The Black Death: Only the strong survive

Twelve Genoese ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina in October 1347. But the few living crewmembers had been infected with “so virulent a disease that anyone who only spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness,” according to an eyewitness account.

That disease was the bubonic plague. Those ships brought a pestilence to Europe that killed tens of millions of people in the next four years, eliminating between 30 and 50 percent of the European population.

The Black Death was apocalyptic — indeed, many thought it was end of the world. Accounts describe corpses littering the streets of abandoned European towns, dogs unearthing and devouring the dead. Over two-thirds of Florence died.

But not everyone exposed to the plague perished. The Black Death, a new study published Wednesday says, was a selective killer. Despite the incredibly high levels of mortality, the disease especially targeted frail people.

The surviving population, the study shows, was stronger and healthier.

Sharon DeWitte, an anthropologist at University of South Carolina and the author of the report, analyzed the bones of over 600 skeletons from pre- and post-Black Death London cemeteries. The Black Death, she concludes, “resulted in a healthier post-epidemic population in London compared to the pre-Black Death population.”

The number of people in post-Black Death London in her study that lived past 70 more than doubled to nearly 25 percent.

Her work illustrates how profoundly the Black Death transformed society. DeWitte says in the report that it is unlikely that plague improved the health of subsequent generations only as a “selective agent operating upon intrinsic biological factors.” It was social too.

Rapid and massive depopulation in 14th century England led to a severe shortage of labor. As a result, wages improved while the prices for goods, food and housing dropped. This, she wrote, “represented a major redistribution of wealth.”

Before the Black Death, there was serfdom; now workers had negotiating power. Workers, according to DeWitte, gained “opportunities for mobility and alternative employment if they found existing conditions unsatisfactory.” By the late 15th century, real wages were “at least three times higher than they had been at the beginning of the 14th century.”

The result was that more people could afford a nutritious diet. 

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