Pesta

The Late Middle Ages have started in Europe. Winters are getting colder and longer as the continent enters the Little Ice Age. Malnutrition and disease are common among the peasants and laborers. Life is made harder by frequent conflicts between local landowning nobles and wars between increasingly centralized monarchies.

Despite strong trading ties between European countries and a growing merchant class in cities, the vast majority of the population still works the fields, lives in crowded homes that house multiple generations of families, and enjoys few, if any, benefits of the contemporary advancements in art and science. And things are about to get worse.

The bacterium Yersinia pestis arrives in Europe from Asia in the mid-14th century on flea-infested rats and sick Mongol and Tatar invaders. It spreads quickly from Italian trade cities to the rest of the continent, as well as the Middle East and North Africa via merchant ships. The world doesn’t know it yet, but this is the start of the Black Death: one of the most fatal pandemics in history.

It is the summer of 1347. The Crimean city of Kaffa has just survived a two-year siege by the Mongol Golden Horde. But now, a deadly disease is rampaging through the city. Italian merchants who are there to conduct trade start fleeing to Constantinople. Unknowingly, they are also bringing Yersinia pestis to Europe. The combination of tight living quarters and bad hygiene helps the infection spread, especially in towns.

Those unlucky enough to be bitten by a carrier flea quickly start developing symptoms: high fever, headaches, joint aches, nausea, and vomiting. Within a few days, they develop buboes: aching, swollen lymph nodes filled with dark blood and pus. The flesh around the buboes turns black as it starts to rot. Within 8 days, 80% of the infected die from the bubonic plague.

By 1348, the disease has evolved. It now attacks the lungs and causes fever, coughing, and bloody sputum. This new strain of pneumonic plague is even deadlier: 90% of the infected die within 5 days. What is worse, the droplets they cough up spread the bacterium, allowing the disease to be transmitted from person to person.

The rarest form of the disease, the septicemic plague, appears sporadically in the later years of the pandemic but never becomes widespread. The sick die too quickly to spread the infection. After only two days with high fever and purple skin patches, almost all of them are dead.

For four years, the plague sweeps through Europe, leaving only small pockets of isolated populations untouched. There is no cure. But some measures are still taken to slow the spread of the disease. Isolating the sick is found to help protect the general population from infection. Burning corpses of the infected dead and their possessions becomes commonplace. People are advised to carry purifying herbs and wear perfumes that are supposed to cleanse the air as well as pray for absolution in case the plague is a punishment from God. Despite this, deaths caused by the plague mount.

By 1351, more 75 million people are dead. The population of Europe has halved in less than 5 years. In the cities that are hit hardest, as many as 80% of the inhabitants are gone. There are simply not enough people left to sustain the pandemic. The Black Death has burned itself out.

The plague leaves devastation in its wake: empty villages, entire families wiped out, and a population that won’t recover for another 200 years. Though clergy and nobility suffer casualties, the poor are the hardest hit. Yet, living conditions improve. Food is no longer scarce and the shortage of labor leads to higher wages. Social mobility increases as serfdom all but disappears and now empty land gets new owners. Those who escaped the Black Death live better lives, at least for a while.

In the 1300s, Norway is a country on the outskirts of European society. Despite a vast territory and a powerful navy, it is on the back foot in relations with other European powers: decentralization weakens its ruling class and a focus on regional alliances means fewer agreements with Central Europe. Harsh weather, cold winters, and short growing periods make agriculture difficult; many peasants rely on fishing and animal husbandry to supplement their income. Trade is a necessity, both within and across borders.

The small population is still mostly concentrated in the south, living in communities that are tightly knit but far away from each other. The average person is a laborer, though not a serf: more than half of the population is free and even owns land. Though the nobility and aristocracy are powerful, they are not as many or as rich as other European royalty, making class differences and social distances between peasants, merchants, and the nobility smaller than in most of Europe.

None of this can protect Norway from the biggest threat the European continent is facing at this time. A ship docks in Bergen in 1349. It’s bringing grain from Britain but also carries uninvited guests: flea-infested rats. Two years after it reached Italy, pestilence arrives in Norway.

Shortly after disembarking, the sailors from the plague ship start getting sick and dying. It’s not long before the local population follows. Although the ship is sunk, the damage is already done. Bubonic and pneumonic plague spread quickly in every direction.

The unique social life and accompanying customs surrounding illness and death in Norway contribute to the high number of infections. Help is freely offered to the sick: not just family members, but neighbors, too, cook meals for the ill, attempt to cool them from the fever, work on the family farm, and do household chores for the afflicted. Priests and even bishops, regularly visit infected households to pray over the sick and administer last rites. Bodies of the dead are visited by family and friends who wish to say their goodbyes and then buried communally. Quarantine, isolation, and social distancing are practically non-existent. In this way, people continuously, unknowingly expose themselves and others to the disease.

It does not take long for the plague to bring Norway to its knees. By the first half of 1350, mere months after it arrived, the disease has run its course. When all is said and done, two out of every three people in the country are dead. Above the Arctic Circle, proudly independent and self-sufficient, Northern Norway stands largely unaffected.

Already a minor player on the European stage, Norway is completely devastated by the shocking death toll. Not only the lower classes, but also the clergy and nobility are significantly weakened in the aftermath. Hundreds of farms are abandoned and whole villages are wiped off the map. State and church coffers are significantly lighter than before. In an attempt to combat the internal instability and complete collapse of international influence caused by the plague, Norway reluctantly enters the Kalmar Union with Sweden and Denmark in 1397.

In the long term, the Black Death takes even more from Norway. The weakened ruling class is not able to stand up to Denmark’s growing influence, especially after Sweden leaves the Kalmar Union in 1523. By 1536, Norway is subjugated: no more than a Danish province ruled from Copenhagen, a kingdom in its own right in name only. Independence from Denmark would not come again until 1814.

Pesta sweeps every single nook. No more raking, sweep, sweep! Time is short, all must come along. Peter and Paul, one and all.

Pesta savors the good weather, dreary and dark. It snows and sleets, thaws, drips, sticks and spills. The broom sweeps with splashes.

The broom sweeps in nooks and crannies. All is somber, so deliciously somber. The dead and the dying, the rot and decay. Walls crack, beams break. Leaves fall. The skies weep snow and sleet.