During the Black Plague, death came so fast that proper Christian burials became impossible. In Siena, mass graves filled the city as few priests were available and families were forced to bury loved ones themselves. The haunting journal of Agnolo di Tura reveals the horror as he buried his five children with his own hands.
Features
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Ancient gravestones in Kyrgyzstan hint the Black Death began long before it reached Europe.
How the Black Death Set Sail for Europe
In 1347, ships reached Sicily with the Black Death. In a year, it spread across Europe to England.
The Pandemic That Killed Half of Europe
The Black Death may have killed nearly 50 percent of the Europe's population.
Chasing the Plague
Scientists study medieval bubonic plague victims in hopes of preventing future outbreaks.
TRANSCRIPT
-The problem with the Black Death when hundreds of people every day dying, there is no way to give a proper sendoff into the next life.
There weren't enough priest to go around to give last rites or to give that proper Christian sendoff.
And so there would have been more death pits open throughout the city -Agnolo di Tura's journal evokes the full horror of the situation.
-No one could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship.
Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could without priest, without divine offices.
In many places in Siena, great pits were dug and piled deeper with the multitude of dead, and they died by the hundreds, both day and night, and overthrown in those ditches and covered with earth.
And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug.
-As people in Siena died in the thousands and the city's plague pits filled with bodies, So too did Agnolo di Tura's family members become victims of this terrible tragedy.
-So many died that all believed it was the end of the world.
I, Agnolo di Tura, buried m five children with my own hands.
-Siena and other places were decimated.
But the cause of the infection that killed so many millions remained a mystery for centuries.
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