MYSTERIA ECCLESIAE — The Plague
Plagues in the Middle Ages were one of the greatest threats to European civilization. The most famous and destructive of these was the Black Death in 1347-1352, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It reached Europe from Asia via trade routes, first arriving by ship at Mediterranean ports, from where it spread rapidly inland. It was transmitted mainly by fleas from rats, but also through the air, which explains its extraordinary contagiousness.
According to contemporary chronicles, 30-50% of Europe's population died within a few years. The consequences were far-reaching: a sharp decline in the labour force led to wage increases and a weakening of feudal structures. The epidemic also provoked religious reactions - from penitential processions to the persecution of minorities, especially Jews, who were accused of poisoning wells. The plague then returned to Europe in waves until the 17th century, for example in Prague in 1680. These repeated crises led to the development of the first quarantine measures, the establishment of hospitals, and more systematic hygiene, which can be understood as the foundations of modern public health.
— In the 1340s, the situation in Caffa (now Feodosija, Ukraine), a Genoese controlled merchant city on Mongol territory, was tense. Disagreements had sparked multiple conflicts over the past decades, and when in 1343 a street brawl in nearby Tana led to the murder of a Muslim Mongol by a Christian Italian, fighting erupted anew. The Mongol troops first besieged Tana, then, as the population fled to Caffa, they besieged that town too. With Italian relief forces providing arms and supplies, the siege lasted until 1346. Only then was it put to a quick end: A disease had spread within the Mongol ranks, striking down one by one. As a last attempt, the besiegers resorted to one of the first instances of large-scale biological warfare: they placed the dead on catapults. As Italian notary Gabriele de’ Mussi describes in his chronicle Istoria de Morbo sive Mortalitate, History of the Disease, or the Great Dying:
“What seemed like mountains of dead were hurled into the city, and the Christians could not hide or flee or escape from them, although they dumped as many of the bodies as they could in the sea.”
In the hopes to save themselves, people started to flee Caffa by boat – to Genoa, Venice, Sicily or Marseilles, taking the plague with them and spreading it through Europe. Alleged cures for the disease were plenty and desperate, ranging from rubbing the infected skin with chopped snakes or plucked live chickens, hiding one's face behind flowers when walking the streets, drinking potions of crushed emerald or consuming theriac, a kind of universal antidote known since Antiquity – expensive, difficult to make and composed sometimes of up to eighty ingredients, including cinnamon and saffron, viper's flesh, crabs from a pebbly stream, but most importantly opium.
In his Florentine Chronicle, Marchione di Coppo Stefani describes vividly how physicians charged enormous sums for their services, as did grave diggers and priests. In fact, the demand for priests was so high that Florence soon prohibited to employ more than six of them for one's own household. The costs for food and mourning clothes sky-rocketed, and wax became a rarity, leading to a ban of more than two candles carried at one funeral. Most were not granted a funeral anyway. As Marchione further writes, corpses were simply hurled into deep trenches along the churchyards “down to the waterline”, and priests were forbidden to ring bells or call out announcements for burials as officials hoped to prevent more discouragement and fear among the people.
