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PLAGUES AND DISEASES
BUBONIC PLAGUE
http://idcs0100.lib.iup.edu/westcivi/the8.htm
In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague
occurred in China. Plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit
the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very
rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands
called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes
spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.
Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it
was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread
to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant
ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in
trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on
board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to
the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what
happened:
"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly
drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon
death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused
to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to
care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as
they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was
no one to give them a Christian burial."
The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian
writer Boccaccio said its victims often
"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in
paradise."
By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England,
where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it
produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and
Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.
In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which
were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then.
Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five
years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.
Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for
years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the
plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.
Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague. So many
people had died that there were serious labor shortages all over Europe.
This led workers to demand higher wages, but landlords refused those
demands. By the end of the 1300s peasant revolts broke out in England,
France, Belgium and Italy.
The disease took its toll on the church as well. People throughout
Christendom had prayed devoutly for deliverance from the plague. Why
hadn't those prayers been answered? A new period of political turmoil
and philosophical questioning lay ahead.
DISASTER STRIKES
Estimated population of Europe from 1000 to 1352.
1000 38 million
1100 48 million
1200 59 million
1300 70 million
1347 75 million
1352 50 million
25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352.
The plague bacillus was first isolated in 1894 by Andre Yersin, a French
bacteriologist. Although he originally named it Pasteurella pestis after
his teacher, the name giving its discoverer credit, Yersinia pestis, is
the one that stuck
No other bacteria, perhaps organism, had so much of an effect on human
history as Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague. Many
outbreaks of plague have caused death and population
reduction throughout history. The most famous, however, was the
notorious Black Death of medeival times that killed one third of the
population of 14th century Europe. People watched their family and
friends die with sickly buboes (swollen lymph nodes) on their necks and
a color near black all over their bodies, caused by respiratory failure.
People who contracted the disease and were unable to fight it off died
within three to five days.
In Medieval England, the Black Death was to kill 1.5 million people out
of an estimated total of 4 million people between 1348 and 1350. No
medical knowledge existed in Medieval England to cope with the disease.
After 1350, it was to strike England another six times by the end of the
century. Understandably, peasants were terrified at the news that the
Black Death might be approaching their village or town.
The Black Death is the name given to a disease called the bubonic plague
which was rampant during the Fourteenth Century. In fact, the bubonic
plague affected England more than once in that century but its impact on
English society from 1348 to 1350 was terrible. No amount of medical
knowledge could help England when the bubonic plague struck. It was also
to have a major impact on England’s social structure which lead to the
Peasants Revolt of 1381.
The Black Death was caused by fleas carried by rats that were very
common in towns and cities. The fleas bit into their victims literally
injecting them with the disease. Death could be very quick for the
weaker victims.
It symptoms were described in 1348 by a man called Boccaccio who lived
in Florence, Italy:
"The first signs of the plague were lumps in the groin or armpits. After
this, livid black spots appeared on the arms and thighs and other parts
of the body. Few recovered. Almost all died within three days, usually
without any fever."
Written evidence from the time indicates that nearly all the victims
died within three days though a small number did last for four days.
Why did the bubonic plague spread so quickly?
In towns and cities people lived very close together and they knew
nothing about contagious diseases. Also the disposal of bodies was very
crude and helped to spread the disease still further as those who
handled the dead bodies did not protect themselves in any way.
The filth that littered streets gave rats the perfect environment to
breed and increase their number. It is commonly thought that it was the
rats that caused the disease. This is not true – the fleas did this.
However, it was the rats that enabled the disease to spread very quickly
and the filth in the streets of our towns and cities did not help to
stop the spread of the disease.
Lack of medical knowledge meant that people tried anything to help them
escape the disease. One of the more extreme was the flagellants. These
people wanted to show their love of God by whipping themselves, hoping
that God would forgive them their sins and that they would be spared the
Black Death.
Flagellants hoping to escape the Black Death
The Black Death had a huge impact on society. Fields went unploughed as
the men who usually did this were victims of the disease. Harvests would
not have been brought in as the manpower did not exist. Animals would
have been lost as the people in a village would not have been around to
tend them.
Therefore whole villages would have faced starvation. Towns and cities
would have faced food shortages as the villages that surrounded them
could not provide them with enough food. Those lords who lost their
manpower to the disease, turned to sheep farming as this required less
people to work on the land. Grain farming became less popular – this,
again, kept towns and cities short of such basics as bread. One
consequence of the Black Death was inflation – the price of food went up
creating more hardship for the poor. In some parts of England, food
prices went up by four times.
How did peasants respond?
