• WHAT have we learned from the worst epidemic in history in the 14th century?

Transmitted via urban growth-time traders in furs etc from China, infecting Italian merchants then the rest of Europe, the virus was believed to be transmitted by coughing or rats’ fleas to humans, hence isolation (Italian “quaranta”).

But the abysmal squalor of slums exacerbated plague spread, civil courts were suspended, labourers’ wage revolts erupted, with a questioning of existing customs, feudalism and Church values; a cash-based economy ensued. Flagellants flogged themselves in penance.

“Only in the event of a global collapse could the grim reapers of the medieval world, Pasteurella pestis and Xenopsylla cheopis, rise to such power again.” * Seven centuries later…

Who are today’s flagellants?

MIKE BOR,
W2

* ed MW Davison: When, Where, Why & How It Happened (1993).