CHAPTER II.
FROM A.D. 543 TO 1330.
A.D. 543, there was a terrible famine, during which, Procopius says, 50,000 labourers died of hunger in the narrow region of Picenum, and a still greater number in the southern provinces. In one place, seventeen travellers were lodged; they were murdered and eaten: two women who were detected in the commission of this atrocious crime were slain. Earthquakes were experienced all over the world. In 544, dysentery, which continued until 548, similating in severity the true plague, committed great ravages in France.
A.D. 552, a severe earthquake was experienced at Constantinople, doing much damage. Nine years after, 561, a similar shock was felt at Rome, and also at Constantinople. The year following there was so great a frost that the Danube was frozen over.
France, Germany, Italy, and various other countries of Europe,—in fact, the whole inhabited globe,—suffered awfully from pestilence in the years of our Lord 565–66, 583, 587, 589–90–91, 596 to 610: in the course of 580, Antioch was again shaken by a severe earthquake. There prevailed during this period, in the year 589, in Spain, writes St. Gregory, bishop of Tours, a very singular pestilence, the principal symptoms of which were pimples, or pustules, with buboes in the groins: such great havoc did it make, that the houses were as so many tombs, and the town as one vast cemetery: it was supposed that this disease was brought from Marseilles in a vessel, as it had raged there the year previously. St. Gregory, in his ‘History of the Franks,’ also gives these particulars of this pestilential period: “In the fifth year of the reign of king Childebert (A.D. 580), great floods, tempests, earthquakes, hail, and several prodigies, were succeeded by a dreadful plague; for almost every district of France was occupied by a dysentery, in which the patients were affected with violent vomitings, fever, headache, and excruciating pains in the loins: what they discharged from their mouths was green or yellowish.” This epidemic was particularly fatal to infants and children: “Parvulos adolescentes arripuit letoque subegit: perdidimus dulces et charos nobis infantulos,” &c. King Childebert recovered with difficulty, but he lost his two sons. Austrigilda, queen of Orleans, sunk under the disease; she retained to the last the ferocious and vindictive spirit of the times, having exacted a promise from the king Gunthran that her two physicians should be put to death if they did not save her; soon after she expired, both of them were stabbed by the king’s order. The Count d’Angoulême also died of the pestilence; the corpse appeared black and charred, as if it had been laid over coals of fire.
Paulus Diaconus describes the Ligurian pestilence which raged during this period, A.D. 566, in the time of Narses: “Cœperunt nasci inguinibus hominum vel in aliis delicatioribus locis glandulæ in modum nucis seu dactyli, quas mox sequebatur febrium intolerabilis æstus, ita in triduo homo extingueretur: sin vero aliquis triduum transegisset, habebat spem vivendi. Erat autem ubique luctus, ubique lacrymæ,” &c. He concludes with the following passages: “Nulla vox in rure, nullus pastorum sibilus, nullæ insidiæ bestiarum in pecudibus, nulla damna in dominos volucribus. Sata transgressa metendi tempus, intacta expectabant messorem: vinea amissis foliis, radiantibus uvis, illæsa manebat. Nulla erant vestigia commeantium; nullus cernebatur percussor, et tamen visum oculorum superabant cadavera mortuorum. Pastoralia loca versa fuerunt in sepulturam hominum, et habitacula humana facta fuerunt confugia bestiarum.”
Procopius, a Greek historian of Cæsarea, secretary to Belisarius, a general during the reign of Justinian, records some important facts of this pestilence, which ravaged the whole world; it lasted four months at Constantinople, and, when at its height, it is supposed that 10,000 perished daily in that city. Nicephorus also describes this pestilential period, and remarks that “certain little marks appeared on the doors and outside of their houses, on their garments, and on their utensils; some white crusts of a peculiar deposition from the air adhered to all things, as damp moulds do on the walls or dwellings, and dew on grass.”
In the year 590, at Rome, in the time of Pope Pelagius the Second, there was a horribly destructive pestilence prevalent, and also in Spain. The air was observed to be impregnated with a kind of mist and fœtidness, which by irritation induced a sneezing; hence the custom of saluting a person sneezing with the expression “Dominus tecum,” or some similar expression, a practice which has reached our time. The year following, 591, Britain suffered from a severe pestilence, also Turenne, and the provinces of Arragon and Vivares. This disease was called inguinaria, because buboes were formed more particularly in the groin. In the year 610, pestilential small-pox committed great ravages at Mecca.
