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The Black Death and the Medieval Family

© Rachelle Hughes

"It did not of itself redirect European history. But neither can the new directions of European history be appreciated without recognition of its role," David Herlihy

The Black Death was, and continues to be, one of the most mysterious disease phenomena in history. From 1332 to 1352 it formed what David Herlihy called an "almost deadly noose" around Europe -- a path of destruction that reshaped history. For the next 200 years it continued to revisit Europe and Asian towns, threatening already dwindling populations -- by the year 1420, Europe's population was barely one-third of what it had been one hundred years before.

The repercussions of a plague, that often decimated entire towns, was far reaching. It is therefore difficult to take on an article about the Black Death. Volumes have already been filled with discussions, controversies, and facts on its cause, effects, and toll on humanity. This article is not meant to be an in-depth study of the Black Death, but instead a discussion of how it affected the social fabric of life, and therefore the family. For it both destroyed and reconstructed society and family life

In order to understand the scope of this deadly disease it is important to understand how quickly and vastly it spread. The plague first showed up during 1338 in a town just south of Lake Balkhash (located in central Asia). During the 1340's it moved southward to India and Westward along ancient trade routes from Far East Mongol lands through Russia. From 1340 - 1345, Mongols in the Russian steppes were dying of the disease. In the winter of 1345/46, Mongols attacked the Genoese colony of Kaffa by lobbing dead plague victims into the city. Most of the city died, but a few Genoese traders escaped to the Mediterranean carrying the stealthy killer. By 1347 the Black Death ravaged Constantinople -- the great trading city of Byzantine. By 1348 Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Italy, Northern Africa, Syria, Egypt and Palestine were infected. And in 1349 the plague was raging through England, the Scottish highlands and eastern Ireland. The plague moved from port to port and then penetrated deep into the European countries. In 1352 it struck Moscow, where it killed the grand duke and the patriarch of the Russian church, and then continued to forge southward to Kiev, only 700 kilometers north of Kaffa (one of the first towns to suffer from the disease). There were few towns, or communities untouched by the effects of the plague. With its far reaching arms plunged into every level of society, it is impossible that the fundamental mores of families that lost parents, children, and relatives in large numbers would have gone untouched by such a devastating destroyer.