Source 11.3: The Black Death in Byzantium

In 1347, the plague struck Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, and quickly touched the royal family, as the young son of Emperor John VI and Empress Irene perished from the disease. Eight years later, the emperor abdicated his throne, retiring to a monastery, where he wrote a history of the Byzantine Empire. That work contained a description of the plague as it arrived in Constantinople.

Questions to consider as you examine the source:

Emperor John VI of Byzantium

Historarum, Mid to Late Fourteenth Century

Upon arrival in Byzantium, she [the empress Irene] found Andronikos, the youngest born, dead from the invading plague. . . . [It has] spread throughout almost the entire world.

So incurable was the evil that neither any regularity of life, nor any bodily strength could resist it. Strong and weak bodies were all similarly carried away and those best cared for died in the same manner as the poor. . . . Neither did the disease take the same course in all persons.

Great abscesses were formed on the legs or the arms, from which, when cut, a large quantity of foul-smelling pus flowed. . . . Even many who were seized by all the symptoms unexpectedly recovered. There was no help from anywhere; if someone brought to another a remedy useful to himself, this became poison to the other patient. Some, by treating others, became infected with the disease.

It caused great destruction and many homes were deserted by their inhabitants. Domestic animals died together with their masters. Most terrible was the discouragement. Whenever people felt sick there was hope left for recovery, but by turning to despair, adding to their prostration and severely aggravating their sickness, they died at once.

No words could express the nature of the disease. All that can be pointed out is that it had nothing in common with the everyday evils to which the nature of man is subject, but was something else sent by God to restore chastity. Many of the sick turned to better things in their minds, by being chastened, not only those who died, but also those who overcame the disease. They abstained from all vice during that time and they lived virtuously; many divided their property among the poor, even before they were attacked by the disease. If he ever felt himself seized, no one was so ruthless as not to show repentance of his faults and to appear before the judgment seat of God with the best chance of salvation, not believing that the soul was incurable or unhealed.

Many died in Byzantium then, and the king’s son, Andronikos, was attacked and died the third day.

Source: Christos S. Bartsocas, “Two Fourteenth-Century Descriptions of the ‘Black Death,’” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences by YALE UNIVERSITY. Reproduced with permission of OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS in the format reuse in a book/e-book via Copyright Clearance Center.