The Walking Plague

Excerpt from a chronicle by Brodier the Younger (1320-1381), published posthumously circa 1394. Modern English translation (from French) by Dr. Asa Stone, Morgenstern University, MI

And in that same year [1345] came the warnings of what was to come. Word came from merchants travelling from the lands of the Tartars that God’s wrath had fallen spectacularly upon the Horde, for they had long denied Christians safe passage through their territory and insisted on continuing their religious treachery. Entire villages and cities, it would seem, were destroyed in righteous punishment, by what the merchants had taken to calling “the Walking Plague”. This plague had originated, according to these same merchants, in the mountains of the Orient, and spread rapidly across the lands of Djanibek Khan, who, in his arrogance, refused to recognize it as a call to convert to Christianity. It was not just the Tartars who were subjected to God’s justice, but the heathens of Persia, Armenia, and Hindustan as well. It was said that there was no man left living in any of these lands, for the land was completely covered in corpses; the pestilence, like a lethal poison, did not discriminate based on the wealth, age, or position of its victim, and ravaged their body even in death.

However, God, in all His righteousness and wisdom, saw fit to punish Christians as well – perhaps for not seizing the opportunity to retake rightfully Christian lands, or not properly welcoming those heathens who did convert; it is not for men to know. What is known by men is that the Walking Plague first came to Christendom in the year 1346 of our Lord, to the great ports of Constantinople, Genoa, and Venice. The pestilence, from there, swept across Byzantine lands first, as they did not recognize the authority of the Holy Father in Rome, carried by the armies of the two emperors as the heretics fought amongst themselves; in the same year, the pestilence would spread throughout the Aegean Islands and Sicily. By 1347, it had corrupted much of Italy and southern France, while an influx of the afflicted from the east brought the plague to the lands of the Rus and Poles.

It was at this time that reliable signs of the Walking Plague became known to Christians, which I should also regale here for posterity and clarity, and in order to demonstrate the true wrathful horror of this pestilence. The Walking Plague, when poisoning a man, would cause tumorous outgrowths on the arms and thighs, as well as bleeding ulcerations. When these signs manifested, it was certain that the man would be dead within a week. The disease was so prolific, it would empty homes of not just men, women, and children, but animals of all kinds; remaining in the same home with the infected was nearly always a death sentence, and there were no ways known to ease the suffering of those afflicted. It is believed that the pestilence spread through poisonous miasma exhaled by those afflicted and poisoned water produced when this miasma encountered rivers and lakes, as well as the spittle and blood of those afflicted. In many great cities, such as Florence, Paris, and Prague, the number of corpses was so great, so unmanageable, that the entire city stunk of rotting flesh for years on end. In perhaps one half or one fourth of those afflicted, be they man, woman, or child, but never animals, their bodies would continue to be tormented after they had stopped breathing. These poor souls, many suspect under the influence of daemons and other unholy forces, allowed into the body after it was terribly weakened by the pestilence, would walk upright, despite not breathing. having a heartbeat in their breast, or even bleeding. Like a corpse, they smelled of rot and had pale, sickly skin, and milky, unseeing eyes. They would gaze upon their former family and neighbors like a hungry beast and let out a horrid moan as they attempted to devour those they had once attended Mass with. These corpse-men would not stop their savage pursuit until they were either engulfed in flames or dismembered by the blade. They could be impaled through the gut with a sword, yet feel nothing, and continue their hunt; even should their head be severed, they would continue to gnash at the fingers of their headsman. They only true way to rescue the bodies of these men from the forces of Hell was to impale them through the eye, or the ear or, as I have said before, engulf them in fire. It was from these walking corpses, these daemons, that the Walking Plague received its name before it ended.

I describe the pestilence and the walking corpses in such detail because it is obvious that any God-fearing Christian would be woefully demoralized and frightened by such a horrific creation. Indeed, in many cities, mothers chose to commit infanticide and then suicide before allowing their children to be taken by the Walking Plague; such was the terror felt by Christians throughout Europe. Many still debate whether God showed mercy to the mothers who committed irredeemable sins but acknowledge that these women can hardly be blamed by men, for fear prevents men, however pious, from thinking clearly.

Now, returning to the spread of the Walking Plague: as I mentioned earlier, the Walking Plague was brought to the eastern lands of Europe directly from Tartary by both those fleeing it as well as the walking corpses. Many of the cities of the Rus, such as Muscovy and Novgorod, were completely abandoned as the inhabitants either succumbed to the pestilence or fled to the countryside, where the miasma was thinner and clean streams more common; spread out over the vast area of Ruthenia, they were also safer from the relentless pursuit of the daemons, who often stumbled helpless through the wilderness searching for their prey. In western Europe, fleeing to the countryside was also preferable to remaining in the cities, but was more difficult due to the smaller distances separating settlements in France and Italy. The pestilence was swiftly carried to all corners of Europe by all manner of men, including the daemon-controlled corpses, and by the year 1350 there was nowhere in all of Christendom untouched by this corruption.

The daemons, in particular, represented a severe problem for many realms, as they could not be killed and endlessly followed living men to otherwise safe havens. It was not it was widely known that the damaging of the head was fatal to them that there was a reliable way of combating them. Before the, entire armies of otherwise brave, pious men would flee en masse from even small groups of daemons, and fire was the preferred method to destroy the daemons. This resulted in many great and horrible fires with claimed many lives which the Plague had miraculously spared, engulfing cities such as Bergen and Florence, as well as the surrounding countryside for many miles in every direction. Fire was also less effective than the blade, as it took time to weaken the daemons; this caused many walking corpses to also become walking funeral pyres, lighting men aflame. The knowledge of how to combat the Walking Plague came from two sources: the papal archives, and the court of King Casimir the Third of Poland.

The Papacy, recently relocated from Avignon to Geneva in 1351, had to abandon many of its ancient documents to looting or fire as the Holy Father himself fled the daemons. However, a single document dating back to before the time of the Church was found mentioning, in Latin, a “walking plague” alike to that which now ravaged Christendom. In this document, legions of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the year of our Lord 173 are described as combating a “mad plague” which struck in what are today the southern Germanies. The Roman soldiers, though heretics, were of the highest caliber and did not flee from the walking daemons, and industriously dug trenches, whose bottoms were lined with sharpened stakes and filled with pitch. Approaching daemons, in their mad lust for flesh and death, fell into the trenches, where they were impaled and set on fire, until there were so many daemons that the others could simply walk across the trenches, at which point the Romans elegantly destroyed them.

In many parts of Christendom, this strategy was employed to immense success to prevent the spread of the daemons, and therefore the Walking Plague. In other regions, however, the strategy of Casimir the Third’s commanders was adopted. The Poles, skilled horsemen and brave warriors, resolved to rounding up the daemons like lambs, great armies of armored horsemen effortlessly dividing and destroying the large herds of daemons marching across the eastern plains.

Before the end of the year 1356, the pestilence had ceased to spread throughout most of Christendom, instead ravaging the heretics of Egypt and the Levant. Although still many years after group of daemons is found in the wilderness, threatening to begin the Plague anew, no pestilence since the original Walking Plague has proven to be nearly as deadly or widespread.