00:00The Black Death, Medieval Europe's Worst Party Crasher.
00:07Welcome back to History on the Run.
00:10If you're new here, hit that subscribe button and leave a comment telling me where in the world you are listening from.
00:16Unlike the Black Death, I promise this channel will not wipe out half your family.
00:22At least, not yet.
00:23Today, we are diving headfirst into the most infamous pandemic of the Middle Ages.
00:29The Black Death, spoiler alert.
00:32It is not a Marvel villain, although honestly, it deserved its own movie deal.
00:38Between 1347 and 1351, it wiped out around 50 million people.
00:44That was nearly half of Europe's population.
00:47Imagine flipping a coin to see if your town survives.
00:52Heads, you live.
00:54Tails, you are fertilizer.
00:56To understand how the Black Death caused so much chaos, let us first look at Europe before the disease arrived.
01:04Life was already rough.
01:07Cities were overcrowded.
01:09Streets filled with waste.
01:11And the smell.
01:12Imagine a mix of horse manure, rotting fish, and the faint whiff of despair.
01:18People did not bathe often.
01:20Soap was a luxury.
01:22And deodorant was a medieval fever dream.
01:25Rats thrived in this paradise of filth.
01:29And with them came fleas.
01:31And with fleas came Yersinia pestis.
01:34Medical knowledge was laughable.
01:37Most people thought sickness came from bad air, called miasma, or from angry stars.
01:44Some believed illness was simply punishment from God.
01:47The average doctor's bag had leeches, herbs, and a lot of confidence, but not much else.
01:55The stage was set for disaster.
01:57The Black Death did not appear out of thin air.
02:00Its roots stretched back to Central Asia.
02:03In fact, one of the first major outbreaks we know of happened during a Mongol siege of the trading post of Kaffa in Crimea.
02:13The Mongols, ever resourceful, decided to catapult plague-infected corpses over the city walls.
02:19Yes, you heard that right.
02:22Early biological warfare.
02:2513th century style.
02:28When Genoese merchants fled Kaffa by ship, they carried more than grain and silk.
02:34They carried the seeds of apocalypse.
02:37The rats stowed away.
02:39The fleas followed.
02:40And by the time the ships reached the Mediterranean, the Black Death had its boarding pass punched.
02:47In 1347, 12 ships sailed into the Sicilian port of Messina.
02:53The people waiting at the docks were horrified.
02:57The sailors on board were either dead or dying, covered in grotesque black swellings.
03:04The city authorities quickly ordered the ships out, but it was too late.
03:08The rats had already disembarked, fleas had already hopped to new hosts, and the plague was on the loose.
03:16From Sicily, the disease spread like wildfire.
03:20It hit Genoa, Marseille, and then Paris and London.
03:24Trade routes, normally the lifeblood of Europe, now became the veins through which the plague pumped death.
03:32In city after city, within weeks, bodies piled in the streets.
03:38No place was safe.
03:40The name Black Death comes from the black blotches that appeared on the skin of its victims.
03:47The disease came in several terrifying forms.
03:51The most famous was the bubonic plague.
03:54This one gave people painful swellings called buboes, usually in the armpits or groin.
04:01They oozed pus and turned dark, hence the black part of black death.
04:08Death usually followed within a week.
04:11Then there was the septicemic plague, which went straight for the bloodstream.
04:16Victims often died in a single day.
04:19Fast, efficient, and utterly horrifying.
04:23And finally, the pneumonic plague.
04:26This one attacked the lungs, spread through coughing, and was as contagious as gossip in a small town.
04:33If someone in your house had pneumonic plague, your odds of survival were about the same as your odds of becoming TikTok famous while juggling flaming swords.
04:43How did doctors respond?
04:44With medieval creativity, of course.
04:48Some advised bloodletting, hoping to balance the humors.
04:52Others suggested bathing in vinegar or drinking crushed emeralds.
04:57Yes, emeralds.
04:59Because nothing says cutting-edge healthcare like swallowing gemstones.
05:03One common cure involved pressing live chickens against the buboes.
05:07The idea was that the chicken would suck out the poison.
05:12In reality, all you got was a very confused chicken and the same fatal illness.
05:18Doctors also wore the now-famous plague masks.
05:22Those long, beaked masks were stuffed with herbs and spices meant to filter out bad air.
05:29They looked terrifying, like giant, evil birds stalking the streets.
05:34Which was probably the point.
