The Horrible Year 580

According to Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594), the year 580 was a particularly horrible year for people living in the regions of France and Spain. The poor 6th-century denizens of those regions reportedly faced threats from the air, ground and water, all combining to form a stew of horrible natural disasters and epidemics. Here are just a few of the events that Gregory of Tours claimed to have happened in the vicinity of France for the year 580.

Flood

Intense flooding was said to have occurred in the region of Auvergne, France, in 580. Gregory reported that several rivers overflowed and harmed the properties of nobles and peasants, alike. Crops and livestock were killed by the rising waters, and the flooding occurred so rapidly that human lives were also lost. Of the major cities affected by the floods, Lyons appeared to have been the most damaged, as its very walls were undermined by the rushing water.

Possible Meteor Strike

Gregory of Tours claimed that bright moving lights were seen in the sky near Tours and Bordeaux. When the light disappeared, a loud impact sound was heard in France. Gregory wrote, “a bright light was seen to traverse the sky and then disappear in the East. A sound as of trees crashing to the ground was heard throughout the whole region, but it cannot hardly have been a tree for it was audible over fifty miles and more” (History of the Franks, V.33). Within the same paragraph, Gregory claimed that “Villages around Bordeaux were burned by a fire sent from heaven” (History of the Franks, V.33). The lights, sounds and fire coincided with a series of earthquakes that shook southern France and the bordering regions of Spain. Whether or not these individual occurrences are truly connected is difficult to determine, but the earthquakes and fires were destructive, all the same, leaving many without shelter and food. Some refugees from these disasters reportedly fled toward Spain, but rockslides in the Pyrenees accompanied the earthquakes, crushing anything in its path.

Plague

Possibly exacerbated by the homelessness and poor living conditions caused by the floods, fires and earthquakes in 580, the entirety of France was reportedly hit by a devastating epidemic of disease. Gregory of Tours identified the illness ravaging the land as dysentery, and no one—young or old, rich or poor—was safe from its clutches. The household of King Chilperic of the Franks (r. 561-584) was particularly hard-hit. Chilperic personally fell ill, as did two of his sons. King Chilperic survived the disease, but his two afflicted children, unfortunately, were not as lucky. Chilperic’s brother, King Guntram (r. 561-593), also suffered loss because of the epidemic; his wife, Queen Austrechild, caught the disease. Two doctors, named Donatus and Nicolaus, were brought in to treat the queen, but despite their best efforts, Austrechild died—in consequence of their failure, the two doctors were executed.

Gregory of Tours was able to write about the deaths of queens, princes, counts and bishops without showing much emotion in his writing, but when he moved on to the toll that the epidemic took on children in France, his pain went unmasked. It ranks as one of the most emotional passages in his ten-book text. Gregory of Tours wrote:

“The epidemic began in the month of August. It attacked young children first of all and to them it was fatal: and so we lost our little ones, who were so dear to us and sweet, whom we had cherished in our bosoms and dandled in our arms, whom we had fed and nurtured with such loving care. As I write I wipe away my tears and I repeat once more the words of Job the blessed: ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away’” (History of the Franks, V.34).

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Sodom and Gomorrah afire, by Jacob Jacobsz (flourished 17th century), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.

The Terrible Plague Suffered By Athens In 430 BCE, Amidst The Peloponnesian War

Athens and Sparta, the two most prominent powers in Greece, were already struggling to coexist years before the Greco-Persian Wars ended around 449-448 BCE. After the Greek forces delivered a significant defeat to the Persian Navy at Salamis in 480 BCE, followed quickly by an impressive victory over the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE, the cities of Athens and Sparta were cemented as proud and prestigious leaders of the Hellenistic world. Gravitating to the powerful states, the cities of Greece divided themselves between leagues led by the two rival powers. Most cities encircling the Aegean Sea aligned themselves with the sea power of Athens, eventually becoming subordinated into an Athenian empire. Similarly, the city-states in the Peloponnesus (with the exception of Argos) banded together under the leadership of mighty Sparta in the Peloponnesian League.

As early as 460 BCE, while the Greco-Persian War was still ongoing, Athens and Sparta began to fight in skirmishes and battles. A peace treaty technically halted the open conflict, but Athens and Sparta continued to undermine each other’s interests in proxy wars between neutral states and league allies. Nevertheless, a full open war between Athens and Sparta was successfully delayed for decades, until 431 BCE, the year in which the Great Peloponnesian War began.

Sparta and its allies declared war on Athens in 431 BCE, claiming that the Athenians had broken the peace treaty by attacking Spartan allies and affiliates. Thebes (on the Spartan side) opened up the conflict by launching a failed attack on Plataea, an ally of Athens. During the first few years of the Peloponnesian War, both sides were sizing each other up, not knowing how to best employ their resources and manpower. In the year 431, the militaries on both sides of the conflict performed relatively poorly. King Archidamus II of Sparta led a Peloponnesian coalition into Athenian-controlled Attica to raid the countryside, while their enemies took shelter behind the walls of Athens. The Peloponnesians stayed in Attica for as long as their supplies could support their army (less than a year), then they simply marched home. In a similar move, the Athenians sent a fleet to raid the Peloponnesian coast. The fleet made gains in some locations, but was repelled in others. Eventually, the ships rerouted to meet up with a huge Athenian army that was raiding near the city of Megara. After reuniting and pillaging the countryside for a time, the Athenians withdrew home to Athens before the year’s end.

