Keywords

Introduction

As a near endless mine of events, causes, and effects, the past is an attractive source for lessons to learn from and to apply to ongoing situations today. It is an obvious truism that less ‘standard’ written evidence tends to exist the deeper we look into the past, but paradoxically the stories told using what scant evidence we have grows more sweeping on every conceivable scale. The effects of disease are no different. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic killed perhaps 50–100 million people worldwide, but until the 1990s few people were even aware of its devastating demographic effects, since it was soon forgotten (Crosby 1989; Beiner 2021). Even today its political and economic effects are considered minimal and instead scholarship has focused on the localized experience of the pandemic (Bristow 2012). In contrast, the sixth-century Justinianic Plague (c. 541–750 CE) has only a tiny fraction of the evidence, but is nonetheless said to have caused massive political, economic, and cultural effects that eventually resulted in major historical events such as the fall of the Roman Empire or the rise of Islam (e.g. Harper 2017).

These supposedly drastic effects have drawn significant attention, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although popular articles in the media have used earlier pandemics such as the Justinianic Plague to contextualize Covid, the vast majority of these are superficial and repeat known truisms that do not align with historical facts. In other words, the past—or actually an exaggerated version of it—is used to frame discussions in the present. Such approaches, however, hardly offer useful ideas for contemporary policy since they tend to reinforce the writer’s pre-existing ideological goals. More broadly, the very assumption that pandemics in the present somehow follow past pandemics (often in ways that are never explicitly stated) should be openly questioned. The social and ecological contexts of how and why a disease spreads are pivotal to understanding its impact. This is even true when pandemics are caused by the same pathogen, or happen within a similar ecological, technological or social context. For example, the first plague pandemic (mid-6th to mid-eighth centuries) shared little in common with the second plague pandemic (fourteenth-eighteenth centuries), and both were distinct from the third plague pandemic at the turn of the twentieth century (Eisenberg and Mordechai 2020).

This chapter focuses its discussion on a specific past pandemic to examine its implications for the present. As with any other case study, this early medieval pandemic cannot offer direct lessons for our own situation because the states and societies of the sixth century are fundamentally different from those of the twenty-first century. A careful analysis of this case study, however, reveals several similarities with the Covid pandemic. It also demonstrates the methodological issues in drawing conclusions from the medium and long term effects, and the difficulties of applying these conclusions to our present.

Setting the Scene: The Roman Empire and the Outbreak of Plague

The Justinianic Plague was part of the first plague pandemic, a general concept that encompasses epidemic disease outbreaks that occurred between the mid-sixth and mid-eighth centuries in western Eurasia. Some, but not all, of these outbreaks were related, and some, but likely not all, were caused by the pathogen Yersinia pestis, which causes plague. Although earlier research has claimed that as many as 100 million people died in this pandemic, several recent studies have argued for a far lower death toll (Mordechai et al. 2019; Mordechai & Eisenberg 2019).

Practitioners today define three major manifestations of plague in humans, all caused by the Y. pestis bacterium. The most common—and best known—is bubonic plague, named after its buboes—large swellings near the lymph nodes often in the armpit or the groin. Mortality occurs on average just a few days after the symptoms appear in 30% or more of untreated cases, although antibiotics today can drastically reduce mortality. The two other types of plague are pneumonic plague and septicemic plague. Although both cause mortality much faster and their case fatality rates often reach 100%, only a small fraction of humans develop pneumonic plague, which is the only way in which people can infect each other directly. Septicemic plague is rarely discussed in the context of the Justinianic Plague because of its rarity and lack of discernible symptoms in the historical sources (CDC 2020).

