit the same year, but it was in 1348 that larger areas were affected. Within a few months that year the plague spread through the entire Mediterranean region, including Italy, the Balkans, Spain, France, the Middle East and North Africa and even reached as far north as the Netherlands and southern England. In 1349–50 it advanced to the north and north-east, through Germany and Scandinavia, and in 1351–52 it continued eastwards through Poland and Russia.24

  This was the first strike – the Black Death sensu stricto – which swept through Europe from 1347 to 1352. It was followed by several recurring outbreaks, some of them almost as devastating as the first one. In particular major outbreaks in 1358–62 and 1367–71 added significantly to the death tolls in northern Europe.25 The plague stayed in Europe with sporadic outbreaks all the way up to the early eighteenth century. Some of the later outbreaks, for instance during the seventeenth century, were very devastating but usually more patchy than the medieval ones.

  The Black Death, together with recurring outbreaks, resulted in an unprecedented population drop. Already by the first outbreak population numbers fell dramatically and they continued to fall, although more slowly, throughout the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. It was not until the mid-fifteenth century that population numbers slowly started to increase again. However, to quantify the population drop is difficult. Most authors estimate it to have been 30–50% on a European scale and as much as 40–60% in northern Europe.26 All calculations have to be tentative, in particular because pre-Black Death population numbers are very hard to estimate. Even in England, where the documentary evidence is particularly good, recent estimates of the population drop range between 40% and 60%.27

  An important character of the Black Death was that it hit towns and countryside alike. While many other diseases and parasites, in the past as well as today, spread effectively only in towns and other densely populated areas, this seems not to have been the case with the medieval plagues. Towns were hit hard, but to reach exceptionally high mortality in medieval Europe, where on average no more than 10% lived in urban areas, the Black Death must have spread effectively also in the countryside. Even in a sparsely populated country like Norway, which had no large urban centres, the Black Death had catastrophic consequences and resulted in a population drop of 60% or more.28

  From this European background we may now look closer at the Black Death in Sweden. In a letter by Magnus Eriksson, king of Sweden and Norway, written in the autumn of 1349 to the diocese of Linköping, he warned
for the great mortality that had killed more than half of the population in countries to the west and now was approaching Sweden.29 Norway was already ravaged and so also the province of Halland, which is situated on the west coast of present-day Sweden but belonged to Denmark at the time. According to the king, people everywhere dropped down dead without any previous notion of disease, leaving too few alive to bury the dead. To limit God’s punishment he commanded ritual precautions, prayers and donations to the church. There was little else they could do.

  The plague spread from Halland and Norway to the western parts of medieval Sweden possibly already in 1349, but it was in 1350 that the whole country was ravaged (Fig. 3). From scattered indications it appears to have spread from west to east and to have reached the eastern coast, including Stockholm, in the autumn. An exception is the Baltic island of Gotland, which was hit by the plague already in springtime, possibly infected by Hanseatic ships directly from abroad.30

  The Black Death swept fast and unstoppable through Sweden and by the autumn the disaster that Magnus Eriksson had predicted and warned about was all over the country. In another letter by him, this one written in the late summer or autumn of 1350 and sent to the pope in Avignon, he explained that he was not able to crusade against Russia because the plague had already emptied his country of able men.31 Obviously, Sweden was hit hard by the plague, but due to the paucity of documentary evidence it is difficult to estimate the impact of the disaster and to quantify population drop. An ambitious attempt was made by The Scandinavian Research Project on Deserted Farms and Villages. The project resulted in several detailed studies on selected areas throughout the Nordic countries and the major results were summarised in a comprehensive book in 1981.32 It was concluded that more than 40% of the farms in Norway were abandoned, while large parts of Sweden (including Scania) only showed a desertion frequency of less than 15%.33 However, the resulting difference between the two countries was partly due to different criteria used within the project. While the Norwegian historians included circumstantial evidence to estimate the desertion frequency, their Swedish colleagues counted only deserted farms that were securely documented in the scarce sources. That these different approaches may lead to different results, and in particular to an underestimation of farm desertion in Sweden, was realised already in the project.34 Still, the final conclusion was that Norway was hit particularly hard while Sweden came off relatively well.