The Black Death

Persecution of Minorities and Marginalised Groups

Jews were not the only group targeted during the Black Death. The search for scapegoats — for someone to blame for a catastrophe that defied rational explanation — extended to a range of minorities and marginalised groups across medieval Europe. Beggars, lepers, foreigners, Roma, Muslims, and those accused of sorcery or witchcraft all faced suspicion, hostility, and in some cases violence during the pandemic.

The Psychology of Scapegoating

The psychological mechanism behind scapegoating during the Black Death was straightforward: when a catastrophe is too vast and too terrifying to comprehend, people seek a human agent to blame. The plague killed without apparent reason — sparing some while destroying others, striking the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked. This randomness was intolerable to a culture that believed in a moral universe governed by a just God. If the plague was a punishment, someone must have provoked it. If it was a conspiracy, someone must have organised it.

The groups most vulnerable to scapegoating were those already marginalised in medieval society — those who were different, foreign, or feared. The persecution of Jews was the most extreme manifestation of this pattern, but it was not the only one.

Beggars and the Poor

Beggars and the destitute poor were among the most visible marginalised groups in medieval cities, and they were frequently suspected of spreading the plague deliberately. In some places, beggars were accused of smearing plague-infected material on the doors of houses, in the hope of killing the inhabitants and stealing their possessions. In others, they were simply driven out of towns and cities as potential carriers of infection.

The association between poverty and disease was not entirely unfounded. The poor, who lived in crowded, unsanitary conditions and had limited access to medical care, were indeed more likely to contract and spread the plague. However, the accusation that beggars were deliberately spreading the disease was a projection of fear and prejudice rather than a response to evidence.

Lepers

Lepers, who had long been segregated from mainstream society in leper houses (leprosaria), were another group vulnerable to suspicion. The disease of leprosy — which causes skin lesions, nerve damage, and physical deformity — was already associated with moral corruption in medieval thought, and lepers were sometimes accused of conspiring with Jews to spread the plague.

In 1321, nearly three decades before the Black Death, a wave of persecution swept through France, in which lepers were accused of poisoning wells. According to the confessions extracted that year, the lepers were said to be acting at the instigation of the Jews, who had in turn allegedly been bribed by Muslim rulers — variously named as the king of Granada and the sultan of Tunis. Both lepers and Jews were attacked, and many lepers were burned alive. The memory of this earlier persecution made lepers particularly vulnerable during the Black Death, when well-poisoning accusations resurfaced.

Foreigners and Strangers

Foreigners — merchants, travellers, pilgrims, and migrants — were natural targets for suspicion during the plague. The disease spread along trade routes and maritime networks, and the strangers who travelled these routes were often the first to bring infection to new communities. The association between foreigners and disease was empirically grounded — travellers did indeed carry the plague — but it was exaggerated into a generalised hostility toward all outsiders.

In many towns and cities, foreigners were expelled or subjected to quarantine regulations that were not applied to local residents. Merchants from plague-affected regions were refused entry, and travellers were viewed with suspicion. The restriction of movement, while medically rational in some respects, also reflected a broader xenophobia that intensified during the crisis.

In England, the Flemish merchant community in London was attacked during the plague, partly because of economic resentment and partly because of the association between foreigners and disease. In Italy, merchants from the Levant and North Africa faced similar hostility.

Muslims and Religious Minorities

In the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, Muslim communities (Mudejares) were sometimes accused of provoking divine wrath through their unbelief, and instances of violence against them were recorded during the plague. However, the persecution of Muslims during the Black Death was less systematic than the persecution of Jews, partly because Muslim communities were under the protection of royal charters and partly because the theological framework for understanding Islamic presence in Christian territory was different from that applied to Jews.

In the Middle East, the experience was different. The Mamluk Sultanate, which ruled Egypt and Syria, was a Muslim state with significant Christian and Jewish minority populations. While instances of inter-communal tension were recorded, the systematic massacres that occurred in Christian Europe had no parallel in the Islamic world.

Sorcery and Witchcraft

The association between plague and sorcery was widespread in medieval thought. The belief that disease could be caused by magical means — by curses, hexes, or the preparation of poisonous substances — was deeply rooted in popular culture, and the plague’s inexplicable lethality seemed to confirm the power of malevolent magic.

Accusations of sorcery were directed at a range of individuals, including herbalists, midwives, and others who possessed knowledge of medicinal plants and natural remedies. Women were particularly vulnerable to such accusations, as the association between women and magic was a persistent theme in medieval culture. While the large-scale witch hunts that characterised the early modern period had not yet begun, the seeds of the later persecutions were sown in the anxieties of the plague era.

The Broader Pattern

The persecution of minorities during the Black Death was not a single, coordinated phenomenon but a series of local episodes driven by a common psychological mechanism: the need to find a human cause for an inhuman catastrophe. The specific targets varied by region and local circumstances, but the pattern was consistent. Marginalised groups — those who were different, foreign, or feared — were identified as the agents of the plague and subjected to violence, expulsion, or restriction.

The legacy of these persecutions was long-lasting. The destruction of Jewish communities in Central Europe reshaped the demographic geography of European Jewry. The association between disease and marginality — between plague and the poor, the foreign, the different — persisted in European culture for centuries and influenced the response to later epidemics, from cholera to HIV/AIDS.