05:35If you cannot cure the plague, at least you can terrify it into leaving.
05:40The impact on society was devastating.
05:44Families abandoned their sick.
05:46Parents left children.
05:48Priests refused to give last rites, terrified of catching the plague.
05:54Entire villages were wiped off the map.
05:57In the cities, bodies piled up faster than they could be buried.
06:02Mass graves were dug.
06:03With hundreds thrown into pits together.
06:07Chroniclers described the stench as unbearable.
06:10Death was everywhere.
06:12Inescapable and overwhelming.
06:15And yet, in the face of all this, some people turned to hedonism.
06:21Eat, drink, and be merry.
06:23For tomorrow we die became more than a proverb.
06:27Taverns filled with people desperate to squeeze in one last party before the inevitable.
06:34Medieval YOLO, in its purest form.
06:37Others took the opposite approach.
06:40The flagellants believed the plague was God's punishment for humanity's sins.
06:45Their solution?
06:47Whip themselves bloody in public.
06:50Bands of flagellants traveled from town to town, chanting hymns, swinging whips, and leaving trails of blood.
06:59Crowds sometimes joined in, believing that self-harm would appease divine anger.
07:05Instead, these processions just spread the disease further, and they made everyone uncomfortable.
07:13Imagine opening your front door and finding 200 people in rags smacking themselves with whips.
07:21Talk about awkward.
07:22When humans suffer, humans look for someone to blame.
07:27During the Black Death, that blame fell heavily on Jewish communities.
07:33Rumors spread that Jews were poisoning wells.
07:37Entire communities were massacred, burned alive, or driven from their homes.
07:43It was baseless, cruel, and tragic.
07:46But scapegoating has always been easier than admitting ignorance.
07:51And medieval Europe excelled at it.
07:54Let us pause and look at the scale.
07:58Historians estimate that between 25 and 50 million people died in Europe alone.
08:05That was about half the population.
08:07Some cities lost 70% of their residents.
08:11In Florence, it was said you could walk the streets without meeting a single living soul.
08:16It was the closest thing Europe had ever seen to the end of the world.
08:22Ironically, the survivors found themselves in a new world.
08:27With so many dead, labor was scarce.
08:30Peasants could now demand better wages.
08:33The rigid structure of feudalism began to crack.
08:38Landowners had to compete for workers, and ordinary people suddenly had leverage.
08:43The plague was a tragedy, but it also transformed society.
08:47It shifted the balance of power, created new opportunities, and helped set the stage for the modern world.
08:56Think of it as history's darkest reboot.
08:58The cultural impact was also profound.
09:02People became obsessed with death.
09:04Skeletons danced in murals, skulls decorated manuscripts, and grim reapers marched across church walls.
09:12This movement became known as the danse macabre, the dance of death.
09:17Writers like Boccaccio captured the moment.
09:20In his Decameron, young nobles flee Florence to escape the plague, passing the time by telling stories.
09:29That collection remains one of the greatest works of Italian literature, born from an age of despair.
09:36Time itself became a fixation.
09:38Mechanical clocks began appearing in town squares, ticking away life's brevity.
09:44Nothing like a giant clock tower to remind you that your time is literally running out.
09:50The Black Death was not a one-time event.
09:53It returned again and again, striking Europe in waves for centuries.
09:57The population never fully recovered until well into the 16th century.
10:03Each outbreak renewed fear and reinforced Europe's obsession with mortality.
10:09And yes, the plague still exists today.
10:12A few hundred cases are reported globally each year.
10:16The difference is that modern medicine can treat it with antibiotics.
10:19So, if you're watching this from New Mexico and suddenly grow a bubo, go see a doctor.
10:26You will be fine.
10:27So, what did the Black Death leave behind?
10:31Millions dead.
10:32Society shattered.
10:34Economies reshaped.
10:36And a legacy of fear that haunted Europe for generations.
10:39It was gruesome, tragic, and bizarrely transformative.
10:44The worst party crasher in history.
10:47And yet, through it all, people survived.
10:50They rebuilt.
10:52They carried on.
10:54Humanity has a strange habit of stumbling forward, no matter how many disasters hit.
11:00Thanks for running through history with me today.
11:02If you enjoyed this journey into medieval Europe's least fun century, please like, subscribe, and share this video.
11:11Leave a comment.
11:13Would you have survived the Black Death?
11:15Or would you already be in the first mass grave?
11:19Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and keep history running.
