The outbreak of the bubonic plague that struck Europe in the middle of the 14th century was one of the worst epidemics in European history. Yersinia Pestis, the plague-causing bacterium, arrived from its natural biome in Central Asia with trading caravans and, by the late 1340s, affected most of the Mediterranean and Western Europe (Cunningham, 2011). With no medical remedies available and a limited understanding of the mechanisms of disease transmission, the death toll of the bubonic plague was appalling. Thus, it is hardly surprising that it left a profound mark on the collective consciousness of late Medieval Europe as one of the “most decisive events in late medieval/early modern history” (Kahla, 2019, p. 31). Black Death, a 2011 film by Christopher Smith, is one of the many cinematic deliberations on the subject of the 14th-century Black Plague in cinema, and an interesting one at that. While not entirely accurate, the movie still has educational value in its reasonably accurate depiction of the details of the plague, the importance of geographic isolation, and the destruction of traditional social obligations.
One aspect in which the film is sufficiently accurate is the details of the bubonic plague hitting the British Isles in 1349-1350. During the introductory scene, the narrator refers to as much as half of the population dying of it (Smith, 2011). This estimation is not too far from the ones provided in the primary sources left by those who witnessed the epidemic as it happened. For example, in his Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, John of Fordun (1872) stated that “nearly a third of mankind were thereby made to pay the debt of nature (p. 359). Moreover, the movie is reasonably correct in portraying the anatomical details of the plague. When the film first depicts a person afflicted by the disease, the man has a large bubo in his right armpit (Smith, 2011). It corresponds to the description of the symptoms left by medieval authors, who pointed to swellings in armpits and groin as the first sign of the plague’s onset (Kahla, 2019). Thus, the movie has an educational value as a reasonably accurate depiction of both the deadliness and the specific symptoms of bubonic plague.
Apart from that, Black Death also allows an interesting glimpse into the importance of geographic isolation as the only way of avoiding the plague that was available to the people at the time. The idea of the plague not being an act of divine will but the work of Satan and his evil wizards, as narrated in the film’s opening, is ahistorical (Smith, 2011). Even when struck by the dreadful lethality of the plague, the contemporaries still maintained that it happened “by God’s will” (Fordun, 1872, p. 359). Assigning the power to work miracles, even of such dreadful nature, to anyone other than God would be heresy if the first order. Thus, the film’s proclaimed premise of hunting a necromancer presumably responsible for affecting some communities with the plague while preserving others is not historical. However, the movie eventually reveals that the village supposedly protected by the necromancer was only not affected due to its geographical remoteness (Smith, 2011). Hence, the movie initially invites the audience to think of the plague in terms of magical realism but later provides a reasonable explanation for something initially presented as supernatural.
Finally and most importantly, Black Death also does a solid job of depicting the severance of traditional social ties and obligations due to the impact of the plague. While not well-aware of the biological mechanisms of the spread of the disease, people soon understood that keeping away from those affected increased their chances of not contracting the plague (Cunningham, 2011). This drive to avoid contact with the sick prompted what Kahla (2019) calls “a stunning breakdown of traditional social obligations” (p. 34). John of Fordun (1872) refers to this breakdown when noting that many people did not risk to “go and see their parents in the throes of death,” sacrificing their filial duties (p. 359). The film illustrates this point in the protagonist Osmund, a monk who first starts an illicit relationship with a woman and then decides to run away to live with her (Smith, 2011). As such, he first breaks his vow of celibacy and then his other obligations toward God – and, as the movie suggests, both decisions are made much more feasible by the extreme circumstances of the plague.
In short, Black Death is not entirely historically accurate but has educational value in several respects. The film portrays both the deadliness and the symptoms of bubonic plague with reasonable accuracy. The premise of perceiving the epidemic as caused by satanic magic does not correspond to how the contemporaries viewed it, but the way in which the film stresses the importance of geographic isolation in the patterns of its spread is realistic. Finally, the movie’s main educational benefit is highlighting the breakdown of social obligations sanctified by centuries of tradition under the pressure of the epidemic’s extreme circumstances.
References
Cunningham. K. (2011). Bubonic plague. Essential Library.
Fordun, J. (1872). Chronicle of the Scottish nation (W. F. Skene, Ed.). Edmonston and Douglas.
Kahla, M. (2019). Arrows of affliction: The bubonic plague and its representation in medieval art and literature. The Saber and Scroll Journal 8(1), 29-47.
Smith. C. (Director). (2011). Black death [Film]. Egoli Tossell Film.