The Justinianic Plague (c. 541–544) reached and affected multiple states, but most of our evidence comes from its most severe outbreak in the Roman Empire. The empire’s political and social institutions had originally developed in Rome and Italy centuries earlier, but following the Roman conquests of the Mediterranean world, they continued to operate in what is today the Balkans, Turkey, and the Middle East. By the mid-sixth century, the empire’s capital was permanently located in Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

The emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), during whose reign the pandemic reached the empire, pursued multiple large-scale projects to solidify his authority before the outbreak of the plague. Within a few years of gaining the throne, he led a major reform of Roman law and rebuilt the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, making it the largest building in Western Eurasia for centuries. Hoping to restore Roman territories in the central Mediterranean that had been lost 50 years earlier, he sent armies to reconquer North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. His generals conquered the first two quickly, while the initial phase of the war in Italy concluded favorably. Yet at the same time as his armies expanded the empire’s frontiers, a long-standing conflict with the Persian Empire (centered in modern-day Iraq and Iran) reignited on its eastern frontier. Although the conflict was usually limited to border regions, in 540 a large Persian raid sacked and burned Antioch, the Roman Empire’s third-largest city (situated at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean), deep within Roman territory (Heather 2018).

Then, the plague hit the empire. While the origin of the plague did not occupy the minds of contemporaries, modern scholars have focused an inordinate amount of attention on this question and now believe it came from central Asia through Indian Ocean trade networks (see Eisenberg and Mordechai 2019 for the literature). Over the next three years, plague spread around the Mediterranean. Few specifics are known about its effects in most of the empire’s territory, although it appears to have hit areas in Egypt and Syria. The most significant outbreak was in Constantinople (Mordechai and Eisenberg 2019).

Similar to other pre-modern states, the social contract binding together the Roman Empire was inherently different from present-day developed countries. The state was obliged to provide only minimal services, most importantly security from foreign enemies in the form of a standing army, which it funded using taxes. Centralized expenditure on infrastructure was minimal, although the state maintained a public road system and a state-only postal system. The state might help build city walls, aqueducts or churches in specific locations, but these investments were exceptional and the burden of maintaining them would generally fall on local elites. The state did not offer any institutionalized and centralized health, education, or welfare system.

Constantinople was a partial exception to these rules. Emperors and the central government maintained the public structures of the capital—defense systems, water infrastructure, and cultural institutions such as churches. The state also supported, at considerable expense, the annona system by which it supplied free (basic) food to the city. As the hallmark of the system, the government bought huge amounts of grain in Egypt (an imperial province), moved it by sea to Constantinople, and distributed it among its citizens. In this manner, the state maintained a much higher population in its capital than could be sustained by the resources in and around it.

As a consequence of the state’s variegated system, the experiences and expectations of the people in the empire would have been radically different, depending on where they were. Rural provincial inhabitants normally had minimal interaction with the state. The state was more visible in provincial urban settlements, but had a substantial presence only in the empire’s largest cities. At the same time, even in the capital—filled with monuments, ceremonies, and officials—expectations from the state were far more limited compared to the present.

As a result of the different social contract between the state and its citizens, there is no indication that the state directed a coordinated response to the onset of plague nor was it even expected to mount any type of response. The state had information about the plague, its spread, and its effects but does not appear to have done anything with this information to reduce the potential impact on its citizens (Malalas 481). Although the outbreak in Constantinople occurred about a year after the early outbreaks in Egypt and southern Palestine, and although the slow movement of the pandemic allowed observers in the capital to trace its advancement, the imperial government did not prepare for the pandemic (John of Ephesus 93). There is no evidence that it attempted to slow traffic, come up with a response plan to plague’s arrival in the capital or alert its citizens. At least some of these must be attributable to the novelty of the event, alongside that epidemic disease response was not within the purview of an early medieval state.

Within this context, we divide the impacts of plague on the early medieval societies it affected into short- and long-term effects. The short-term section focuses on immediate changes that can be directly attributed to plague, particularly the public reactions to the government’s efforts to bury the increased number of dead in Constantinople. The long-term section focuses on the potential secondary and tertiary effects of the first outbreak. They include, among others, economic, and political impacts.

Short-Term Responses to the First Plague Outbreak in 542 C.E

Public Reaction

Once the plague appeared in Constantinople in the spring of 542, the inhabitants of the city tried to make sense of what was happening through their own beliefs and knowledge of the time, which seem strange and irrational from a 21st century perspective. Yet, these ideas are, in many respects, no more or less rational than contemporary responses to disease outbreaks, such as HIV or Covid (for HIV, McKay 2017; for Covid, Gillespie 2020; van Doremalen 2020). To use today’s terms, these late antique beliefs are equivalent to conspiracy theories or misinformation, all of which flourish in contexts where reliable information is partial and ambiguous. Such beliefs have an adaptive function—whether by offering believers agency (or the illusion of agency), or by helping them make sense of the world around them.

