The Black Plague – Will History Repeat Itself?

by Jack Lee

Since the 1980’s AIDS has swept over much of Africa, reducing entire villages to nothing but a memory. 1.2 million Africans have died and another 24.4 million are believe to be infected with HIV and/or AIDS. This one disease has changed the future of life on this continent forever. Is it then so far fetched to imagine that history could repeat itself, in a time when science and politics fail us and another plague-like event or even a man caused disaster could wreak global havoc on us in the not too distant future?

Near the middle of the 1300’s the Black Plague swept over Europe and killed almost 25 million people, that is nearly 50% of everyone living in Europe and this disease did it in just short five years.

Giovanni Boccaccio, author of The Decameron wrote, “Imagine waking up one morning and hearing your brother or sister complain of a headache. By the end of the week, you are the only one in your family left alive. Even worse, you are the only one of a very few in your town left alive.”

The black plague took three forms: the most common bubonic plague, which killed in an average of five to seven days; the pneumonic plague, which attacked the lungs and also killed in less than a week; and septicemic plague, which entered the bloodstream and could kill in less than a day.

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Boccaccio wrote: “Such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs.”

There are very few watershed moments in all of human history where everything that existed before and everything that existed after was defined by a single event, but the plague was surely one of them.

The causes of the Black Death were not understood at the time and therefore many felt that the plague was a divine judgment, that the wrath of God was falling upon the sinners. From this fear new religions were born and then for others, faith was lost.

The plague brought about the end of many things, including fiefdoms or the manorial system that kept serfs working the land owned by the local royalty. However, after the plague swept through much of the land was left vacant and great farms fell into disrepair. The once lowly surfs found new opportunity in this and they would begin to raise their own crops for profit for the first time as they became the owners of many small farms. To their chagrin, the elite royal families discovered they were without a labor force to feed them and many were forced into farm labor to survive.

Many things changed suddenly because of the plague and surprisingly some things actually got better without so many humans around. Europe had been prone to famines, but after the plague there was an abundance of food crops. People were no longer dependant on just staple crops either, they could raise luxury crops like nuts, grapes and a variety of fruit orchards.

For the previous 1000 years the Catholic church had held a tight grip on religion, but after the plague many began to question church doctrine and sought out their own form religion.

But, life wasn’t all good, becuse some of the Nobles refused to be reduced to doing their own labor and they used their armies to take what they wanted at the point of the sword. And so it went for several hundred years. Many minor wars raged. Looting and pillaging was not uncommon due to the breakdown of structured societies. Yet, somehow mankind endured it all. Those who were left eventually prospered and were better fed than ever before and this led to a higher than normal birth rate which allowed great societies to slowly rebuild. But, so much was lost that could never be replaced.

Many great minds in philosophy, science, politics and religion were suddenly gone. So many gifted poets, writers, composers and artists surely died among those millions taken by plague and with them went so much that could have enriched future lives.

Is another such watershed moment still possible? And if so, by what form would it take? Will it be over a great war fought with weapons of mass destruction or many small wars over a very long time that kills off a large portion of the world’s population? Will a super bug, completely resistant to all known antibiotics be our undoing? Or will we simply run out of natural resources and society as we know it will fall apart?

Nobody knows the answers to when the next mass human die-off might happen or how, we only know that the odds do not favor us, given the many natural risks and all manmade possibilities that exist. Prudence and caution is advised in all that we do, that and pray for a better future because it is by no means assured!

Ab hinc, non in-cautious futuri.