A.D. 614, epidemic elephantiasis prevailed in Italy, and three years subsequently, an epidemic pestilence, resembling the true plague.
In Syria, Arabia, &c., a great pestilence prevailed A.D. 639 and 640.
A.D. 654, Constantinople was devastated by a severe pestilence.
In the year of our Lord 664, a sudden pestilence (man-cyalm), after depopulating the southern coasts of Britain, infected the provinces of the Northumbrians, and, spreading for a long time in every direction, destroyed great numbers. The year following, 665, it reached Italy, causing great destruction of life. Fordum (Scriptores, xv. vol. iii. page 646) cites a Greek historian to the effect that dire mortality prevailed, A.D. 669, all over Europe, which did not spare the remotest islands, Great Britain and Ireland. England also suffered greatly, A.D. 672, from pestilence, at which period universal disease appeared in Syria and Mesopotamia. England and Ireland were revisited by pestilence, A.D. 679, beginning in the month of July, and continuing until the end of September. Rome suffered from similar ravages the following year, and in A.D. 683, England again suffered from severe epidemic disease, which lasted three years. A.D. 685, Syria and Libya were laid waste by disease. Ireland suffered from a severe epidemic the same year.
From a singular portion of history which has been preserved in the records of the church of Mayo, we find that the ‘ignis sacer,’ or pestilence originating from famine, was similar to and contemporary with the pestilence ‘man-cyalm,’ which raged among the British after the departure of the Romans from Britain (664).
According to the records, two kings of Erin summoned the principal clergy and laity to a council at Temora, in consequence of a general dearth, the land not being sufficient to support the increasing population. The chiefs (majores populi) decreed that a fast should be observed both by clergy and laity, so that they might with one accord solicit God in prayer to remove by some species of pestilence the burthensome multitudes of the inferior people, and thus enable the residue to subsist more commodiously. “Omnes majores petebant ut nimia multitudo vulgi per infirmitatem aliquam tolleretur, quia numerositas populi erat occasio famis.” St. Gerald and his associates suggested that it would be more conformable to the Divine Nature, and not more difficult, to multiply the fruits of the earth, than to destroy its inhabitants. An amendment was accordingly moved, “to supplicate the Almighty not to reduce the number of the men till it answered the quantity of corn usually produced, but to increase the produce of the land, so that it might satisfy the wants of the people.” However, the nobles and clergy, headed by St. Fechin, bore down the opposition, and called for a pestilence on the lower orders of the people. According to the records, God’s judgment immediately fell upon the wicked authors of the petition. The two kings who had summoned the convention with St. Fechin, the kings of Ulster and Munster, and a third of the nobles concerned, were cut off by the pestilence—‘Budhe connail,’ which was by some called ‘pestis flava,’ by others ‘infirmitas icteritia.’
A.D. 685, there happened an eruption of Vesuvius.
In the year of our Lord 690, rains deluged Italy: six years after, 696, pestilence prevailed in Constantinople, and during the years 703 and 713, Scotland also suffered from epidemic pestilence. Small-pox caused great mortality in Spain, A.D. 714.
A.D. 717, 30,000 persons were carried off at Constantinople by pestilence: it again appeared in the years 724 and 729. In the year 732 great numbers perished from pestilential disease at Norwich in England, and also in Syria.
A.D. 740, the world was again visited by dismal pestilence, which continued, with varied intensity, for 260 years, until the year 1000. During this period, 749, an earthquake destroyed many cities in Syria. Among the many writers on the subject, Baronius, P. Diaconus, Cedrenus, and Magdenburgh, make mention of an epidemic pestilence which raged in Calabria, in Naples, also in Constantinople; in which latter place the mortality was so great, that the living were unable to bury their dead, cart-loads being huddled together into a vast common excavation of the earth, while great numbers were left unburied. Short mentions the prevalence of a fatal pestilence in Wales, A.D. 762, which afterwards extended all over England, continuing until 771. In Chichester alone it is stated that 34,000 persons perished. Pestilence raged in France A.D. 779, and invaded Scotland 784. Lancisius and Bartianus in their Annals relate the occurrence of disease in various parts of the world, which destroyed immense numbers of cattle, especially in Germany, where the mortality was great among the horned tribe. A.D. 801, St. Paul’s at Rome was thrown down in the month of April; and in France, Germany, and in various parts of Italy also, a severe earthquake was experienced. So intensely cold was it in A.D. 806, that the Rhone was frozen over: the cold was from 18 to 20 degrees centigrade below zero. Lancisius and Bartianus also give an account of a pestilence that arose from excessive rains and cold damp weather, A.D. 817 and 820, and prevailed through all the dominions of Gaul. The crops failed from excess of moisture, and famine ensued. The following winter was very severe: the Rhine and the Danube continued one solid body of ice for thirty days, and epidemic pestilence ensued in the spring, which persisted all the summer and autumn. The succeeding winter, in 822, was very severe: the snow lay on the ground twenty-nine weeks, and caused great destruction to both men and beasts. A long drought followed in the summer, and pestilence was the consequence: it was attended with such fatality, that, A.D. 825, it killed almost all the inhabitants in France and Germany.
