5. A River Was Used as a Mass Grave
Not every town had the ability or space to dig the multitude of mass graves required to accommodate the many victims of the plague. With no tools available beyond shovels, digging any size grave to an adequate depth was a hugely laborious undertaking. With many experienced grave diggers dying in the first waves of the plague, and even more citizens weakened by grief or their own bouts of illness, some cities turned to labor-cutting methods.
The chronicler Agnolo di Tura of Siena, Italy wrote that “in many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead.” However, many were not dug deep enough or were filled too close to the top and he wrote with horror that “There were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city.”
In Avignon, France, they literally ran out of space for bodies and were not able to dig any more mass graves. In a real act of desperation, Pope Clement VI consecrated the entire Rhône river so that it would be fit for the burial of Christian bodies. This decision led to countless bodies being dumped into the river, which was doubtless also a source of drinking and bathing water for many people along the path of the river.