The Black Death in the Fourteenth CenturyHecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl)
History
The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century
Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl)
Black Death
In Germany there was a repetition in every respect of the same
phenomena. The infallible signs of the oriental bubo-plague with
its inevitable contagion were found there as everywhere else; but the
mortality was not nearly so great as in the other parts of Europe.[13]
The accounts do not all make mention of the spitting of blood, the
diagnostic symptom of this fatal pestilence; we are not, however,
thence to conclude that there was any considerable mitigation or
modification of the disease, for we must not only take into account
the defectiveness of the chronicles, but that isolated testimonies are
often contradicted by many others. Thus, the chronicles of Strasburg,
which only take notice of boils and glandular swellings in the axillæ
and groins,[14] are opposed by another account, according to which the
mortal spitting of blood was met with in Germany;[15] but this again is
rendered suspicious, as the narrator postpones the death of those who
were thus affected, to the sixth, and (even the) eighth day, whereas,
no other author sanctions so long a course of the disease; and even in
Strasburg, where a mitigation of the plague may, with most probability,
be assumed, since in the year 1349, only 16,000 people were carried
off, the generality expired by the third or fourth day.[16] In Austria,
and especially in Vienna, the plague was fully as malignant as any
where, so that the patients who had red spots and black boils, as well
as those afflicted with tumid glands, died about the third day;[17]
and lastly, very frequent sudden deaths occurred on the coasts of the
North Sea and in Westphalia, without any further development of the
malady.[18]
[13] Contin. altera Chronici _Guillelmi de Nangis_ in _d’Acher_,
Spicilegium sive Collectio Veterum Scriptorum, &c. Ed. de la _Barre_,
Tom. iii. p. 110.
[14] “The people all died of boils and inflamed glands which appeared
under the arms and in the groins.” _Jac. v. Königshoven_, the oldest
chronicle of Alsace and Strasburg, and indeed of all Germany.
Strasburg, 1698. 4. cap. 5, § 86. p. 301.
[15] _Hainr. Rebdorff_, Annals, _Marq. Freher_. Germanicarum. rerum
Scriptores. Francof, 1624. fol. p. 439.
[16] _Königshoven_, in loc. cit.
[17] Anonym. Leobiens. Chron. L. VI. in _Hier. Pez_, Scriptor.
rer. Austriac. Lips. 1721. fol. Tom. 1, p. 970. The above named
appearances are here called, _rote sprinkel_, _swarcze erhubenn_ und
_druesz under den üchsen und ze den gemächten_.
[18] _Ubb. Emmiie_ rer. Frisiacar. histor. L. XIV. p. 203. Lugd. Bat.
1616. fol.
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