Observers of the plague outbreak tried to explain the ways in which an individual was infected. Beliefs included demons in human form that infected humans by touching them in the real world or in their dreams. Another common idea in Constantinople identified monks and clerics—who were identifiable by their appearance—with death. Rather than seeking solace from these religious authorities, the local population fled from them. In response, monks and clerics walked around the streets less often (John of Ephesus 108–109). Although the state and church were concerned with correct religious belief and in other contexts were willing to commit significant resources to enforcing it, we hear of no attempts to correct this unorthodox belief, which persisted for two years.

The underlying cause of the pandemic was debated inconclusively at the time. Many attributed it to the divine, but others argued the plague was the result of malignant demonic activity. Both beliefs circulated together, and some authors of the time suggest both were at fault. For example, one author described plague as “[divine] chastisement” but also accepted the testimony of others who claimed to have seen fearful ghost ships of bronze—complete with headless corpses—which spread plague along the Mediterranean coasts (John of Ephesus 82–83).

Compared to experiences with Covid, which focused on its geographical origins, the origins (whether proximate or ultimate) of plague did not particularly interest late antique contemporaries. One sixth century writer (Evagrius 4.29) mentions Ethiopia, a country stereotypically associated with diseases, while a few noted only the first place it affected within the empire—Pelusium, a port town in northeastern Egypt (e.g. Procopius, Wars 2.22). Other authors remain silent, since they either do not know or think it was important.

Somewhat surprisingly, historical sources refer to only a few beliefs that were meant to cure or get rid of plague during the initial outbreak (Mulhall, 2021). One such belief was the conviction that if the city’s population broke ceramic pitchers by throwing them down into the street, the noise would scare death (i.e. plague) away from the city. This rumor allegedly convinced women in particular (John of Ephesus 108). Attempts to prevent infection are similarly few and concentrated on staying away from other people. Some people in Constantinople appear to have locked themselves at home—whether as an attempt to escape demons or contagion (John of Ephesus 101). When plague reached southern Asia Minor, the local farmers refused to bring their goods into the city of Myra since they feared infection, likely preserving themselves but causing a food shortage in the city (Life of St. Nicholas of Sion 52). Institutional response was rare. In Roman-controlled Italy during a later outbreak, for example, Pope Gregory the Great instituted a religious procession to atone for sins that caused the plague outbreak and prevent future infection (Gregory of Tours 10.1). From a modern biomedical perspective, none of these attempts to stop plague worked. They did, however, offer some immediate comfort or perceived agency to people at the time, a practice not much different from immediate reactions to Covid, and some—such as de facto self-isolation—may have inadvertently worked.Footnote 1

State Response in Constantinople

As with any pandemic, the larger and more diverse geographically a state is, the higher the variability of the disease’s impact. Each location during the Justinianic Plague—from a regional to a neighborhood scale—was struck differently. Settlement patterns (urban vs. rural) and ecological factors (e.g. local species that could host and transmit plague) played a significant role in determining the more local effects of the pandemic, although these can rarely be known in detail. Crowded concentrations of humans in cities would typically increase the disease burden on urban populations even if plague’s impact on individual cities would have varied considerably and some may not have been significantly affected at all. In some cases, a series of (mostly unknown) contingencies could cause a significant outbreak. Such a “perfect storm” appears to have happened in Constantinople in 542, drawing by far the most attention from contemporaries relative to any other outbreak during the first pandemic.

The plague outbreak in Constantinople led to an unusual, but significant centralized governmental response (by late antique standards) to alleviate a major immediate problem—how to handle the increased number of corpses. Such burial problems frequently occur in pandemics or other mass mortality events (Crosby 1989; NYC 2020). As the death toll increased, observers were dismayed that even the corpses of the elite were not buried (Procopius, Wars 2.23.5). Emperor Justinian, therefore, appointed an administrator named Theodoros to manage the process of disposing of corpses. This decision broke with tradition. Burial in the empire was the responsibility of a person’s relatives, communal organizations such as burial associations, or the church, who buried the poor (Rautman 2006: 10–12, 78). The state, however, did not usually interfere in burial practices and normally had no capacity to complete this task. Justinian’s immediate decision, therefore, was a necessary adaptation.

