The bubonic plague was a punishment from God

The argument

At the time, the Black Death was widely believed to be a punishment from God, sent as people became more and more sinful over time. People even tried to rid themselves of the disease by practicing severe self-flagellation to repent. ` A preacher in the 14th century reported to the Pope that a “strange image in the sky was the prelude of the outbreak of the plague. One hour at noon later on March 20th, 1345, the time when the three stars meet at Aquarius, will be the symbol of death." Many people who caught the disease reported hallucinating the devil and ghosts. This also led to the massacre of perceived 'heretics'. This is indicative of the lack of understanding about spreadable diseases in general. As opposed to taking precautionary measures, believing the Black Plague was sent from God would have helped its spread, not only because it encourages an attitude based on the idea that getting the disease is pre-determined. This attitude also encouraged gatherings, spurring on the spread of disease. For instance, the self-flagellation happened in groups in town squares.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument is offered for a claim about severity and makes a case about beliefs. Even granting everything said about providential interpretation, what follows is that the response was shaped by a pre-modern understanding of disease — not that this was the worst pandemic in history. The far stronger case for the Black Death, that it killed an enormous share of the population of Europe and the Near East within a few years, is available and is not the case being made. The picture of pure fatalism is also inaccurate. Practical measures were taken and some were durable: quarantine as an institution originates in this period, with arriving ships isolated for a fixed term at Ragusa and then Venice; cities closed their gates, appointed health boards, isolated the sick and regulated burials. Medical opinion of the time frequently favoured astrological and miasmatic explanations over divine punishment — the Paris medical faculty's report attributed the outbreak to a planetary conjunction — so the entry runs together competing frameworks as though they were one. The flagellant processions were themselves condemned by the papacy in 1349, which makes them a movement the Church suppressed rather than the sanctioned response. One detail should be corrected. The massacres accompanying the plague targeted Jewish communities accused of poisoning wells, an antisemitic persecution documented across the Rhineland and beyond; describing the victims as 'perceived heretics' misidentifies both who was killed and why.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Practical measures were taken — quarantine originates in this period, with health boards, gate closures and isolation of the sick — and medical opinion often favoured astrological or miasmatic explanations rather than divine punishment; the flagellant processions were condemned by the papacy in 1349. [Rejecting C] Establishing that the response was shaped by pre-modern understanding does not establish that this was the worst pandemic in history, which would rest on mortality rather than on interpretation.