Patrick (Paddy) O’Reilly • Veterinary Surgeon • General Practitioner • Specialist Pig Practitioner • Small Animals (Pets) • Teaching (Bovine Medicine) • History degree
Cattle Plague in Early Medieval Ireland: An Agricultural Gamechanger? A look at an early medieval outbreak of cattle disease and its consequences, with reference to the annals, the archaeology of the period and present day knowledge.
CATTLE PLAGUES AND MURRAINS • Bó ár: “a mortality of cattle” • A murrain: a plague or epidemic, an infectious disease • Mael garbh: “bald (and) rough”
• “the tillage land is exuberantly rich, the Giraldus fields yielding large crops of corn; and Cambrensis herds of cattle are fed on the mountains…but this island is more productive in pasture than in corn, in grass than in grain. The crops give great promise when in the blade, still more in the straw, but less in the ear; for the grains of wheat are shrivelled and small… The fields are luxuriantly covered…The granaries only show scanty returns.” • “…the grass in the fields is green in the winter as well as the summer, so that they neither cut hay for fodder nor ever build stalls for the cattle…it is warm at almost all seasons.”
Agriculture and climate • Grain: oats, barley, rye, wheat • Vegetables: onions, celery, leeks, cabbage • Roots: Roman Britain had carrots, parsnips and turnips • Chives, parsley, garlic, sorrel, sage • Fruit: apple, plum, sloes, b’berries • Hazelnuts • Flax, woad
Grass and cattle: pastoralism Functions of cattle Food from cattle • Food • Milk • Traction • Butter • Fertilizer • Cheese • Hide and horn (wool) • Curds (bonnyclobber?), whey • Bank of capital/currency • Meat • Status • Blood • Terms of affection • Fat
Bó ár. Bovinas mortalitas. A mortality of cattle Unlikely suspects Some infectious suspects • Anthrax • Starvation • Contagious Bovine pleuro‐ • Deficiency disease pneumonia • Parasitism • Foot and mouth disease • All of the above • Liver fluke and other parasites • Rinderpest
Sixth sense comes with age or experience? • …the only animals “examined” would be those whose condition required differentiation from similar conditions by the simple expedient of observing them across the half‐door of the stable… (!)
Prove a “duck” is a duck • The annals • The archaeology • DNA
The Irish Annals • Churchmen, warlords, kings etc. • Natural phenomena, weather • Epidemics, epizootics • Not administrative records • Scholarly compositions with a point of view • Subject of entry may not be familiar to scribe • Idiosyncratic • Amalgam of earlier or lost works • “Local” • “Almost primary” sources
Early descriptions of disease Scientists Anthropologists A lost corpus of cultural knowledge… A lack of understanding of the nature of disease…
Identifying a Disease • Realistically the first efforts to deal scientifically with animal disease started with the founding of a veterinary school in Lyon in 1762 • To identify a disease properly, you need to be able to differentiate that disease from other diseases • A complete description of the disease being studied • PATHOGNOMONIC LESION (One single striking clinical manifestation)
Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia Foot and Mouth Disease CBPP FMD • Fracastor: 1546 in Italy • High mortality‐slow • Ireland and Britain 1713‐14 • “Lungers” • DNA sequencing • SCAMACH • Artiodactylidae • Contagious suggests widespread (cloven‐footed) • Respiratory cripples‐sporadic • LOW MORTALITY • Identified in Lyon in 1762 • Virgil?
Virgil’s Georgics Ecce autem duro fumans sub vomere taurus Coincidit et mistum spumis vomit ore cruorem, … Solvuntur latera,atque oculos stupor urget inertes Ad terramque fluit devexo pondere cervix.
Anthrax “The cattle mortality broke out in Ireland on the Kalends of February in Magh Tregha in Tethba.” (Moytragh, Longford, 20/1/2015)
Rinderpest • Steppe Murrain • Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome • Acute or Peracute • Peracute, found dead This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY‐SA • Acute, Death in 6‐12 days • 90% Mortality
Mael Garbh • “ Bald and Rough” • Cow Pox or Vaccinia • So called “Rinderpest Exanthema” • Immunosuppression • Udder, inside thighs, perineum, axillae, etc.
Mael Garbh • Not all Rinderpest is Mael Garbh, but all Mael Garbh is Rinderpest.
Spread of Rinderpest • Large population to maintain virus • Animal to animal • 12‐14 days incubation • Armies and war • Trade in live animals, hides etc. • Cattle movement
Cattle movement • Trade • Transhumance (Booleying) • Créacht(anna) • Cattle raiding(Táin Bó Cualaigne)
A simple Risk Assessment • Numbers of raids x numbers of cattle x miles travelled =Risk • Hundreds x Thousands x Tens = Millions
Archaeology: bones and plague Pits Human Plague Pits Entire bodies DNA of specific organisms Animal Plague Pits Entire bodies Small numbers of pits and animals
The Bones‐Bone Middens • Animals slaughtered and eaten‐ generally healthy • Numbers of Species • Numbers of Animals
Interpreting Bones‐Plague Pits • DNA is far more likely to be isolated for chronic conditions. • Die with vs die of. (TB, Leprosy, Syphilis, Yaws etc.) • Concentrated cases‐plague pits in big cities. (Yersinia pestis) • Some small groups of entire dead cattle on the continent. • High mortality in a small number or low mortality in a large number? • Certainly perceived to be inedible • Rinderpest carcases were eaten in later outbreaks in England • Hides were routinely salvaged • Small groups were likely to have been Anthrax
Interpreting Bones‐Bone Middens • Numbers of animals • Age of animals • Relative numbers of species • Taking into account the relative size of different species, calculate relative amounts of meat from different species consumed • Significant reduction in cattle numbers around the time of the “murrain” called “mael garbh”
Uncertainty and risk aversion
Archaeological evidence Grain Kilns Ringforts
Rinderpest and Smallpox? • Continental Europe c. AD800 • England c. AD1320 • Ireland c. AD775 and 1320 • Galar breac vs Bolgach • High recovery rate • Cowpox or smallpox?
To sum up • Murrain‐Mael Garbh • Likely candidates‐nature and their consequences • So called rinderpest exanthema • Reduction in cattle numbers • Bones, enclosures • Increase in grain drying kilns • Smallpox/pied pox/cowpox
Some references • Crotty, Raymond, Cattle, economics and development (Slough, 1980). • McCormick Finbar and Murray Emily, Knowth and the zooarchaeology of early Christian Ireland (Dublin, 2007). • Kelly, Fergus, Early Irish farming (Dundalk, 2000). • Lucas, A. T., Cattle in ancient Ireland (Kilkenny, 1989). • Spinage, Clive A., Cattle plague: a history (New York, 2003). • Newfield, Timothy P., ‘A great Carolingian panzootic: the probable extent, diagnosis and impact of an early ninth‐ century cattle pestilence’ in Argos (2012) no. 46 pp 200‐207. • Slavin Phil , On dying cattle, starving humans and never dying money: Cattle pestilence in England and Wales, 1319‐1320. http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/.../slavin‐081020.pdf, 12 Nov. 2015.
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