In the year 853, epidemic pestilence broke out in Scotland: two years after, earthquakes and violent tempests were experienced; and in A.D. 856 there occurred an earthquake and a tremendous inundation of the Tiber, which were succeeded by severe epidemic sore throats, anginas, &c., as recorded by Baronius, Murator, Short, and Magdenburgh. A.D. 859, the Mediterranean was so frozen over, that carriages were driven on the Adriatic Sea. In 863, epidemic pestilence ravaged Scotland; and in the year 874, myriads of grasshoppers or locusts, of an immense size, with six feet and two teeth as hard as flint, overspread Gaul. They devoured every green thing, and were afterwards driven into the British Channel by a strong east wind; their dead bodies were washed on shore, where they putrefied, and therefore were supposed to have caused the epidemic pestilence, which destroyed a third part of the maritime inhabitants of Gaul. In 883, famine and pestilence afflicted Italy, and the year following, pestilential disease raged at Oxford, which also affected the cattle, destroying great numbers. Soon after this period, when Alfred the Great had just finished the rebuilding of London, which had been burnt and destroyed by the Danes, a plague occurred which raged throughout the land for three years, carrying off many great men and ministers of state, as well as others. About the same time, A.D. 896, a mortal famine and pestilence, from intemperate seasons, happened in Gaul, Germany, Italy, and various other places in Europe. The frost, twelve years afterwards, A.D. 908, was so severe, that most of the rivers in England were frozen over. A.D. 912, a great part of London was again destroyed by fire. A.D. 922, a pestilential fever was prevalent, and very fatal in Scotland.
A.D. 929, the winter was severe. The Thames was frozen over for thirteen weeks: a dreadful famine and disease followed; and in 937, pestilence arising from great heat and long drought again raged for some time in England.
A.D. 940, epidemic pestilence of severe character appeared in the north of Europe amongst the cattle, being fatal to numbers. This murrain amongst the cattle was followed by disease in man, from which in Scotland alone 40,000 persons perished. In the year 964, the emperor Otho’s army was almost entirely destroyed by pestilence. A malignant fever or plague prevailed in London in 965, and a grievous famine happened, in 976, in London, and also in Italy. In the year 981, great mortality prevailed amongst the Lacedemonians; and six years after, 987, England suffered from malignant fevers, which destroyed many of its inhabitants, whilst a sort of flux caused great mortality among the cattle. A.D. 993, there was an eruption of Vesuvius. In 997, burning fevers and agues were fatal in England; and in the year 1005, pestilence, in the shape of the true plague, began and continued for three years in various parts of the globe, more than half the human race perishing therefrom. Thousands died from famine in Italy. A.D. 1007, another eruption of Vesuvius.
Notwithstanding the great length of the pestilential period (260 years) just noticed, in A.D. 1009, the earth became deluged with rains and pestilence, which began among the Saxons. In the years 1012, 1019, 1020, 1021, and 1024, dreadful pestilential seasons followed. A.D. 1017, it rained the colour of blood in Aquitaine for the space of three days.
In the year 1025, the summer was wet and cold, and pestilence raged in England and in other parts of Europe.
A.D. 1027, an extraordinary convulsive disease—which was called ‘the dance of St. John or St. Vitus,’ on account of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild dance and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed,—first showed itself in some persons near the convent church of Kolbig, not far from Bernburg. According to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas eve, by dancing and brawling in the churchyard; whereupon the priest Ruprecht inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is said to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sunk knee-deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until they were finally released by the intercession of two pious bishops. It is said, that upon this they fell into a deep sleep, which lasted three days, and that four of them died, the rest continuing to suffer all their lives from a trembling of their limbs. This tradition, divested of the embellishments of crafty priesthood, will show the disease to have been what we now call Chorea or St. Vitus’ dance.