In 430 BCE, both sides of the war again prepared for more pillaging and raiding. King Archidamus II led a second army of Peloponnesians into Attica to ravage the countryside, and the Athenians released another fleet to prowl the Peloponnesian coastline. This time, however, the Peloponnesians would have an unexpected biological ally—a plague. According to the Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), the plague originated somewhere in Ethiopia and traveled first through Egypt and then through Persia to wreck havoc on the city of Athens. Thucydides, an Athenian military leader and historian, had the displeasure of personally experiencing the deadly plague. He even caught the illness, himself, but thankfully he survived to write his famous text, the History of the Peloponnesian War.

The city of Athens in 430 BCE was exceptionally susceptible to disease. Refugees from vulnerable regions of Attica had poured into Athens, quickly overpopulating the city. The newcomers had to live in huts and shanties that were poorly ventilated and generally unclean. Those who could not live in simple huts found shelter in local temples, but even those sacred spaces would eventually be filled with the dead and dying.

Thucydides described the symptoms of the plague in great detail—to the extent that critics call his account overly dramatic. Nevertheless, his words paint a decent picture of what the Athenian population faced. He wrote that symptoms of the plague first affected the head and, over the course of seven-to-eight days, the effects spread downward through the rest of the body, usually resulting in death. The first signs were red, irritated eyes and a foul-smelling, bleeding mouth and throat. This was combined with sneezing and a rough voice, which could lead to an inability to speak. As the plague spread down into the torso, the patient also suffered from persistent fits of coughing and abdominal pain. The stomach and intestines were also affected, causing vomiting and diarrhea. Other miscellaneous symptoms mentioned by Thucydides included the onset of an insatiable thirst, restless anxiety, insomnia, the appearance of pustules and a painful sensitivity to touch. The plague led to a staggering death toll in Athens—anywhere from 25%-66% of the Athenian population lost their lives to the sickness.

In Thucydides’ opinion, the most tragic observation that he made during the plague was the breakdown of law, order and morality. He wrote that a palpable gloom of morbid and fatalistic emotion descended on Athens. As more and more people thought their death was nigh, they began to take whatever pleasure, wealth or revenge they wanted, regardless of the consequences.

Even though the plague did enormous damage to Athens, the Athenians recovered with enough strength to keep the war going for nearly three decades, and they often appeared to be on the winning side. Nevertheless, after the war had expanded all the way to Sicily, the Athenian navy was finally defeated in several key sea battles, the last being the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCE, in which the Spartans captured most of the Athenian fleet. The next year, Athens surrendered to the Peloponnesians.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (The Plague at Ashdod, by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book II) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972. 
• https://www.britannica.com/event/Peloponnesian-War 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Peloponnesian_War/ 
• http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/peloponnesian-war 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Persian_Wars/  

Plague Doctors—The Creepy And Ineffective Early Prelude To The Hazmat Suit

(Late medieval or Renaissance illustration of a plague doctor, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Doctor Charles de l’Orme (1584-1678) is credited with the iconic plague doctor’s ensemble that continues to unnerve modern viewers. It was designed to protect the wearer against plagues, such as the Black Death, which had spread throughout the Middle East, Europe and Russia by around 1352. Unfortunately for our cousins and ancestors from the past, the medieval doctors knew agonizingly little about the plague and its possible treatments.  

Instead, plague doctors of the time relied on observation and often-faulty assumptions, such as plague spreading through aroma or eyesight. Regardless of the medical inaccuracy of these medieval doctors, their assumptions eventually led to Charles de l’Orme’s beaked plague suit. Even though l’Orme’s suit is the first recorded beaked plague suit that historians have found on record, it is probable that earlier doctors manufactured their own personal makeshift suits in attempts to preserve their health. Yet, the modern perception of the plague doctor’s ensemble comes from l’Orme’s widely-used design.

The headwear of the plague doctor suit consisted of a large-brimmed leather hat and a beaked mask. The hat, even without the mask, was an article of clothing that identified the wearer as a doctor. Its wide brim supposedly was also designed to deflect bacteria. As for the mask, it fell down to the shoulders, and was constructed with glass eye sockets and a beak. The main purpose of the beak was to hold aromatic substances, which plague doctors believed could ward off the plague. Some favorite aromatics for the beak were pleasant herbs such as mint, or sponges soaked in perfume or vinegar.

Beneath the mask was a waxed gown or robe that fell down to the feet. Underneath the gown, the doctor wore leather breeches, made similarly to those used by fishermen. Most plague doctors also wore leather gloves. Concerning the footwear worn by these beaked doctors, accounts are vague, yet, like the rest of the outfit, the shoes or boots were probably waxed and similar in nature to a fisherman’s gear.

Most plague doctors carried long wooden canes that they used to lift the clothing or bedding covering plague victims and to give visual instructions to onlookers, such as family members. Also, many plague doctors carried long-handled spoons that they would use to ladle medicine (unfortunately, often ineffective or harmful) to the sick from a safe distance. Sadly, the plague suit proved to be ineffective at deflecting the plague, and many of the doctors died from the illness they were trying to contain.

 

(Image of a plague doctor – frontispiece from Jean-Jacques Manget, c. prior to 1721, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• Going Medieval (Documentary). Written by Mike Loades and directed by David Hutt. History Channel/Lion Television, 2012.  
• http://www.doctorsreview.com/history/doctors-black-death/ 
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/61738/80-facts-about-80s  
• http://www.historyonthenet.com/the-stuarts-the-plague-doctor/