Theodoros oversaw the operation in person and upon request, he would send his men to collect corpses. His presence on the streets also enabled him to act quickly. On one occasion, he and his staff came upon a locked house that gave off a strong stench. Breaking in, they found approximately twenty decomposing corpses, which they had removed by generously paying day laborers (John of Ephesus 101). The corpse disposal service Theodoros offered to the city’s inhabitants, and the economic incentive he offered to his workers resulted in the successful collection of corpses, but the more pressing problem of what to do with the corpses once they were massed together remained.

Theodoros first tried to appropriate existing graves that belonged to the city’s citizens. This was another break with tradition since the state did not, under normal circumstances, infringe upon its citizens’ property. It became quickly clear, however, that the existing graves were insufficient for the task. At this point, officials likely realized that providing services (i.e. burying corpses) was not enough, and that they would have to adapt by constructing the necessary infrastructure to deal with this problem. While Justinian ordered the production of new litters to carry corpses and dig new graves, Theodoros instructed his teams to dig large ditches. The patterns of public participation in the project suggest social cohesion, and when combined with financial incentives the city gained the necessary labor to dispose of bodies (John of Ephesus 100).

Unfortunately, as a first solution Theodoros’ initiative was inadequate—digging new graves took too long while the corpses continued to accumulate. Theodoros therefore decided to send the corpses elsewhere. After dumping some corpses into the surrounding water, he decided to send most of them to the nearby suburbs, alleviating some of the problem. They were first placed in fortifications in the city’s suburbs, but problematically the changing wind carried the stench back into the city (Procopius 2.23.9) forcing Theodoros to find another solution. Soon afterwards, Theodoros decreed the digging of huge graves—our sources claim these could hold 70,000 corpses, an exaggeration—which finally resolved the burial problem successfully (John of Ephesus 100–101).

Theodoros employed some individuals on a more permanent basis based on their skills and his needs, while others were hired as non-specialized labor. There does not appear to have been any attempt of the state to coerce the population into working in exploitative conditions. In fact, it appears that the pay for corpse removal—ranging from carrying corpses to digging graves—was generous and immediate, since Theodoros placed paymasters who disbursed a standard payment to anyone who arrived with a load of corpses (John of Ephesus 100–101). Supposedly, many workers preferred to work for less remuneration as they scorned receiving pay for their labor in this context and some went as far as to reject all payment (John of Ephesus 104; 103).

A final point regarding the burial issue in Constantinople and cooperation it facilitated concerns the two main rival factions in the city. Each was well organized and could mobilize its followers to show support, for example in context of the popular local chariot races, and sometimes to conduct organized or semi-organized violence, often against each other. Despite their history of past (and future) strife, both factions cooperated with the state in the burial efforts (Procopius 2.23.13; Cameron 1976). Whether the initiative came from the factions themselves or the state is unclear, but it demonstrates that domestic differences and rivalries were temporarily shelved until some measure of stability might be achieved.

Annual to Decadal-Scale Responses

State Effects in the First Five Years: The 540s

A bureaucratic and relatively centralized state by premodern standards, the Roman Empire maintained itself through assuring the continuity of its government and administration, collecting taxes, and fielding armies (Haldon 2016). None of these core functions were severely impacted by the Justinianic Plague and the government continued operating as before. We know of no administrators who died during the Justinianic Plague, and although the emperor Justinian himself fell ill, raising some concern in the military, he recovered and continued to govern (Procopius, Secret History 4.1–3).