A.D. 1029 and 1031, epidemic pestilence again pervaded Europe, especially England and Gaul, after tempestuous seasons, devastations of locusts, meteors, eruptions of volcanoes, comets, intolerable vicissitudes of the weather, and famine had caused great havoc.
A.D. 1033, a pestilence infested England; and two years afterwards, 1035, in the month of June, so intense was the cold that all the corn and fruits were destroyed. There was another eruption of Vesuvius the year following. A.D. 1042, it snowed heavily during harvest-time; it rained excessively throughout the year in many parts of Europe; the sea overwhelmed Flanders, and a terrible commotion of the elements was the precursor of famine and pestilence in England, Gaul, Germany, &c.; cattle and men were equally destroyed. The following year, 1043, there was another eruption of Vesuvius, and also one in A.D. 1048. A.D. 1063 the river Thames was frozen over for fourteen weeks. Pestilential diseases, such as fluxes, pleurisies, fevers, &c., carried off many hundred thousands of Saracens marching to invade Rome in the year 1064: this pestilential epidemic continued until 1066. A.D. 1067, leprosy being on the increase in Spain, lazar-houses for the lepers were first established at Valencia by Ruy Diaz de Villar, which were called ‘Cid Cunpandor.’ About this period an awful plague swept away a great part of the inhabitants of Egypt and Arabia. The following year, 1068, a great pestilence raged in York and Durham (in England), and a terrible plague devastated Constantinople. A.D. 1075, so intense was the cold this year that the Thames was frozen over from the month of November until April the following year, 1076; with the exception of a very few days, there was scarcely any thaw during all this period. A.D. 1077, London was nearly destroyed by fire. About this period, and two years after, famine, pestilence, and locusts made great havoc in Italy, Russia, Flanders, and in England.
In the years 1087–88 and 1089, very rainy, cold summers and extreme winters were experienced in England, Gaul, and Germany, when pestilence and famine did much mischief in those countries. There were also famine and epidemic disease in Italy. In the latter year, 1089, erysipelas prevailed epidemically in France, causing great mortality. A.D. 1090, a terrible earthquake was felt throughout England, which was followed by a great scarcity of fruit and a late, unproductive harvest. The year following, a severe storm was felt in several parts of England; the wind was at south-west, especially at Winchelscomb, Gloucestershire, where the steeple of the church was thrown down; there was much thunder and lightning; the crucifix with the image of the Virgin was broken in pieces. On the 5th of October, during the storm a thick mist for several hours darkened the sky. A few days after, on the 17th, a thunder-storm from the south-west destroyed upwards of 500 houses in London: it unroofed Bow church; and at Old Sarum the steeple was struck down, with many dwelling-houses.
A.D. 1093, a tremendous inundation occurred in Syria, by which prodigious numbers of the inhabitants and cattle, such as oxen and horses, were destroyed. A.D. 1096–97, 1100, 1103–4, and 1105, pestilence and famine happened from unhealthy seasons; there occurred excessive rains, terrible inundations, severe winters, inclement summers, variable autumns, multitudes of worms (papiliones), and violent hurricanes in England, Palestine, and Holland, in which latter place 100,000 persons were drowned by the inroads of the sea. It was during this period, A.D. 1100, that the lands of Godwin, earl of Kent, to this day called the ‘Goodwin Sands,’ were inundated. 1104, a comet was seen. The disease which prevailed in England was an erysipelatous epidemic fever, in which the limbs of the sick were discovered to be thickly beset with black and livid spots, like carbuncles in the plague. Two years after, fevers, fluxes, &c., were rife, and pestilence continued to prevail in various parts of Europe in the years 1108–9, 1110–11. There appeared a comet in the years 1107 and 1110. A.D. 1113, the water of the Medway failed so greatly, that the smallest boats could not float in its channel. The Thames about the same period was so low between the Tower and London Bridge that women and children waded over. Owing to so great an ebb of the ocean, the sands were laid bare for a whole day for several miles from the shore: pestilence ravaged Judea. A.D. 1116, severe earthquakes were experienced in the month of December in various parts of England, especially in Shropshire. Two years previously, 1114, several bridges, being built of wood, were broken down in England by the ice, when it thawed after the severe frost.