Those who survived the Black Death believed that there was something
special about them – almost as if God had protected them. Therefore,
they took the opportunity offered by the disease to improve their
lifestyle.
Feudal law stated that peasants could only leave their village if they
had their lord’s permission. Now many lords were short of desperately
needed labour for the land that they owned. After the Black Death, lords
actively encouraged peasants to leave the village where they lived to
come to work for them. When peasants did this, the lord refused to
return them to their original village.
Peasants could demand higher wages as they knew that a lord was
desperate to get in his harvest.
So the government faced the prospect of peasants leaving their villages
to find a better ‘deal’ from a lord thus upsetting the whole idea of the
Feudal System which had been introduced to tie peasants to the land.
Ironically, this movement by the peasants was encouraged by the lords
who were meant to benefit from the Feudal System.
To curb peasants roaming around the countryside looking for better pay,
the government introduced the Statute of Labourers in 1351 that stated:
No peasants could be paid more than the wages paid in 1346.
No lord or master should offer more wages than paid in 1346.
No peasants could leave the village they belonged to.
How it was Transmitted
How was the Black Death transmitted? The three forms of the Black
Death were transmitted two ways. The septicemic and bubonic plague were
transmitted with direct contact with a flea, while the pneumonic plague
was transmitted through airborne droplets of saliva coughed up by
bubonic or septicemic infected humans.
The bubonic and septicemic plague were transmitted by the the bite
of an infected flea. Fleas, humans, and rats served as hosts for the
disease. The bacteria (Yersinia pestis) multiplied inside the flea
blocking the flea's stomach causing it to be very hungry. The flea would
then start voraciously biting a host. Since the feeding tube to the
stomach was blocked , the flea was unable to satisfy its hunger. As a
result, it continued to feed in a frenzy. During the feeding process,
infected blood carrying the plague bacteria , flowed into the human's
wound. The plague bacteria now had a new host. The flea soon starved to
death.
The pneumonic plague was transmitted differently than the other two
forms . It was transmitted through droplets sprayed from the lungs and
mouth of an infected person. In the droplets were the bacteria that
caused the plague. The bacteria entered the lungs through the windpipe
and started attacking the lungs and throat.
The Black Death
The Black Death came in three forms, the bubonic, pneumonic, and
septicemic. Each different form of plague killed people in a vicious
way. All forms were caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis.
The bubonic plague was the most commonly seen form of the Black
Death. The mortality rate was 30-75%. The symptoms were enlarged and
inflamed lymph nodes (around arm pits, neck and groin). The term
'bubonic' refers to the characteristic bubo or enlarged lymphatic gland.
Victims were subject to headaches, nausea, aching joints, fever of
101-105 degrees, vomiting, and a general feeling of illness. Symptoms
took from 1-7 days to appear.
The pneumonic plague was the second most commonly seen form of the Black
Death. The pneumonic and the septicemic plague were probably seen less
then the bubonic plague because the victims often died before they could
reach other places (this was caused by the inefficiency of
transportation). The mortality rate for the pneumonic plague was 90-95%
(if treated today the mortality rate would be 5-10%). The pneumonic
plague infected the lungs. Symptoms included slimy sputum tinted with
blood. Sputum is saliva mixed with mucus exerted from the respiratory
system. As the disease progressed, the sputum became free flowing and
bright red. Symptoms took 1-7 days to appear.
The septicemic plague was the most rare form of all. The mortality was
close to 100% (even today there is no treatment). Symptoms were a high
fever and skin turning deep shades of purple due to DIC (disseminated
intravascular coagulation). According to Dr. Matt Luther, Vanderbilt
University Medical Center "The plague often caused DIC in severe forms,
and DIC can be fatal. The picture above demonstrates what DIC can look
like. In its most deadly form DIC can cause a victims skin to turn dark
purple. The black death got its name from the deep purple, almost black
discoloration." Victims usually died the same day symptoms appeared. In
some cities, as many as 800 people died every day.
Black Death Spreads
Europe, 1348
Hundreds of thousands of people - men. women and children - are dying in
every country in Europe, struck down by an epidemic of an apparently
incurable plague which the healthy and afflicted alike call the Black
Death".
Not since the sixth century has such an epidemic attacked Europe.
Spreading from Asia. and carried by rat-fleas via the ports of the Black
Sea. the plague takes two forms. Bubonic plague is seen in the
swellings, or buboes. That inflate the lymph nodes at the neck, armpit
or groin, while the pneumonic" plague affects the lungs. and vic tims
choke on their own blood.
The plague has stunned Europe, and everywhere people are desperate for
an explanation. Some blame invisible particles carried in the wind,
others talk of poisoned wells. Many inevitably, blame the Jews.