There is no concrete indication that the state’s ability to collect taxes was affected as a result of the plague. After other disasters such as earthquakes, the Roman government sometimes offered afflicted regions limited tax relief or other forms of support. Their targeted use suggests the government maintained, or at least could repurpose, existing surpluses (Mordechai and Pickett 2018). After the first plague outbreak, however, there is no evidence for any change of governmental policy, or any indication of tax relief, to meet a seemingly more significant disaster. The single exception is a law that attempted to ensure laborers were not receiving more money than they had previously received for their work (Meier 2016). Scholars have argued that the plague could have reduced the amount of taxes raised overall and therefore may have halted the empire’s military campaign against Persia during the initial plague outbreak (Kislinger and Stathakopoulos 1999). However, the empire’s two active major wars in Italy and Persia soon resumed and continued for over another decade. Moreover, less than a decade after the first plague outbreak, the empire sent a new military expedition to Spain, on the far side of the Mediterranean, where it conquered the southern part of the peninsula.

The onset of plague did coincide with the disruption and reduction of the state-managed grain supply that fed Constantinople. Whether this was due to less demand because of mortality or emigration, a supply problem from Egypt, or a temporary reduction to conserve imperial resources is uncertain, since the sources only provide numbers but do not explain the fluctuation (Zuckerman 2004). Regardless, as with the military efforts, the supply of grain to the capital returned within a few years to its normal amount and, within five years, had surpassed pre-plague amounts. Whatever the cause of the reduction, the state was able to fulfill its grain requirements without significant difficulties after a few years. The economic impact of the plague was small enough that the state could maintain a key tenet of its governing ideology.

Another adjustment at the state level appears to have been monetary. The empire used a tri-metallic monetary system, which included gold, silver, and bronze coins. In 538, Justinian instituted a monetary reform, which increased the size and weight of the empire’s bronze coins—which were predominantly used for commerce. When the plague reached Constantinople four years later the imperial fisc partially rolled back the reform. New coins were smaller and lighter, although still larger and heavier than their pre-reform counterparts. The value of the coins did not change during the reform or after the plague—their denomination and face value remained constant (Stahl 2021). This suggests that difficulties in acquiring, mining or moving enough bullion to maintain the larger, heavier reform weight standards—any of which may have been an effect of the plague—could have been the reason for not pursuing the reform further. This coinage change was centrally ordered and controlled, and was probably an attempt to alleviate worse economic damage.

From a macro-governance perspective, the state continued to function while meeting its immediate needs during the worst years of the plague outbreak. The Roman state withstood the stress of the pandemic and managed the immediate crisis without much difficulty. Even during a severe outbreak in the empire’s densely populated capital and without any biomedical response, the threat to the state ideology, system, and its structures was minimal. Based on the three examples above—the military budget, the grain supply, and the monetary reform—it appears that the central government could mitigate the most pressing problems through minor governance changes, additional outlays of resources, and economic fixes.

Effects on a Decadal Scale: Causality and Caution

Plague’s impact is far less clear on the decadal scale across the broader Eurasian world from the 550s onward. This is partially due to the fewer written sources and the less data that exist on the topic outside Constantinople. But it is also due to how much we can plausibly link plague—or any pandemic—with long-term changes in society. Since plague’s effects differed based on ecological and human context, outbreaks varied to a great extent—with some severe and some negligible, and none of the reasons behind this impact have yet been disentangled (Echenberg 2007 for the Third Pandemic as one example; Eisenberg and Mordechai 2020 for all three pandemics). Overall, human decisions based on power and authority played an overlooked but crucial role.

Of the spectrum of large-scale changes that certainly occurred from the mid-sixth century onward across the broader Mediterranean world, some may have been related to early medieval plague outbreaks. In some cases, the pandemic continued and perhaps accelerated existing trends such as the decline in political, economic, and cultural power that started in the late fifth century due to the fragmentation of the Roman Empire in the western Mediterranean. However, the causal connection between the initial outbreak of plague in the 540s and these changes is impossible to prove one way or the other. The city of Arles in southern France, for example, had long been a key regional center because of its location at the mouth of the Rhone River, a vital trade conduit from the Mediterranean northward into the rest of France. While Arles certainly falls off the map in importance from the 550s onward, its decline as a political, economic, and cultural hub had begun decades before the plague. The immediate effects of plague on the city are unclear. Mortality in Arles was probably higher compared to locations further northward such as Clermont, but we hear of no implementation of temporary burial measures as in Constantinople (Gregory of Tours 4.5). By the late sixth century, power continued to shift northward to what is now the Paris region, while France’s commercial links to the Mediterranean continued to decline (Klingshirn 1994; Wood 1994). Plague may have exacerbated the slow breakdown of trade links northward or further made the city less politically vital, but none of these changes can be attributed to the plague alone or even the plague as a significant factor. It hardly caused a systemic collapse (McCormick 2021). Ultimately, the causal connection between plague and a transformation of a city in its broader regional importance—if even extant—was a slow process that took over a century.