From the year 1120, a pestilential period equal in intensity and destructiveness to that between the years 740 and 1000 (a period of 260 years), preceded by famine, murrain, &c., commenced, and continued to ravage various parts of the globe until 1392 (272 years), a brief notice of which, taken from the chronicles, will show its extent and fatality.
From A.D. 1120 unto 1125, erysipelas raged epidemically with great mortality in England, and it has been computed that, by it, a third of the population perished in those years. A.D. 1126–27 and 1128 a destructive pestilence again prevailed in England. A.D. 1130, a severe earthquake was felt in Shropshire in the month of September. A.D. 1133, the Po was frozen over from Cremona to the sea, and the year after, 1134, an earthquake occurred, just as King Henry was about to embark for Normandy, when flames of fire burst out of certain rifts of the earth with great violence. On the 2nd of August there was an eruption of Vesuvius, A.D. 1136, and the year following, a severe earthquake swallowed up the city of Catania, with more than 15,000 of the inhabitants. Dismal pestilence occurred again in England, lasting twelve years, from 1133 unto 1146; famine also added to the miseries of the inhabitants, and much cattle were destroyed by murrain, and for want of provender.
From the year 1150 to 1169 severe winters and dry summers were experienced; there were frequent inundations and earthquakes; and famine and pestilence swept the world, especially Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Gaul, Sicily, Judea, Asia, and Africa. A.D. 1164, there was a great inundation in Friesland, which covered nearly the whole country, and destroyed vast numbers of the inhabitants. A.D. 1167, Henry II.’s palace in Dublin, at which he spent his Christmas, was built of wattles, with a straw roof, and the sides formed of clay. A.D. 1172, great mortality from dysentery was experienced in England; and two years after, small-pox, measles, epidemic catarrh, scarlet fever, quinsies, and pleurisies were greatly prevalent: similar maladies were rife in various other parts of the world from 1175 to 1193. A.D. 1179, about Christmas, at a place called Oxen-hall, near Darlington, in the bishopric of Durham, the earth raised itself up like a lofty tower, and thus remained for several hours, when on a sudden it sunk down again with a horrid noise, and formed a deep pit, which continues until this day: it is supposed that the wells that are now called Hell-kettles were formed by this convulsion of nature. A.D. 1183 and following years, a severe pestilence scourged England, and the plague raged at Rome. A.D. 1185, an earthquake overthrew the church at Lincoln; at the same time other places in the neighbourhood suffered from the shock. Castile, and principally the city of Leon, suffered from a most cruel plague which spared neither sex nor grade, visiting palaces as well as the hovels of the poor. Many of the bishops were carried off.
A.D. 1190. The old chronicler Geoffrey de Vinsauf describes a terrible famine and pestilence that happened in 1190, “in the army of the Crusaders at the siege of Acre, owing to the villany of the Marquis of Montferrat, the governor of Tyre, who not only refused to supply the soldiers with food, but would not either allow of the townsfolk to send them provisions.” So great was the famine and the scarcity, that “a moderate measure of wheat which a man could carry under his arm was sold for 100 aurei, a chicken for twelve sols, and an egg for six deniers. The men were reduced to feed on their horses, which they were compelled to kill, not even the entrails being rejected. Men of high rank and the sons of great men fed upon grass even; and herbs such as they once despised and believed not fit for human use, the greatness of the famine made now most sweet to the starving. The public ovens were constantly occupied by men fighting for the bread, and noblemen, suffering from the pangs of hunger, became thieves and stole the loaves from the bakers’ shops.” To add to their misery, heavy rains fell, and pestilence broke out amongst them, so that a thousand deaths happened daily. De Vinsauf says, “The unusual showers, by their constant and continuous fall, had such an injurious effect upon the soldiers, that, with the excess of the affliction, their limbs becoming swollen, the whole body was affected as with the dropsy, and from the violence of the disease the teeth of some of them were loosened and fell out.” But few of those attacked recovered. Every section of this old work, descriptive of this pestilence, ends with a fierce imprecation on the Marquis for his desertion and perfidy.
