The mask people notice first.
The beak, the round lenses, the strap: the plague doctor’s silhouette, for your costume nights.
The mask tells its own story: Messina in 1347, Paris in 1619, Rome in 1656, and the night of the 31st.
[In the dark, a candle catches beside a beaked mask lying on a table.]
They called me doctor. I never cured anyone.
[The harbour of Messina at night: galleys come in through the mist, under the lanterns of the walls.]
October 1347. Twelve galleys sail into the harbour of Messina. Their sailors lie dead at the oars.
[The deck of a galley: the oars, a lantern, coiled ropes, and a rat on the gunwale.]
And with them comes ashore a sickness no one can name.
[A nave full of candles for the dead: a third of them go out, then half.]
In four years, it takes one European in three. Perhaps one in two.
[A doctor without a mask, at a sick man’s bedside, studies a flask by candlelight.]
I did not exist yet. The doctors of 1347 had no beak and no coat.
[Old hands hold a rosary; the candle flickers and goes out.]
They had prayers and bloodletting, and they died beside the dying.
[A candle is lit again on a desk: a hand draws a beaked mask with a quill.]
They say I was born in Paris, in 1619, in the mind of the king’s physician.
[The whole costume, from the hem of the leather coat to the gloves, the hat, then the mask.]
A leather coat, gloves, a hat, and me. A nose half a foot long, filled with perfume.
[Gloved hands stuff the beak with lavender, cloves and petals; smoke drifts past the window.]
They stuffed me with cloves, camphor, rose petals. They believed death travelled on the air.
[The 1656 engraving, Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom (British Museum): the beak, the coat, then the whole sheet.]
In 1656, a German engraving made me the Beak Doctor of Rome. That is the picture that outlived them all.
[A laboratory microscope, then rod-shaped bacteria, then a flea.]
In 1894, Alexandre Yersin finally found the culprit: a bacterium. Later, we learned it travels in fleas.
[The mask on its table; dried petals fall past the beak.]
My herbs never stopped a thing.
[A street on Halloween night: lit pumpkins, a figure in a beaked mask.]
Today, I heal no one. My night is the 31st of October.
[A party: the masked figure in the doorway, then a table of friends laughing. Last, the empty table, the candle going out, and the title: 1347, the plague doctor mask, for the night of the 31st.]
When I walk into a room, everyone falls silent, then everyone smiles.
In October 1347, Genoese galleys from Caffa, in Crimea, put in at Messina. They brought the plague with them.
In four years the Black Death crossed Europe. Estimates put its toll at between a third and half of the population.
Physicians in 1347 wore no beak and no waxed coat: they treated the sick in long robes, prescribed bleeding and fumigations, and many died with their patients. The shop is named after that year.
The beaked silhouette came almost three centuries later. In 1619 Charles de Lorme, physician to Louis XIII, described the costume:
“The nose, half a foot long, shaped like a beak and filled with perfume, has only two holes, one on each side, where the nostrils are.”
The rest covered the whole body: a waxed morocco-leather coat, boots, gloves, a wide-brimmed hat, glass eyepieces, and a cane to examine the sick without touching them.
In 1656 Paul Fürst published the engraving Der Doctor Schnabel von Rom, “Doctor Beak of Rome”: it is the image we still know.
People believed plague travelled through corrupted air: miasma.
The beak, packed with aromatics (theriac, cloves, camphor, rose petals, according to accounts), was meant to scent and “purify” the air the physician breathed through the two holes.
We have known since 1894, when Alexandre Yersin isolated the bacterium now called Yersinia pestis, that plague spreads mostly through flea bites, and from person to person by coughing in its pneumonic form. The herbs filtered nothing.
Doctors in 1347 wore the beak.
False.The costume appears in 1619, nearly three centuries later.
The beak filtered the plague.
False.The herbs perfumed the air. The plague spread through fleas and coughing.
This mask protects you.
False.It is a costume accessory. It protects you from nothing, except going unnoticed.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Plague doctor costume” · Futura Sciences (in French) · Institut Pasteur, “Plague”
The one we sell keeps the silhouette of the 1656 engraving, without the aromatics: it is a costume mask.
A long curved beak, two round eyepieces with tinted lenses, a row of rivets along the beak: you can tell what it is from across the room.
Moulded in one piece, it adjusts at the back with a strap and fits most head sizes.
For Halloween, a masked ball, a stage or a film shoot. Hat and cloak not included.
A costume accessory: it protects from nothing.
To picture it worn: a dad answering the door to trick-or-treaters, a grandmother by the fire, friends, a couple at the parade. One adult size, an adjustable strap: it goes with whatever you wear.
After Halloween it comes out again for carnival, medieval fairs and steampunk nights.
Only the mask is sold: cloaks, hats and settings are not included.
16 illustrated pages for brave children, told by Mistigri, a black cat with nine lives: the galleys of 1347, life without soap, the beaked doctors, quarantine. Everything in it is true, and a little scary. The link comes with your order confirmation.
The mask is adult-sized (18 and over, says the manufacturer); the guide is made for children.
When your order is confirmed, usually within 24 hours. Until then it is only an authorisation.
If the order cannot be fulfilled, the authorisation is released and we email you: you pay nothing.
One size for adults: the strap adjusts at the back to fit most heads. For reference, the brown model measures 30 cm from the tip of the beak to the top of the head, and 17 cm along its base.
Brown: Poland · Black, Copper, Black and brass: China.
Each colour ships from a warehouse in that country; the stock shown is that warehouse’s stock.
The price shown includes VAT. The ship-from country is shown before payment.
Not yet: we deliver to mainland France only (Corsica included). Other countries are coming.
A personal link arrives by email right after payment. It shows every step, then the tracking number once it ships. No account needed.
Yes: the law gives you 14 days after receipt to withdraw, without giving a reason. Return costs are yours unless the item is faulty. Everything is on the Delivery and returns page (in French).
1347 is a small independent shop. We choose the object, have every order prepared and shipped, and answer your messages ourselves.