Biological warfare in medieval times?

by fuzail_deen

Was there any war in the medieval times where the weapons were smeared with things known to cause infections? Where and when did it happen and what was the outcome?

todaysgnus

I have exactly one source of possible relevance here: "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs; Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World", by Adrienne Mayor. This is perhaps a thin reed to lean upon for a response, so I won't be upset if this response is removed. (it's also Ancient World, not Medieval, but I feel like basic techniques didn't evolve much)

First line from Ch 1: "It was Hercules, the greatest hero of Greek mythology , who invented the first biological weapon described in Western literature. When he dipped his arrows in serpent venom, he opened up a world not only of toxic warfare but also of unintended consequences" this would be reference to the end of Hercules' story, where Philoctetes was given Hercules' bow and quiver, but was killed with those same arrows. Ovid describes it in "Metamorphoses" as being extremely painful...

But those poisoned arrows were used by one guy, not an entire army. The Greeks and Romans did a lot of complaining about how The Other Guys used poisoned arrows, sometimes to hunt with but also in warfare. They accused the Gauls, Daicians, Dalmatians, Soanes of the Caucasus, Sarmatians of Iran, Getae of Thrace, Slavs, Africans, Armenians, and Parthians. Especial attention is given the the Scythians of Central Asia. Herodotus (not the most reliable author, so maybe not so much on the details) said that the the Scythians viewed Hercules as their 'founding father' and in particular focused on his use of poisoned arrows. There are claims that their special quiver for arrows contained a section for poison, so the arrows could be stored in the toxin. "Facing a horde of Scythian warriors was surely a hair-raising experience. The battle would begin with a hail of hideously poisoned arrows blotting out the sun, as each Scythian archer shot about twenty arrows a minute. And the soldiers, crouching behind their sheilds, had heard about the dire effect of scythicon" From this description, I take it that the feared effects were equally a part of the weapon as the arrow itself.

Alexandr the Great faced a poison armed enemy at the fortified city of Harmatelia in 326 BCE. The Harmatelians were said to be oddly confident of victory, because they are "smeared their weapons with a drug of mortal effect." (This quote does not have a footnote in the book) "The historian Quintus Curtius mentions poisoned swords and Strabo says they use poisoned arrowhead carved of wood and hardened in fire. Diodorus elaborated further: he says the poison was derived from dead snakes but by a different technique than the Scythians. It all involves venomous snakes being killed and left to rot in the sun, which means not only was there snake venom in there, but also the rot itself would be dangerous to others. Gross. Alexander had a cure revealed to him a dream (handy, that) at which point the Harmatelians stopped fighting back.

There are further examples, but they start to move into more abstract 'weapons' Does it count if you poison the water supply you know the invaders will use? What about if you maneuver the enemy into making camp in an area known for disease causing mosquitos? Later, when you have your enemy bottled up inside a fortress, you can start hurling dead/decaying corpses into the fortress, and maybe some live venomous snakes while you're at it. How about if a whole bunch of mice (yes, mice) show up in the enemy's camp and eat all of their leather gear? (King Sennacherib of Assyria in this case.) Might have also been a plague spread by mice/rats... These were probably natural disaster, but the priests who begged their God to send mice to the enemy didn't think so. To them, this was a real war effort.

OK, that's enough!

cobalt_spike

What leaps to mind as the most prominent deliberate use of "biological warfare" (as we would define it) in the medieval world was at the Siege of Caffa (modern day Feodosia in the Crimean penisula). The siege was being conducted by Jani Beg, leader of the Golden Horde, originally part of the Mongol Empire under Ghengis Khan. The siege has been in place since 1344 but, being a port town, still saw supplies coming in via the Black Sea, and refugees fleeing via the same route. There was a significant Italian presence in the city, partly due to trade, and partly due to the setting up of the Western Catholic Church in 1318.

While likely not present for the siege itself, the Italian notary from Piacennza, Gabriele De Mussis was able to create a narrative of events, likely from those who had been at Caffa and returned to Italy. He gives an account of the siege in a work called Historia de Morbo sive Mortalitate quae fuit Anno Dni MCCCXLVIII (History of the Disease or the Great Dying of the Year of Our Lord 1347). The pertinent section describes the besieging army being struck down "as though arrows were raining down from heaven" and dying in their thousands "day by day". The systems described, including buboes in the armpits, are consistent with the Bubonic Plague now know to to be caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis. The impact of the disease on the besieging force made it untenable to maintain said siege. The aspect of biological warfare relevant here is that the attackers took bodies from the "mountains of dead" and hurled them with catapults over the walls of Caffa, ostensibly to spread the disease to the defenders.

I'm inclined to agree with an article by Wheelis and posted on the CDC's website, that the spreading of the bubonic plague in Caffa was not the defining factor in the spread of the plague to Italy, and subsequently most of Europe (appearing in 1347) - the plague likely spread from multiple ports in the Crimea via ships travelling along the mercantile routes to Italy. Regardless, the intent of the Golden Horde must have been very deliberately to spread the disease and weaken the defenders of Caffa - the symptoms of bubonic plague are very obvious and unpleasant, and would no doubt have had a marked affect on the morale of the defenders at the repulsion of being pelted with sore-ridden corpses. If the current pandemic has taught us anything (I sincerely hope it has), it is that fear of disease and contamination is a very real part of the human psyche, as it would have in the already stressful situation of a medieval siege.

Wheelis, M. (2002). Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 8(9), 971-975. https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid0809.010536.