Justinian's Plague

Question 1

Three Bubonic Plague outbreaks

Answer 1

1) Justinian’s Plague: 541 to mid eighth century
2) Medieval Black Death: 1346, revisitation in 17c
3) Hunan Province, China: 1855

Question 2

Origins of Y. Pestis (2)

Answer 2

• Originated in Tibetan Plateau, diverted from Y. Pseudo-Tuberculosis
• Discovered by Person in 19c

Question 3

How can it spread to humans? (3)

Answer 3

• humans invade animal habitats (famine, war, etc)
• humans hunt animals
• animals invade human areas (floods, earthquakes, etc)

Question 4

How can fleas spread it to humans? (3)

Answer 4

• fleas jump to human hosts if rat dies
• uninfected flea can go 6 weeks between blood meals
• can spread through human flea as well as the oriental flea

Question 5

How can humans spread it to each other? (3)

Answer 5

• sharing beds
• selling used clothes
• attending to a corpse

Question 6

How long does incubation take after a bite?

Answer 6

1-7 days

Question 7

What are the symptoms? (3)

Answer 7

• swelling in lymphatic system (armpits, groin, neck)
• fever, shivering, nausea, thirst
• death within several days of buboes appearing

Question 8

What are the modes of infection? (4)

Answer 8

• ingestion
• bubonic: infected by a bite
• pneumatic: infects the lungs
• septicemic: introduced directly into the blood

Question 9

Dates for the Justinianic Plague

Answer 9

541 - mid 8c

Question 10

Aims of Justinian and how he accomplished them

Answer 10

• Wanted to regain control of the Western Empire

- Reconquered Ravenna in 540

Question 11

How did the Roman agricultural plan lead to the plague?

Answer 11

In imposing their will on the landscape, they exposed themselves to the wilderness where the disease was

Question 12

What was unique about Roman cities and towns that lead to spread of plague? (2)

Answer 12

• very well connected

- people lived in very close quarters and in poor conditions

Question 13

Little Ice Age and a Year Without Summer (3)

Answer 13

LIA: 450-700CE
YWS: 536
- Disrupted the animal habitats, potentially drove rodents into human ones

Question 14

Procopius and his eyes-witness testimony (6)

Answer 14

• d. 565
• said plague started in Egypt, then moved into Interior Europe from the coastlines
• confusing symptoms: some vomited blood but died without other symptoms, swelling, fever
• massive death toll, fortifications filled with dead people
• breakdown in society: 1/2 population dead, standstill of society, stench
• omens: foretelling individuals deaths, apparitions

Question 15

Impact of the plague on the Byzantine Empire (4)

Answer 15

• deflation post 540s
• agrarian depopulation, Justinian still tried to tax them just was much
• 3 years after Justinian died, Lombards poured over Alps
• plague reached almost all off Spain, Ireland, Gaul, Britain (patchy evidence tho)

Question 16

St Sebastian (2)

Answer 16

• martyred 288. Shot with arrows but did not die

- 680: man hard vision that plague wouldn’t stop until an altar was set up for St Sebastian at St Peter in Chains

Question 17

Christian Rationale for Justinanic Plague (2)

Answer 17

• God’s wrath ‘fell upon cities like a winepress’: John of Ephesus
• God’s will, not his punishment. St Aethyltryth had the plague, after all - Bede

Question 18

Hippocratic Theory

Answer 18

Miasma. Adopted by Galen too

Question 19

Gregory of Tours

Answer 19

d. 594
- plague was God’s anger
- His uncle, Bishop of Clermont, prayed for his people and an angel said that they would be saved
- ‘saw his entire flock being struck down by God’s wrath’ in sermon