A.D. 1193 and 1194, there was a famine in Italy, and pestilence swept England, continuing till 1196. “The common people perished in every quarter for lack of food, and the fiercest pestilence followed, in the form of acute fever, which destroyed such numbers that scarcely any were left to minister unto the sick; the customary funeral service ceased, and in many places large ditches were made, into which the dead were thrown.”—(Chron. W. Humford, vol. ii. p. 546–7.) There was, A.D. 1196, a great famine and plague in the principality of Catalonia, and 1199, pestilential fever raged at Cordova, in which the celebrated physician Averrhoes observed that every patient who was bled before purging invariably died.
England again suffered severely from epidemic pestilence in the year 1200, and also in the following year. A.D. 1205, a severe frost was experienced in England from the 14th of January unto the 22nd of March.
A.D. 1206, on the last day of the month of February, there was an eclipse of the sun, which lasted six hours—the darkness was as great as at midnight. This phenomenon was followed by abundant and continued rains, inundations, and severe epidemic pestilence in Spain.
The years 1210–1213, 1217, 1218, and 1220, were marked by ordinary seasons, except in Spain, Italy, and Friesland. In the former place, Spain, 1217, the drought was so great as not only to destroy the harvests, but the pasture had the appearance of having been burnt up; famine was the consequence, with disease both in men and cattle. In Italy the plague, it is said, scarcely left a tenth part of the inhabitants alive, and in Damietta it is asserted that only three persons out of 70,000 survived. In Friesland, A.D. 1218, there was an inundation which destroyed cattle, houses, and many persons. In 1221, excessive rains, floods, frosts, and inclement heats induced a famine and pestilence, which almost desolated the whole of Europe; in some countries, the living were exhausted burying the dead, and in some cities scarcely a person survived the terrible destruction.
A.D. 1222, there was a severe thunder-storm in England with lightning, which destroyed several churches; the summer was excessively dry; frost and deep snow in April had destroyed the blossoms of the fruits; the country was deluged with rains in autumn, and swept with tempestuous winds; and the plague raged with uncontrollable fury in Germany, Hungary, Gaul, Egypt, and other countries: the animals also suffered from disease. The winter of 1225 was rigorous, following the great drought. In 1224 a dearth ensued, and there was a great mortality among sheep.
A.D. 1228, abundant rains, followed by a hot summer, the subsequent winter being a severe one, induced fatal disease, and an inundation at Friesland destroyed 100,000 persons.
The inundation of the Tiber, which happened A.D. 1230, drowned all the lower city of Rome, the river rising even to the stairs of St. Peter’s church: July and August following were exceedingly hot; famine ensued, and afterwards pestilence commenced and continued until A.D. 1235. England suffered also from pestilence, which decimated the population; in that year 20,000 persons, it is supposed, died of starvation alone in London. About this period, leprosy became so common in England that it was made the subject of several legislative enactments.
During this year, 1230, when King Don Jayme seized on the island of Mallorca, a frightful and lethal pestilence prevailed not only among the poor and wretched, but also among the higher orders; in the course of only one month, several nobles and individuals of the first families of Aragon and Catalonia died. The desolation which this dire pestilence caused was such that it almost depopulated the island, and forced the king to send galleys to Catalonia in search of colonists, he having given an order to Don Pedro Cornel for 100,000 reals to bring from Aragon 150 gentry,—caballeros or nobles. This pestilence increased with another no less fatal disease, viz., ‘the Sacred Persian or St. Anthony’s fire;’ so that this great monarch, anxious for the safety of his people, established in the island, by his mandate of 13th September of the same year, the hospital of St. Anthony for the reception and treatment of all suffering from so terrible a malady, as appears in the history of the kingdom of Mallorca written by the chronicler or historian Don Vincente Mut. In imitation of this establishment, and of that founded in Castro Xerez in 1214, other hospitals were erected for the same purposes in Madrid, Saragossa, and in various other provinces of the kingdom. Twenty-three years after, another hospital, called after St. Lazarus, was established in the city of Seville, similar to that which was built in the city of Valencia in the year 1067. The Annals of Seville, written by Zurita and Don Alonso Melgado, state that this hospital was founded by King Alonso the Wise. About this time, 1230, Denmark, Italy, and Gaul were visited by a severe epidemic pestilence, as also were various other parts of Europe; it continued until 1236.
