Music:
Member Since: 08/05/2007
Band Website: www.blckdth.com
Band Members: The Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church, Europe's predominant religious institution at the time, and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, Muslims, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity influencing people to "live for the moment", as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). The initial fourteenth-century European event was called the "Great Mortality" by contemporary writers and, with later outbreaks, became known as the "Black Death." It has been popularly thought that the name came from a striking late stage sign of the disease, in which the sufferers' skin would blacken due to subepidermal haemorrhages (purpura), and extremities darken with gangrene (acral necrosis). However, the term most likely refers to the figurative sense of "black" (glum, lugubrious or dreadful).
Influences: Because the Black Death was, according to historical accounts, characterized by buboes (swellings in lymph nodes), like the late nineteenth century Asian Bubonic plague, scientists and historians at the beginning of the twentieth century assumed that the Black Death was an outbreak of the same disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat (Rattus rattus). However, this view has recently been questioned. Nevertheless, compelling descriptions of the clinical disease in literature, including well-researched if second-hand accounts in historical fiction (see Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year), offer compelling description of the recognised disease — which in the context of such an epidemic, could be little else.
Sounds Like: The plague disease, caused by Yersinia pestis, is enzootic in populations of ground rodents in central Asia, but it is not entirely clear where the fourteenth-century pandemic started. The most popular theory places the first cases in the steppes of Central Asia, though some speculate that it originated around northern India. From there it was carried east and west along the Silk Road, by Mongol armies and traders making use of the opportunities of free passage within the Mongol Empire offered by the Pax Mongolica. It was reportedly first introduced to Europe at the trading city of Caffa in the Crimea in 1347. After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Janibeg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. The Genoese traders fled, bringing the plague by ship into Sicily and the south of Europe, whence it spread. Whether or not this hypothesis is accurate, it is clear that several pre-existing conditions such as war, famine and weather contributed to the severity of the Black Death. A devastating civil war in China between the established Chinese population and the Mongol hordes raged between 1205 and 1353. This war disrupted farming and trading patterns, and led to episodes of widespread famine. The so-called "Little Ice Age" had begun at the end of the thirteenth century. The disastrous weather reached a peak in the first half of the fourteenth century with severe results worldwide.
Type of Label: Major
