The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in the Scandinavian Countries: : Perspectives and Controversies

This monograph represents an expansion and deepening of previous works by Ole J. Benedictow - the author of highly esteemed monographs and articles on the history of plague epidemics and historical demography. In the form of a collection of articles, the author presents an in-depth monographic study on the history of plague epidemics in Scandinavian countries and on controversies of the microbiological and epidemiological fundamentals of plague epidemics. History of Epidemics, Scandinavian countries, Medieval and Modern History. Contents Preface Postscript Bibliography Glossary 1 Introduction Perspectives and Issues What is Plague? Some Basic Facts on Contagion, Transmission, and Dissemination 1.3 What to Look for and Keep in Mind: The Defining Features of Bubonic Plague and Some Crucial Fact 1.3.1 Introduction 1.3.2 Defining Features 1.3.3 Some Crucial Matters of Fact Bibliography 1.4 Serious Plague History Under Pressure: The Twelfth Alternative Theory of Historical Plague: Comm 1.4.1 Introduction 1.4.2 The Purported Functions of Caravans and the Silk Roads in the Transportation of Plague with an 1.4.3 Patterns of Spread and Comparative Spread Rates 1.4.4 Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, I: On the Medievalist’s Craft and the Fallacy 1.4.5 Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, II: On the Presence of Rats and the Local Pers 1.4.6 Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, III. On the Life and Death of Rats 1.4.7 On the Medievalist’s Craft and more Fallacies of Reverse Circular Lines of Argument. The Funct 1.4.8 The “Reintroductions” that Disappeared 1.4.9 The Importance of the Historian’s Craft for Understanding the Conquest of Plague and the Means Epilogue Bibliography 1.5 The Triumph of Paleobiology in Historical Plague Research 1.5.1 Introduction 1.5.2 The Status of Paleobiological Studies, 1998-2014 Bibliography Bibliography to Table 1.1 2 The Black Death in Norway, 1348-1349 2.1 Fundamentals of Plague Epidemiology 2.2 Bubonic Plague and Pneumonic Plague 2.3 Long Distance and Short Distance Spread of Plague 2.4 Plague Epidemics’ Pace of Development and Spread Rates 2.5 The Territorial Origin of the Black Death and Its Route to Norway 2.6 The Arrival of the Black Death in Oslo 2.7 The Black Death Conquers Østlandet [the “East Country”] in 1349 2.8 The Black Death Arrives in Bergen 2.9 The Black Death Comes to Nidaros (Trondheim) 2.10 The Black Death Arrives in Agder and Stavanger 2.11 The Triumph of Death: How Many People Died in the Black Death in Norway? 2.11.1 Introduction 2.11.2 The Question of Average Household Size and the Denial of Elementary Facts: Some Consequential 2.11.3 Average Household Size, Numbers of Households in the Middle Ages, and Population Size and Dec 2.12 Life After the Black Death 2.13 The Powers of Spread of the Black Death 2.14 Contemporary Understanding of the Causation of Epidemic Disease Appendix 1: Plague Epidemics in Norway 1348-1500 and Their Provenience Appendix 2: Some Basic Elements of the Medieval Norwegian Agricultural System which Affect Analysis Bibliography Unpublished Sources Bibliography (including published sources and abbreviations) 3 The Black Death in Norway: Arrival, Spread, Mortality. Discussions with Birger Lindanger and Hal 3.1 Introduction 3.2. Lindanger’s Views on the Black Death’s Arrival and Spread in Norway 3.2.1 Introduction: Sources and Source-criticism 3.2.2 The Black Death in South-eastern Norway 3.2.3 The Chronicle of Hamar: A Source-critical Analysis 3.2.4 Spread Rates of the Black Death from Oslo, and the Epidemics in Stavanger and Agder 3.2.5 How Lindanger Relates to Problems Arising from His Theory 3.2.6 Social and Political Evidence on the Aftermath of the Black Death 3.3 Bjørkvik’s Views on the Black Death’s Routes of Spread and Mortality in Norway 3.3.1. The Black Death’s Spread to Norway 3.3.2 Medical and Clinical Problems 3.3.3 Mortality of the Black Death in Norway 3.3.4 Closing Comments on the Topics