The Bubonic Plague

It is the year of Our Lord 1346, and trade is abundant in the wealthy ports of Europe. Merchant ships sail between Italy and the Orient on a regular basis, exchanging goods and glory, prosperity and ... plague? What foul disease could disturb the general peace of the known world? Originating in the Orient, a plague swept westward and in 1348, was rampant in the once-thriving Italian port of Sicily. As the Black plague, quickly becoming known as the Black Death, spread, people began to become afraid. The stories of travelers had been circulating that disaster had struck the Orient a decade earlier. But Europe, detached from the situation, had simply ignored the possibility of its spread. While no one had been able to say why the plague began in the Orient, stories of its spread westward and its dastardly death toll had began to alarm people. Medieval medicine was a mixture of superstition and religion; because of this, the idea that the Bubonic plague was caused by atmospheric corruption over the Orient kept Europeans calm. Later, excused as punishment on heathens and sinners, the Bubonic plague would be scoffed by Europe as a whole. At the outbreak, many ignored its spread in Europe. However, the plague continued to spread rapidly, and people began to doubt their theories when it descended indiscriminately on heathen and Christian, sinner and saint, alike. As people began to realize that the Bubonic plague, also becoming known as the Black Death, could be contracted through contact with those already infected, cities, and even entire counties, began mass ostracisms and exiles. Infected individuals were forced to remain locked inside their homes, not even daring to show their faces outside their doors, for fear of exile. Humanitarians in communities, appalled at such treatment of the ill, left food and supplies on doorsteps, but even they dared not venture any further than that, for fear of being infected. The rest of the community often either ignored the infected,... [continues]

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