Bubonic plague x COVID19

Jared Siow
Oct 23, 2020
5 min read

Updated: Nov 3, 2020

This is a topic I was hoping to look into a while back - Bubonic plague, The Black Death (1347-1350).

One of my friends suggested this as a case study on the possible scenarios that could pan out post COVID-19 society.

(Spoiler alert: an optimistic outlook!)

The Black Death was a pandemic that ripped through populations in Europe and Asia in 1347-1350.

A short little introduction on what the plague is all about from a medical perspective.

Bubonic plague is caused by bacterium Yersinia Pestis and spread through infected fleas from animals. It can also be spread through coming into contact with fluid from plague infected animals. Upon contact, the bacteria would enter the skin through a flea bite or open wound (personal hygiene was poor back in the Middle Ages). As bacteria travel to lymph nodes via lymphatic vessels, they manifests as swollen lymph nodes after its incubation period. Infected population would present with fever, headaches, vomiting and swollen lymph nodes.

Nowadays, the plague could be treated with antibiotics (First antibiotic was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928). Those days, it is practically a death sentence. Without treatment, the plague has a mortality rate of 30-90%; while those treated has a mortality rate of 10%.

In the 14th century, the plague is estimated to have killed 50 million people in Europe (30-60% of total population in Europe).

Obviously, COVID 19 has different characteristics (infectivity, route of transmission, mortality rate) to that of bubonic plague.

However, what they do share in common is the paralysing effect it has on the society and the widespread fear it instilled. Its ability to transform our way of life, creating a new normal is also eerily similar.

Renaissance period (14-17th century) marked the transition from Middle Age to The Age of Discovery. It is the most glorious and fervour period in European history, a cultural movement with renewed interest in art, philosophy, technology, exploration, religion and science. How Italy as a country was affected in particular, with its ability to bounce back and reach greater height in almost all facets was puzzling and counter intuitive to me.

To understand the phenomena, it is useful to have a basic understanding of how Italy was as a society before the plague.

Italy had some of the most urbanised cities in Europe at the time. Cities like Milan, Florence, Rome were all trading ports with merchants from around the world (how the plague was first introduced).

Pre Renaissance Italy was a society which could be described as conservative, feudalistic, and that that worships the Catholic Church piously. It was a rigid society with the Church as the one true institution that social life encircle about. There was more priority on collectivism with little regards to individualism. People accepted things as they were, did little questioning, either passed matters on as way of traditions or God’s will.

Feudalism- way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

When the plague stroke, it decimated the population irregardless of wealth, status, nobility, in succession destabilising the status quo of the society.

Socio economic

The massive decline in population meant that wages increased and landlords could no longer afford peasants. They were able to buy their freedom and landlords had to sell their land at a discounted rate. Feudalism disappeared and was replaced by Mercantalism (capitalism). However, this phenomena did not occur throughout Italy. The aristocrats in the South were able to consolidate Feudalism through placing more restrictions on peasants.

Overall, the society was more sophisticated and wealthier, giving birth to patrons such as the Medici family in Florence.

Religion

The Catholic Church was a powerful institution in Italian society pre-plague epoch. It was responsible for education of the youth and acted as a moral compass. The unwelcoming disaster was widely interpreted by the devout society as a sign of God’s will to cleanse the society. There was an initial uptick in religious activity but ultimately veered oppositely due to number of factors.

Monasteries were a hotspot for plague to spread, especially among priests, monks and nuns. With a sudden decline in preachers, the Catholic Church recruited large amount of sub optimal personnels to replace those that were lost. In turn, there was a drop in quality as corruption seeped in institutionally. Over a long period of time, the population lost faith in the church and its dishonourable representatives.

Italian society as a whole grew more secular and started exploring more on the human values and experience than religion.

Culture

Together with wealth being more evenly distributed, the rise of new social class, the increasingly secular society, the turning away from old certainties and tradition as ways of life, the development of Humanist movement which valued reason and critical thinking, the uncertainty and fleeting quality of life. These all played a part in uprooting and reconfigurating Italian society as we know, birthing the Renaissance period.

The new social class, most notably the Medici family, were one of the wealthiest families in Europe, a political and banking dynasty unrivalled by any other family. They too originated from the agricultural Mugello region of Tuscany.

Note that during the pre-Renaissance era, the society was pretty rigid and orthodox. People believed that they were born pre determined into specific roles in life by God’s will, in the manner that a farmer would always be a farmer, an aristocrat would always be one, inherited hereditarily solely by name.

As merchants became members of nobility, they felt the need to elevate their status to that of the old aristocrats. They were acutely aware of their humble origins and thus became patrons of artists, writers, philosophers. The sudden boom in available sponsors also ensured that artists could concentrate on perfecting their craft, resulting in some of the most stimulating art work and inventions to date.

Some of the greatest Renaissance artists as we know today Botticelli, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few, all benefitted enormously from the Medici family then.

Back to reality, with all the grim forecasts and bankruptcy falling like dominoes around us (I've just learnt as I'm writing this that Hertz, one the largest car rental company filed for bankruptcy).

It could perhaps be refreshing and welcoming to learn that one of the worst crises in human history birthed some of our most innovative and inspired times in human history, debatably unparalleled more than 500 years later today.

Renaissance Art (14th century) & Art Today (2020)