Editing Great Plague of London (section)

==London in 1665==
[[File:Civitas Londinium or The Agas Map of London.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|The [[Woodcut map of London|"Woodcut" map of London]], dating from the 1560s]]
[[File:Wenceslas Hollar - Plan of London before the fire (State 2), variant.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|Map of London by [[Wenceslaus Hollar]], {{circa}} 1665]]
The plague was [[Endemic (epidemiology)|endemic]] in 17th-century London, as it was in other European cities at the time.<ref name=Moote61>Moote (2004), pp. 60–61.</ref> The disease periodically erupted into massive epidemics. There were 30,000 deaths due to the plague in 1603, 35,000 in 1625, 10,000 in 1636, and smaller numbers in other years.<ref>{{cite web |last=Porter |first=Stephen |title=17th Century: Plague |url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/17th-century-plague |publisher=Gresham College |year=2001 |access-date=2014-07-28}}</ref><ref name=Moote11>Moote (2004), pp. 10–11.</ref>

In late 1664, a bright comet was seen in the sky,<ref>{{cite book |last=Pepys |first=Samuel |chapter=March 1st |chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diary_of_Samuel_Pepys/1665/March#March_1st |title=Diary of Samuel Pepys |year=1665 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=0-520-22167-2}}</ref> and the people of London became fearful, wondering what evil event it portended. London at that time was a city of about 448 acres surrounded by a [[London Wall|city wall]] that had originally been built to keep out raiding bands, and, in the south, by the [[River Thames]]. There were gates in the wall at [[Ludgate]], [[Newgate]], [[Aldersgate]], [[Cripplegate]], [[Moorgate]], [[Bishopsgate]] and [[Aldgate]], and the Thames was crossable at [[London Bridge]].<ref name=Leasor13>Leasor (1962) pp. 12–13</ref> In the poorer parts of the city, filled with overcrowded tenements and garrets, hygiene was impossible to maintain. There was no sanitation, and open drains flowed along the centre of winding streets. The cobbles were slippery with animal droppings, rubbish and the slops thrown out of the houses; they were muddy and buzzing with flies in summer, and awash with sewage in winter. The [[City of London Corporation|City Corporation]] employed "rakers" to remove the worst of the filth, and it was transported to mounds outside the walls, where it accumulated and continued to decompose. The stench was overwhelming, and people walked around with handkerchiefs or [[nosegay]]s pressed against their nostrils.<ref name=Leasor15>Leasor (1962) pp. 14–15</ref>

Some of the city's necessities, such as coal, arrived by [[barge]], but most came by road. Carts, carriages, horses and pedestrians were crowded together, and the gateways in the wall formed bottlenecks through which it was difficult to progress. The nineteen-arch London Bridge was even more congested. Those who were better-off used [[hackney carriage]]s and [[sedan chair]]s to get to their destinations without getting filthy. The poor walked, and might be drenched by water tossed up by wheeled vehicles, slops thrown into the street, or water pouring off overhanging roofs. Another hazard was the choking black smoke belching forth from [[soap]] factories, [[Brewery|breweries]], iron [[Smelting|smelters]] and about 15,000 households that were burning coal to heat their homes.<ref name=Leasor19>Leasor (1962) pp. 18–19</ref>

Outside the city walls, [[shanty towns]] with wooden shacks and no sanitation had sprung up, providing homes for the craftsmen and tradespeople who had flocked to the already overcrowded city. The government had tried to limit  the development of these "suburbs", but had failed: Over a quarter of a million people lived in them.<ref name="Leasor27">Leasor (1962) pp. 24–27</ref> When [[Cavalier|Royalists]] had fled the country during the [[Commonwealth of England|Commonwealth]], they had left many fine town houses vacant, and some immigrants to London had crowded into them, converting them into tenements that housed different families in every room. These properties were soon vandalised and became rat-infested.<ref name="Leasor27"/>

The City of London proper was administered by the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and the common councillors, but some parts of the greater metropolitan area were not legally part of the city. Some of these areas, both inside the City walls and outside its boundaries, had long been organised into districts of various sizes, called "[[Liberty (division)|liberties]]", that had historically been granted rights to self-government. (Many had originally been associated with the religious institutions that were abolished in the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]], whereupon their historic rights and property had been transferred to secular owners.)

By 1665, the walled City was surrounded by a ring of liberties which had come under its authority, and these had come to be referred to collectively as 'the City and Liberties'. However, this area was surrounded by additional suburbs with other independent administrations. For example, [[Westminster]] was an independent town with its own liberties, joined to London by urban development, and the [[Tower of London]] was an independent liberty. Areas that were not part of any of these various independent administrations came under the authority of the county of [[Middlesex]] if they were north of the river, and under the authority of [[Surrey]] if they were south of the river.<ref>Porter 1999, p.15</ref>

At that time, bubonic plague was a much feared disease, but its cause was not understood. Many mistakenly blamed emanations from the earth, "pestilential effluvia", unusual weather, sickness in livestock, abnormal behaviour of animals or an increase in the numbers of moles, frogs, mice or flies.<ref name=Leasor42>Leasor (1962) p. 42</ref> It was not until 1894 that its causal agent, the [[bacterium]] ''[[Yersinia pestis]]'', was identified by [[Alexandre Yersin]], and its transmission by [[Oriental rat flea|rat fleas]] became known.<ref name="Bockemühl_1994">{{cite journal|author=Bockemühl J |title=100 years after the discovery of the plague-causing agent—importance and veneration of Alexandre Yersin in Vietnam today |journal=Immun Infekt |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=72–5 |year=1994 |pmid = 7959865}}</ref> Although the Great Plague in London was long assumed to be bubonic plague, caused by ''Yersinia pestis'', this was only confirmed (by DNA analysis) in 2016.<ref name=stanbridge2016>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37287715|title=DNA confirms cause of 1665 London's Great Plague|last=Stanbridge|first=Nicola|date=2016-09-08|website=BBC News|access-date=2016-09-08}}</ref> It is now believed that human body lice also played a key role in causing infections, perhaps more so than rats.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barbieri |first1=Rémi |last2=Drancourt |first2=Michel |last3=Raoult |first3=Didier |title=The role of louse-transmitted diseases in historical plague pandemics |journal=The Lancet Infectious Diseases |date=February 2021 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=e17–e25 |doi=10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30487-4 |pmid=33035476 |s2cid=222255684 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1473309920304874}}</ref>