Immediate responses differ widely. Some choose to challenge the plague
by bouts of riotous living, others seek protection by barring their
doors and living as recluses. Neither method has halted the disease.
Others have left home, seeking safety in the remote countryside, but
often they too have fallen ill. Attempts to bar villages, towns, even
whole cities, to sufferers have all failed. The plague moves on.
The outbreak has shattered communities. Families havebeen set against
each other- the well rejecting the sick. Essential services have
collapsed; law and order, with so many administrators struck down,
barely exist in some areas. A sense of panic pervades Europe and
everyone, it appears, is struggling only for his own survival.
Properties stand empty, de serted by desperate owners; the sick die
alone, for even the most de~oted doctors cannot save them: corpses are
simply dumped in the street or buried in mass graves. Some depraved
creatures, them selves already infected, break into houses and threaten
to contaminate all within unless bribed to leave. Agriculture is at a
standstill. Crops wither in the fields; cattle wander untended.
Doctors do what they can, but the plague seems irresistible. Even the
most expert physicians can do little more than help strengthen people's
resolve and build morale.
Some recommend the burning of aromatic woods and herbs; others suggest
special diets, courses of bleeding, new postures for sleeping and many
other remedies. The very rich are trying medicines made of gold and
pearls. The terrible truth is that nothing seems to work. Flight is the
best option, and if one cannot fly, then all that remains is resignation
and prayer.
The Path
If the plague had just stayed in one city, the containment might
have spared Europe. Unfortunately, the plague spread when people fled to
other cities.
It is believed the plague originated in Asia, and moved west with Mongol
armies and traders.
"According to a traditional story, the plague came to Europe from
the town of Caffa, a Crimean port on the Black Sea where Italian
merchants from Genoa maintained a thriving trade center. The Crimea was
inhabited by Tartars, a people of the steppe, a dry, treeless region of
central Asia. When the plague struck the area in 1346, tens of thousands
of Tartars died. Perhaps superstition caused the Muslim Tartars to blame
their misfortune on the Christian Genoese. Or perhaps a Christian and
Muslim had become involved in a street brawl in Caffa, and the Tartars
wanted revenge. In any case, the Tartars sent an army to attack Caffa,
where the Genoese had fortified themselves. As the Tartars laid siege to
Caffa, plague struck their army and many died. The Tartars decided to
share their suffering with the Genoese. They used huge catapults to lob
the infected corpses of plague victims over the walls of Caffa. As the
Tartars had intended, the rotting corpses littered the streets, and the
plague quickly spread throughout the besieged city. The Genoese decided
they must flee; they boarded their galleys and set sail for Italy,
carrying rats, fleas, and the Black Death with them."
(Corzine, 1997) The plague traveled on trade routes and caravans.
Its path of death was generally from south to north and east to west
passing through Italy, France, England, Germany, Denmark,
Sweden, Poland, Finland, and eventually reaching Greenland.
The Plague: Will it Ever End?
Europe, 1349
Bands of hooded men, wearing white robes marked front and back with a
red cross, are moving to and fro across Europe, attempting to atone for
the ravages of the Black Death by whipping themselves in ritual public
ceremonies.
The Flagellant Brahren, as they are known, believe that the plague is a
punishment for human sin, and that by scourging themselves they can show
mankind's repentance. They travel in parties of anything from 50 to 500
men, and are high ly organized. Led by a layman - the master - they move
from town to town to perform their rituals. Singing hymns and sobbing,
the men beat themselves with scourges studded with iron spikes. Blood
gushes from their many wounds, and the spikes embed themselves in the
torn flesh. The ritual is perform ed in public twice each day.
Such exhibitions are highly influential. The establishment may focus
their attacks on church corruption and their promotion of a wave of
savage anti-Semitism. but the masses worship the flagellants as living
martyrs. Their deeds are to be admired and their commands to be carried
out.
Descriptions of the Flagellants
Here are a couple of descriptions of the flagellants from contemporary
chroniclers. The first is from Jean de Venette.
While the plague was still active and spreading from town to town, men
in Germany, Flanders, Hainault and Lorraine uprose and began a new sect
on their own authority. Stripped to the waist, they gathered in large
groups and bands and marched in procession throught the crossroads and
squares of cities and good towns. They formed circles and beat upon
their backs with weighted scourges, rejoicing as they did so in loud
voices and singing hymns suitable to their rite and newly composed for
it. Thus, for 33 days they marched through many towns doing penance and
affording a great spectacle to the wondering people. They flogged their
shoulders and arms, scourged with iron points so zealously as to draw
blood."
This second account is from the medieval historian Jean Froissart, from
his history of the Hundred Years' War.