The most basic problem for outbreaks of plague on a regional and long-term scale is that no contemporary writer directly linked a single outbreak to transformation, resilience or decline. This contrasts with the way the same authors described other disasters. Earthquakes or fires, for example, were used as causes for the decline or destruction of cities (e.g. Malalas 419–422). Significant disease outbreaks can certainly accelerate existing trends—such as in Arles—but they do so as part of a longer, gradual process for social, economic, and cultural reasons in which plague may play a role, while political power, will, and agency remain key factors. It is undoubtedly true that many regions in the post-Roman west became less populated and less economically productive over the sixth century, but to link these changes causally to plague is problematic at best, and impossible at worst (Wickham 2005 for an alternative explanation).

Conclusion

As perhaps might be expected in evaluating institutional response to complex events, the response of the Roman government to plague was mixed. Although contemporaries had experienced disease and epidemics on multiple occasions, the original plague outbreak in 541 was unprecedented in its scale and mortality. There is no indication that the central government used its resources and capabilities to prepare for plague or mitigate its impact in advance. While we should not expect a modern biomedical response, the absence of significant religious or cultural responses appropriate for the times is puzzling. Other, smaller disasters in the mid-sixth century did in fact result in notable public, imperial responses. For example, Justinian publicly mourned and did not wear his crown for a service after an earthquake hit the important city of Antioch, while after another earthquake hit Constantinople he removed his crown and did not wear it for 30 days (Malalas 421, 489). It appears therefore that the empire did not utilize its relative advantages when responding to the pandemic. The lack of a formal top-down administrative response to plague contributed to the diversity of local responses, only a fraction of which are preserved in our sources.

It is only when glimpsed from our view 1,500 years later with the ability to retrospectively connect causes and effects centuries in the future that the Justinianic Plague is linked to long-term changes, such as the rise of Islam almost a century after the outbreak of the plague. Yet as a general rule, the further in time the perceived effects of plague are from the first and most significant outbreak itself, the less robust the causal connection is. To make up for the absence of explicit societal effects of outbreaks, scholars piece together different types of evidence from written sources to archaeological remains and ancient DNA, but pinning the causal explanation on plague alone is simply impossible given that dating via non-written sources cannot be linked directly to an annual outbreak or even a single decade. In the case of the initial outbreak, it is perhaps easiest and most accurate to argue that early medieval states were resilient to the pandemic, since none of them collapsed or underwent any transformational changes in the decade immediately after they experienced the worst outbreak in recorded history by that point in time.

As we have demonstrated above, the early medieval pandemic may have seemed like the end of the world to many contemporaries, who encountered an unknown situation and had understandable difficulties in comprehending it. Individual responses varied—some were more rational, others perhaps less so—but none of them threatened the existing socio-political order. The state returned to its pre-pandemic functions even if some prioritizing was necessary to adapt to the new reality, for example by giving up on an overly ambitious monetary reform. Elites do not appear to have lost their status. There were surely problems—some created by the government—and challenges—some overcome by its administrators. However, the Romans recognized there were times when social cohesion and support was more important than internal rivalries. The social contract between ruler and ruled remained strong—the fact that the central government reinstituted the grain shipments and maintained the distribution of free food in the capital supported the Roman economic-ideological system. As a result, the impact of these problems and challenges was limited on the state scale, even if their consequences would have been felt far more acutely on a local level, where administrative decisions could result in unnecessary deaths or unexpected survival. Communities and individuals likely suffered over the short-term, but in a manner reminiscent of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, these effects were soon forgotten in the Roman world.