The stone monuments across England that pay tribute to the victims of the Black Death – and why doctors REALLY wore bird masks to tend to the sick
THE bubonic plague wiped out 25 million people between 1340 and when it reached London in 1665 - and memories of it remain today.
DESPITE it coming to an end 351 years ago, memories of the Black Death still haunt England.
It's been estimated that 60 percent of the country's population - as many as 1,500,000 people - died.
The outbreak decimated entire villages, wiped out families and triggered famine as there were no peasants to work the land.
At the time people believed that the disease, caused by a bacteria called yersinia pestis , was an airborne disease.
People walked the streets holding hankies stuffed with orange peel and spices so they didn't have to inhale the stench of death - or just the streets in general.
It was this belief about the nature of the devastating disease's contagion that saw doctors wearing the now iconic 'beak masks'.
These bird like facial coverings featured a huge hollow beak so that medics could stuff them with herbs, spices, dried flowers and other pleasant smelling substances to protect them from being infected.
While there is no evidence that these outfits were worn in the UK, they were commonplace on the continent, where the plague raged for decades before reaching British shores.
Sadly there were no bird masks or protection for the hundreds - if not thousands - of destitute women referred to as 'searchers' who were sent house to house to diagnose victims.
But it's not the terrifying bird masks - a popular choice at masquerade balls and Halloween parties - that are the sole nod to the dark days of the 1660s.
Across the country, forgotten monoliths called 'plague stones' are still in existence, as well as stone crosses marking mass graves or serving as a simple memorial to those who lost their lives to the indiscriminate disease.
Plague stones were erected outside established market areas showing where town and country people could trade with minimal risk of contamination.
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Some of these stones were given a carved hollow that could be filled with water - and later vinegar - so that people could disinfect their coins and further minimise risk of catching or spreading the disease.
Vinegar Alley in Walthamstow, north east London, was named after the huge volumes of vinegar that were used to try and disinfect people who had been at the nearby plague pit, where bodies were left to rot en masse.
Another hangover from the Black Death can be found in literature, art and films of the present day.
The plague is the reason we have 'death personified' as people found it easier to deal with death as a physical form rather than as an invisible foe that destroyed everything in its path.
The trail of destruction left by the plague was anything but invisible.
Houses deemed to be infected with the plague were painted with a red or black foot-long cross and the words 'Lord have mercy upon us' after they were nailed shut.
Anyone who nursed a plague victim had to be quarantined for 10 days, and they too were boarded up in the house or room where they had just watched their loved one die.
The Lord Mayor of London introduced this action in 1665 in a bid to try and stop the disease from spreading further throughout the city.
His regulations stated: "That every house visited [by the disease] be marked with a red cross of a foot long in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed words, that is to say, 'Lord, have mercy upon us,' to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful opening of the same house."
Men in charge of the death carts would walk the streets each day chanting “Bring out your dead, bring out your dead!”
Two relatives of the deceased would then drag out and fling their loved one's body on to the back of the cart - perhaps in the knowledge that it was a matter of time until they were on top of the festering pile of bodies.
Once the cart was full, it would be taken to a pit outside the town or city, and the bodies flung in to a mass grave.
People were dying so quickly that there was no time for a proper burial, nor enough grave diggers to prepare proper burial sites - they were all dropping dead, too.
Once a pit was full it would be covered with earth as a huge unmarked grave.
These pits are still found across the country, with Blackheath in south London one of the best known examples.
But it wasn't only London that was affected, with a documents relating to the village of Ackworth explaining how the plague came to their town.
A popular monk fell ill with the plague while on a pilgrimage to Rome, and when his body was returned to the village to be buried, nosy villagers cracked open his coffin to see his rotting body.
Henry Thompson wrote in his book A History of Ackworth School in its first 100 years, "nothing could satisfy the ignorant but faithful love of the old hearers."
After the village fell foul of the plague, he claims that the vinegar stone on Castle Syke Hill became "for many months the only contact between them and the outside world".
Things were slightly worse for people in Europe, and in Milan plague victims were taken out of the city walls and left outside to either die or recover.
And like in London, the Milan Archbishop also ordered all houses with plague victims to be boarded up regardless of if they were dead or alive.
Sadly the plague claimed thousands of other victims who were not even infected.
People believed Jews were responsible for the plague and accused them of poisoning wells and water supplies. In mainland Europe thousands were killed - on the Pope's orders.
Those who survived the plague and religious zealots who saw death unfold around them, saw it as a punishment from God and it wasn't uncommon to see people walking the streets whipping themselves.
In 1349, after the first outbreak of plague in mainland Europe, a group known as the Flagellants appeared in England.
It's documented that 600 of them arrived from Flanders, barefoot and naked from the waist up apart from red caps with crosses on the front and back.
They carried a three-tailed whip, with the middle length featuring a knot and a nail.
They marched through the streets and whipped themselves, drawing blood and chanting in unison.
Witness accounts from the time claim that they would then stretch on the ground in the shape of a cross with the rear one stepping over the ones in front whipping them.
They would continue to do this until the rear one had had a turn and everyone had been whipped.
The plague originated in China in 1333 before it spread across Europe after travelling on ships carried by flea-infested rats.
However, rats' involvement in the horror is disputed by historians who argue that as the bubonic plague kills rats too, it's bizarre that they have never found millions of rat skeletons.
How people treated the plague... and most are pretty grim
PEOPLE are quick to slam NHS waiting lists, but the plague stricken folk of 1665 would have been grateful for any sorts of help. Check out these popular 'remedies' suggested for those suffering from the disease.
Vinegar and water The sufferer should be put to bed and kept there until they have recovered. Their bodies and sores should be washed with a mixture of vinegar and rose water.
Lancing the buboes The boils caused by the plague must be cut open to let the disease to leave the body. Then a mix of tree resin, roots of white lilies and dried human excrement should be applied to where the flesh has been cut.
Bleeding To eliminate the disease from the blood, the veins leading to the heart should be cut open. Smear these cuts an ointment made of clay and violets.
Diet Sufferers were told to avoid food that spoiled easily like meat, cheese and fish, and instead stick to bread, fruit and vegetables.
Sanitation Bodies were taken to pits outside of cities and towns to be buried in mass pits. Human and animal excrement was cleared and taken away from populated areas to be burnt, along with the clothes of the dead.
Home remedy People roasted the shells of freshly laid eggs and ground them in to a powder. They were then brewed with marigolds in a pot of ale and treacle. The mixture was then drank every morning and night. Put the egg shells and marigolds into a pot of good ale. Add treacle and warm over a fire. The patient should drink this mixture every morning and
Clucking mad A live hen's bum was plucked and then placed next to a victim's boil to absorb the poison from their body. Each day the chicken was washed and reattached until either the chicken or the victim was dead.
Urine People washed in urine to ward off the disease, and also drank a glass twice a day. People who weren't affected sold their wee to people who were and made - no pun intended - quite a killing.