A.D. 1233 it thundered and lightened for thirteen days, with heavy rains, which destroyed all vegetation in England, when famine and disease were the consequences. At this time most of the houses in London were built of wood and wattles, and thatched with straw; the windows were without glass, and there were neither chimneys nor boarded floors; common straw was used for the king’s bed. The Mediterranean was frozen over; loaded waggons also crossed the Adriatic in front of Venice. A.D. 1234 and the year following, 1235, the Thames rose so high at Westminster, that the lawyers and other members of the court were brought out of the Hall in boats. A.D. 1237, the dancing disease, similar to that which was rife A.D. 1027 at Kolbig, broke out amongst upwards of 100 children at Erfurt; they were said to have been suddenly seized with this singular malady, and to have proceeded dancing and jumping along the road to Armstadt; when they arrived at that place they fell exhausted to the ground, and, according to the account of an old chronicle, many of them died, after they were taken home by their parents, and the rest remained afflicted to the end of their lives with a permanent tremor. The years 1238 and 1239 were also destructive years in Europe.
A.D. 1240, the fish died on the coast of England; inclement seasons prevailed, and pestilence appeared in various parts of that country. Two years after, A.D. 1242, excessive rains swelled the river Thames, and inundated the country round about Lambeth on the Surrey side. The year following was remarkable for the appearance of meteors and drought; deadly pestilence prevailed in various parts of England. A.D. 1247, pestilence again occurred in England; it broke out in the month of September. A.D. 1249, an earthquake threw down St. Michael’s on the Hill without Glastonbury; a severe shock was felt also about the same period in Somersetshire.
In the same year, 1249, a dreadful pestilence ravaged the armies of St. Louis the Crusader, caused, says Joinville, his historian, by the decomposition of the dead bodies of those who had been slain in two great battles fought a few days previously. They had been thrown into the river by the Saracens, and when they floated, were arrested by the low bridge, which was the means of communication between the two divisions of the French troops. The river was covered with them from bank to bank, so that the water could not be seen a good stone’s-throw from the bridge upwards. The pious king caused the bodies of the Christians to be removed from the river and buried in deep graves; those of the Saracens were thrust under the arch of the bridge, and floated down to the sea. This occurred during Lent, and all that time, being obliged by their creed to live on fish, the soldiers could get no other than eelpouts,—a gluttonous fish, which fed on the dead bodies. The disease which broke out among them, Joinville says, dried up the flesh on their legs to the bone, and the skin became tanned as black as the ground, or like an old boot that has long lain behind a coffer (evidently a kind of dry gangrene). In addition to this miserable disorder, those affected by it had another sore complaint in the mouth, from eating such fish, that rotted the gums, and caused a most stinking breath: very few escaped death that were thus attacked; and the surest symptom of its being fatal was a bleeding at the nose; when that took place, none recovered. Starvation was soon added to their miseries, for the enemy was enabled so to blockade them, that the provision-boats could not reach them. The disorder so increased in the army, that the barbers were forced to cut away very large pieces of flesh from the gums to enable their patients to eat. The mortality was very great indeed, but what number thus perished miserably is not mentioned by Joinville.
In the year 1250 the summer was rainy and tempestuous, and a hard winter followed. The old town of Winchelsea was swallowed up by the sea, and an earthquake was felt at St. Albans, that did much damage. The summer of 1251 was intolerably hot; there was a famine in Italy, and epidemic pestilence traversed all England, and was attended with great mortality; a thunder-storm occurred, during which the chimney of the chamber where the queen and her children lay at Windsor was struck down, and the whole apartment violently shaken; large oaks in the park were torn up by the roots: the lightning was so terrible as to surpass any that had occurred in the memory of man. A.D. 1252, the late frost in spring, succeeding drought, destroyed the vegetation; there were heavy rains in July; at Michaelmas the plague began to rage in London, and pervaded all England, continuing until August in the following year, thus affording an instance of this disease beginning in autumn, running through the winter, and terminating in the summer. The winter of 1254 was severely cold; a murrain appeared among sheep, and a mortal disease among horses called ‘the evil of the tongue.’