of Arrival, Spread and End of the Black Death in Norway 3.4 On Household Size, Population Size, and the Mortality Caused by the Black Death 3.4.1 Introduction 3.4.2 Historical Sociology and the Specificity of Medieval Demography: Some Important Perspectives a 3.4.3 Estimation of Population Size and the Mortality Wrought by the Black Death in Norway Bibliography 4 The Black Death in Norway, 1348-49: Sources, Chronology, Spread. Discussion with Kåre Lunden 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Some Methodological Perspectives 4.3 The “Traditional Doctrine” of the Black Death’s Spread in Time and Space in Norway-and the Conv 4.4 The Chronicle of Hamar: A Brief Source-Critical Recapitulation 4.5 On the Time, Original Place of Arrival and Early Spread of the Black Death in Norway 4.5.1 Icelandic Annals on the Time and Spread of the Black Death in Norway 4.5.2 The Time Bishop Hallvard of Hamar Died and the Time of the Black Death in Hamar 4.5.3 The Election and Consecration of Bishop Hallvard’s Successor 4.5.4 The Time Bishop Thorstein of Bergen Died, the Time of the Black Death in Bergen and in South 4.5.5 Lunden’s Assertions about King Magnus’s Circular Letter: A Closer Look 4.5.6 The Bishops: The Living and the Dead on the Morrow of the Black Death 4.6 Political and Social Evidence on the Time the Black Death in Norway was Over 4.6.1 The Meeting of the Assembly of the Realm in Bergen in June 1350 4.6.2 Social Evidence on the End of Black Death 4.7 The Black Death in South-eastern Norway and in Sweden: The Connection 4.8 Donations to Religious Institutions by Will or Deed of Gift as Reflections of the Presence of th 4.8.1 Introduction: Donations to Religious Institutions in Denmark and Sweden 4.8.2 Donations to Norwegian Religious Institutions and the Importance of Source-criticism 4.8.3 Facts or Fiction: The Real History of the Time of the Black Death and its Spread in Eastern No Bibliography 5 The Spread of the Black Death in Norway: Revisionists, Spread Rates, Alternative Microbiological 5.1 Introduction 5.2 On the Spread Rates of Plague 5.2.1 On the Revisionist Alternative Theories on the Spread Rates of Historical and Modern Plague 5.2.2 On the Spread Rates of Historical and Modern Plague 5.3 Did Plague Spread in the Winters? 5.4 The Alternative Spread Rates of Anthrax, Filoviridal Diseases, and Cohn’s Disease 5.5 Lunden’s Genetic Theory of the Role of Mutations and the Microbiological Identity of Plague of t 5.5.1 Part 1. 5.5.2 Part 2. Lunden’s Views on the Questions of Mutations and Microbiological Identity of Plague Co Appendix 1: My Works on the Dynamics of Spread and the Spread Rates of Plague Bibliography 6 Walløe, Juhasz and the Sociology of Plague Bibliography 7 Lars Walløe’s Human-Flea Theory of Plague Epidemology 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Short History of the Human-Flea Theory on the Epidemiology of Bubonic Plague 7.3 Some Basic Empirical Facts Invalidating the Human-Flea Theory 7.3.1 Introduction 7.3.2 Prevalence and Levels of Human Bacteraemia (Human Plague Cases as Sources of Infection of Huma 7.3.3 Mechanical Transmission 7.3.4 Prevalence and Levels of Rat Bacteraemia (Plague Rats as Sources of Infection of Rat Fleas) 7.3.5 Blockage of Fleas 7.4 Virulence, Lethality, and Immunity: The Basis of Plague Mortality 7.4.1 Virulence and Lethality 7.4.2 Immunity 7.5 Defining Features of Rat-Flea-Borne Bubonic Plague 7.5.1 Introduction: The Concept and Uses of Defining Epidemiological Features 7.5.2 The Latency Period 7.5.3 The Inverse Correlation of Population Density and Infection Rates 7.6 Conclusion Bibliography 8 Black Rats in the Nordic Scandinavian Countries. Discussion of Papers by Lars Walløe and Anne K. 8.1 Introduction: The Bombastry of Advocates of Radical Alternative Theories 8.2 The Ecological Habitats and Behavioural Strategies of Black Rats 8.2.1 Methodological Introduction: More about the Fallacy of Argumentum ex Silentio, that Absence of 8.2.2 The Climate Theory of a Purported Absence of Black Rats, and the Neglect of Evolutionary Theor 8.2.3 The Denial that Black Rats Burrow 8.2.4 