The King and his Bishops sent out orders for churchmen to lead processions, pleading with God to end the pestilence. Some people made candles their own height and lit them in church as an offering to God. IN Barcelona the citizens tried to protect themselves by making a candle seven kilometres long- enough to encircle the whole city.
There were many different ways in which the people caused the BLACK DEATH:
- Common-sense reasons (smells in the air from toilets etc)
- The body’s humours being out of balance.
- The movement of the sun and the planets.
- God and the Devil.
- Invisible fumes or poisons in the air.
For example:
Here are two sources in which separate people talk about the way in which they believe caused the Black Death:
A Swedish Bishop called John Jacobus, who believed that God was the one to blame for the pestilence, wrote source 1 in the 1360’s. And a French doctor wrote Source 2 in 1349 claiming that invisible fumes in the air caused the pestilence.
Source 1
“Terrible is God towards the sons of men. He often allows plagues, conflicts, wars and other forms of suffering to arise, and uses them to terrify and torment men and so drive out their sins. And thus, indeed, the realm of England, because of the growing pride and corruption of its subjects, and their numerous sins, is to be oppressed by the pestilence.”
Source 2
“This epidemic kills instantly, as soon as the airy spirit leaving the eyes of the sick man has struck the eyes of a healthy bystander looking at him, for then the poisonous nature passes from one eye to the other.”
Public Health
As towns and cities began to reappear there was none of the central organisation or willingness by the wealthy to provide sewerage, like that seen in the time of the Romans. Only really the monasteries made much effort to provide clean running water and effective toilets. Even the wealthy in the towns had to rely on in adequate cesspits and adjacent wells, or watercourses that were little more than open sewers. Those without a cesspit frequently disposed of waste into the street in the hope that it would wash away.
It is little wonder that people found it healthier to drink wine and beer or by water brought in on pack animals from outside the towns. Most wealthy houses and monasteries brewed their own beer, providing large quantities of low alcohol “small beer” for servants. The brewing process involves boiling, which sterilises the beer.
Some town corporations (councils) tried to regulate against the most gross practices. Without real understanding of the risks there was little will and less financial support to do anything effective. Plague and epidemics led to some effects being made, but usually too late.
Medieval doctors and surgeons might have followed Greek and Roman practice, but alas, the same wasn’t true of their governments. Medieval towns were filthy, but in most cases nothing was done about it.
Christianity and Islam – Did it help or hinder?
Christianity was the religion of the Roman Empire. Surprisingly it did not decline when the Roman Empire feel apart. Instead it grew stronger.
The Christian church taught that it was part of people’s religious duty to car for the sick. But until about 1200 it did little to help in the study of medicine.
St. Bernard, founder of the Cistercian Monasteries in the 12th century said
“To buy drugs or consult with physicians doesn’t fit with religion.”
Faith, prayer, and the help of the saints seemed much more likely to be effective. So there was hardly any organised study of medicine or training of doctors in Christian Europe until about 1200.
This lack of doctors was probably not very important for most ordinary people. They continued to rely on traditional charms and herbs, and to care within the family or the village as they always had done.
After AD 1200 universities were founded and the regular training of doctors began.
The best places to study were at the Islamic universities in Spain, and the best books to study available were the Arabic books of the Islamic doctors. These including the Arabic Hippocrates were now re-translated into Latin.
Islam encouraged its believers to care for the sick, to build hospitals and to study medicine.
The Islamic writers were full of admiration for the Greeks. They Translated Hippocrates and Galen into Arabic, and followed their ideas closely. Islam taught that there was only one God who made and controlled the world. Galens idea that each part of the body had its own purpose fitted well with this. It meant that the doctors following Galens ideas were explaining the purposes of God.
Islamic law forbade dissection of the human body. So they could not make major criticisms of the ideas of Galen.
All kinds of religious beliefs have affected the history of medicine and health, even today many people would think that belief in spirits or magic is simply superstition.
What doctors knew
A medieval doctor might believe in many of the explanations of disease; some might also blame worms. A doctor would be trained to base his treatments on the theory of the four humours. He would examine the patient’s urine and check its colour against a chart to help diagnose the illness. He may also have used Astrology to work out the position of the planets before deciding the best treatment. Every doctor would be given a table of the position of the planets. The moon, in particular, was believed to have a great affect on the humours in the body and so the doctor had to know the moon’s position before, for example, bleeding the patient. Bleeding was one of the most common treatments because doctors believed wholeheartedly in the importance of keeping the body’s humours in balance.
Woman healers
By about 1100 medical schools began to appear in Western Europe, which taught both men and women and had some women professors. But women were mostly known for being healers rather than doctors.
There were 5 women healers in all:
- Apothecary – An Apothecary sold and mixed medicines that had been prescribed by physicians.
They were not supposed to treat the sick or prescribe medicines but many did so, especially for the poor, for a small fee.
- Mother of the family – The mother of the family was the first person to treat the sick in the family.
- Wise woman – In every village and town there were wise women and local people trusted because of their deep knowledge of herbs and other treatments which had often been passed down through generations. However, if a treatment went wrong then the wise woman could suddenly be accused of being a witch.
- Midwife – Midwives were licensed by the local bishop to supervise the last week of a pregnancy and deliver babies. However, if there were complications, the midwife handed her patient over to a physician.
- Lady of the manor – Girls from wealthy families were expected to learn how to treat illnesses and common injuries.
Books were written especially to give advice on these subjects to ladies of the manor, and some read medical textbooks.
Ladies treated people in their village and local farms as well as their own families and servants.
The influence of wise women herbalists on the apothecaries led the Apothecaries’ guild to admit women. This ancient connection was used much later by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson to allow women back into medicine.
In the middle ages the church allowed only men to train as physicians.
In the 1600’s the church also took over the increasing of all healers. It did not give licenses to wise women or village healers because they were often suspected of being witches. Women were barred from going to university and so could not get a degree to become surgeons. Despite these obstacles a handful of women fought for the right to become doctors.
Hospitals
The Christian church taught that it was part of people’s religious duty to care for the sick, but it was not until the 1100’s that it actually took many practical measures to encourage this teaching. In the eleventh century the church started to open up medical schools where the ideas of Galen were taught. It also set up hospitals run by nuns and monks.
These were not hospitals as we understand them today. Out of the 1200 medieval hospitals identified in England and Wales, only around 10% of the, actually cared for the sick. The others were called hospitals because they provided ‘hospitality’ for visitors.
Most of the hospitals in England and Wales, which did care for the sick, were founded in the 1100’s and 1200’s.
Some hospitals specialised in certain kinds of patients. Such as ‘un married pregnant women’, ‘poor and silly persons’ and ‘the blind, deaf and mute’.