A.D. 1255–56 and 1258, the tides rose uncommonly high; a comet was observed in 1256; the rivers swelled with excessive rains, tempests levelled buildings, the summers were wet, the crops failed by the destroying power of the elements, and dearth, famine, and pestilence caused great havoc amongst the inhabitants of England; 15,000 persons perished in London alone from hunger. “The inundations in autumn,” says M’Culloch, “destroyed the crops; fatal fevers prevailed, principal in the summer, during the dog-days, when to one cemetery alone, that of St. Edward’s, 2000 bodies were carried.” Long droughts succeeded, and the mortality continued until 1257. A.D. 1264, a murrain destroyed much cattle in England, especially horses; and in A.D. 1266, swarms of the palmer-worms destroyed all vegetation in Scotland. In 1269, excessive seasons existed; pestilence destroyed the Crusaders on their march to the Holy Land, and the French king and his son perished by it. A.D. 1274, a grievous rot broke out amongst the sheep, which persisted for twenty-five or twenty-eight years, destroying almost all the sheep in England. From the year 1277 to that of 1340 similar seasons, inundations, famines, and pestilence reigned at different times and in different places, among the inhabitants of Britain, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Prussia, Zealand, Egypt, Germany, Bohemia, Spain, &c.
A.D. 1278. In the month of June, this year, the dancing mania again occurred on the Mosel Bridge at Utrecht, when 200 fanatics began to dance, and would not desist until a priest passed who was carrying the host to a person who was sick, upon which, as if in punishment of their crime, the bridge gave way, and they were all drowned.
A.D. 1283, King Philip of France invaded Spain with an army consisting of 200,000 infantry and 8600 cavalry; when at Gerona, this army suffered from pestilence, 4000 being carried off by it. Innumerable swarms of flies, said to be as big as acorns, were generated, and attacked both men and horses, numbers of whom were killed by their poison. This pestilential season was attributed to a miracle wrought by St. Narcissus.
According to the veterinary surgeons Martin Arrendondo and Fernando Calvo, in the introduction to the Commentaries of the celebrated Francisco de la Reyna, mention is made of an epizootic of great severity, which occurred in one of the cities of the kingdom of Seville, A.D. 1301, by which there died more than 1000 horses. The above-mentioned authors derive their information from a paragraph of Laurenciscus Rasius, in his work entitled ‘Hippiatria or Marescalia,’ in which, when speaking of the diseases of horses, he thus writes: “Dicta autem infirmitas (febris) epidemialis est, et ex ipsa anno CCCI. fuerunt in urbe mortui plusquam mille.”
A.D. 1285, a severe thunder-storm was experienced in various parts of England: as the king and queen were holding converse in their bed-room, a flash of lightning passed by them, doing them no injury; but it struck and killed two of their attendants who were in an ante-room. It was about this period that water was conveyed to London by means of leaden pipes after fifty years’ labour. Severe dysentery prevailed in various parts of the kingdom, as also an epidemic, simulating the influenza of the present day, complicated with typhoid symptoms, which persisted for upwards of ten years. A.D. 1299, a comet was seen. The seasons for three years were inhospitable; severe catarrhs with fluxes pervaded England.
A.D. 1302, great drought prevailed in Spain similar to those which had occurred for centuries past; famine ensued, when pestilence raged with great violence, carrying off thousands in various parts of the country.
A.D. 1307–8, 1309, and 1310, intemperate seasons were experienced, and famine was the consequence, more especially in England, Ireland, and Scotland, with great mortality in the latter country. It was about this period that coals were first brought into use in England. Various parts of London, as shown by Stow, were in a filthy condition, which, with the mode of living, and the disgusting habits of the inhabitants, gave ample cause for the outbreak of pestilence. Fleet ditch was “of such breadth and depth,” so says Stow, “that ten or twelve ships’ navies at once, with merchandise, were wont to come to the bridge Fleete; for some time this canal had been neglected, and became an intolerable nuisance in a variety of ways.” It was not until 1733 that it was arched over, when the Fleet Market was built on it. Pope denounces the filthy condition of Fleet ditch in the following lines of his ‘Dunciad:’
A.D. 1316, a peculiar disease prevailed in England,—fever, with severe dysentery, which raged with an intensity and mortality equal to the true plague: scarcity amounting to famine was experienced at the same time, wheat selling at 45s. per quarter, equal in those days to £30 sterling of our money. A.D. 1327, a comet was seen; the year following, an earthquake, the greatest ever felt in England, occurred on the 14th of November.
A.D. 1330, the weather was so tempestuous in England, and the rains fell so heavily, that the harvest did not begin until Michaelmas. A storm from the westward overthrew several houses and did much damage, tearing up forest trees of immense size by the roots. Five years after, 1335, there was a grievous famine in England, which was succeeded by pestilence, and attended with great mortality.