Did the Brown Rats Outcompete the Black Rats? 8.3 The Behavioural Strategy of Rats in the Face of Death. Where do Rats Die (So Where Should Archae 8.3.1 Methodological Introduction 8.3.2 “They do die in unusual [.] and inaccessible places”: The Ostensible Absence or Paucity of Bla 8.4 History and Distribution of Black Rats in Europe According to Finds of Skeletal Remains 8.5 Black Rats in the Nordic Countries: Skeletal Remains and Living Rats 8.5.1 Methodological Problems on the Presence of Black Rats in the Nordic Countries 8.5.2 Finds of Pre-Modern (Pre-1660) Skeletal Remains of Black Rats in Sweden and Denmark 8.5.3 Urban Finds of Medieval Rat Bones in Norway 8.5.4 Rural Finds of Skeletal Remains of Medieval and Pre-Modern Black Rats in Norway 8.5.5 The Plague Epidemic in Bergen 1565-1566. Without Rats? 8.6 The General Presence of Black Rats in Sweden and Finland and the Time and Causes of Their Decli 8.6.1 Introduction: The Functions of Disregard of Early Good Research 8.6.2 The Swedish Species Information Centre/ArtDatabanken on the Historical Presence of Black Rats 8.7 Early-Phase Transmission? A Few Preliminary Comments (see Chapter 12) Bibliography 9 The Relevance of Recent Theories on the Microbiological Identity and Epidemiology of Plague for Sc 9.1 Introduction 9.2 What Disease was Plague? 9.3 The Methodological Myth: Retrospective Diagnosis 9.4 The Myth That Bubonic Plague Only Spreads Contiguously 9.5 Three Myths: (1) The Myth of the Function of Quarantines; (2) the Myth of the Levels of Plague M 9.6 The Myth of Alternative Bubonic Plagues 9.7 The Myth of the Human-Flea Theory of Plague Transmission 9.8 The Silenced Fact: the Resurrection of Yersinia pestis from Graves of the Past Bibliography 10 The Eight Alternative Theory on the Plague Epidemics of the Past: Discussion of Ole G. Moseng’s 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Some Perspectives and Methodological Considerations 10.3 Yersinia pestis: the Same or Different Strain or Biovar? 10.4 The Nosopsyllus-Fasciatus Theory 10.4.1 Introduction 10.4.2 Fur Fleas and Nest Fleas 10.4.3 The Significance of Distance to Human Beings for the Role of Fleas in the Epidemiology of Pla 10.5 Inter-Human Cross-Infection by Pulex irritans by Mechanical Transmission 10.6 Inter-Human Cross-Infection by Pulex irritans by Biological Transmission (Blockage) 10.6.1 Burroughs’s Experiments to Determine the Vector Capacity of Pulex irritans and the Signific 10.6.2 Soviet Experiments Designed to Determine the Correlation Between Levels of Bacteraemia in Ho 10.6.3 Human Plague Bacteraemia: Human Plague Cases as Sources of Infection of Feeding Fleas: Epidem 10.6.4 Cases of Human Plague and Human Plague Bacteraemia in Plague Reservoirs in USA 10.6.5 Some Further Comments on Moseng’s Arguments for the Theory of Transmission and Dissemination 10.7 Epidemics of Primary Pneumonic Plague in Norway and Iceland? 10.8 Sailing along: From Bergen to Iceland with Primary Pneumonic Plague on Board? Bibliography 11 On the Theories That Plague Epidemics of the Past Were Spread by Cross-Infection by Human Lice 11.1 Introduction 11.2 The Theory of Louse-Borne Plague 11.3 The Question of Mechanical Transmission of Plague 11.4 Epidemiological Manifestations of Inter-Human and Rat-Borne Transmission and Spread as Reflecti Bibliography 12 Problems with the Early-Phase Theory of the Transmission of Plague, Especially with Respect to Ep 12.1 Introduction 12.2 The Early-Phase Theory of Plague Transmission by Fleas 12.3 Types of Plague Bacteraemia in Human Beings 12.4 The Average Size of the Ventriculus of Fleas (Stomach or Midgut) 12.5 What Happens with Plague Bacteria in the Ventriculus of Fleas? The Questions of Self-Purificati 12.6 Plague Bacteraemia in Human Beings 12.7 LD for Human Beings, Subinfective or Non-lethal Doses 12.8 Plague Bacteraemia in Black Rats: Rats and Human Beings as Sources of Infection of Feeding Flea 12.9 Conclusions and Perspectives 12.10 Epilogue General Bibliography Unpublished Sources Bibliography (including Published Sources and Abbreviations) List of Figures List of Tables Index