...the penitents went about, coming first out of Germany. They were men
who did public penance and scourged themselves with whips of hard
knotted leather with little iron spikes. Some made themselves bleed very
badly between the shoulder blades and some foolish women had cloths
ready to catch the blood and smear it on their eyes, saying it was
miraculous blood. While they were doing penance, they sang very mournful
songs about nativity and the passion of Our Lord. The object of this
penance was to put a stop to the mortality, for in that time . . . at
least a third of all the people in the world died.
I Saw the Death
"Then the grievous plague penetrated the seacoasts from Southampton, and
came to Bristol, and there almost the whole strength of the town died,
struck as it were by sudden death. There died at Leicester in the small
parish of St. Leonard more than 380, in the parish of Holy Cross more
than 400; in the parish of S. Margaret of Leicester more than 700; and
so in each parish a great number. Then the bishop of Lincoln gave
general power to all and every priest to hear confessions, and absolve
with full and entire authority except in matters of debt, in which case
the dying man, if he could, should pay the debt while he lived, or
others should certainly fulfill that duty from his property after his
death. In the same year there was a great plague of sheep everywhere in
the realm so that in one place there died in one pasturage more than
5,000 sheep, and so rotted that neither beast nor bird would touch them.
And there were small prices for everything on account of the fear of
death. For there were very few who cared about riches or anything
else.... Sheep and cattle went wandering over fields and through crops,
and there was no one to go and drive or gather them for there was such a
lack of servants that no one knew what he ought to do. Wherefore many
crops perished in the fields for want of someone to gather them. The
Scots, hearing of the cruel pestilence of the English, believed it had
come to them from the avenging hand of God, and--as it was commonly
reported in England--took their oath when they wanted to swear, "By the
foul death of England."
Meanwhile the king sent proclamation that reapers and other laborers
should not take more than they had been accustomed to take (in pay). But
the labourers were so lifted up and obstinate that they would not listen
to the king's command, but if anyone wished to have them he had to give
them what they wanted, and either lose his fruit and crops, or satisfy
the wishes of the workmen.
After the pestilence, many buildings, great and small, fell into ruins
in every city for lack of inhabitants, likewise many villages and
hamlets became desolate, not a house being left in them, all having died
who dwelt there; and it was probable that many such villages would never
be inhabited. In the winter following there was such a want of servants
in work of all kinds, that one would scarcely believe that in times past
there had been such a lack. And so all necessities became so much
dearer."
History of England by Henry Knighton, in Source Book of English History,
by E.K. Kendall.
Boccaccio: THE DECAMERON , "INTRODUCTION"
Thirteen hundred and forty-eight years had passed since the fruitful
Incarnation of the Son of God, when there came into the noble city of
Florence, the most beautiful of all Italian cities, a deadly pestilence,
which, either because of the operations of the heavenly bodies, or
because of the just wrath of God mandating punishment for our iniquitous
ways, several years earlier had originated in the Orient, where it
destroyed countless lives, scarcely resting in one place before it moved
to the next, and turning westward its strength grew monstrously. No
human wisdom or foresight had any value: enormous amounts of refuse and
manure were removed from the city by appointed officials, the sick were
barred from entering the city, and many instructions were given to
preserve health; just as useless were the humble supplications to God
given not one time but many times in appointed processions, and all the
other ways devout people called on God; despite all this, at the
beginning of the spring of that year, that horrible plague began with
its dolorous effects in a most awe-inspiring manner, as I will tell you.
And it did not behave as it did in the Orient, where if blood began to
rush out the nose it was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but rather
it began with swellings in the groin and armpit, in both men and women,
some of which were as big as apples and some of which were shaped like
eggs, some were small and others were large; the common people called
these swellings gavoccioli. From these two parts of the body, the fatal
gavaccioli would begin to spread and within a short while would appear
over the entire body in various spots; the disease at this point began
to take on the qualities of a deadly sickness, and the body would be
covered with dark and livid spots, which would appear in great numbers
on the arms, the thighs, and other parts of the body; some were large
and widely spaced while some were small and bunched together. And just
like the gavaciolli earlier, these were certain indications of coming
death.
To cure these infirmities neither the advice of physicians nor the power
of medicine appeared to have any value or profit; perhaps either the
nature of the disease did not allow for any cure or the ignorance of the
physicians (whose numbers, because men and women without any training in
medicine invaded the profession, increased vastly) did not know how to
cure it; as a consequence, very few were ever cured; all died three days
after the appearance of the first outward signs, some lasted a little
bit longer, some died a little bit more quickly, and some without fever
or other symptoms. But what gave this pestilence particularly severe
force was that whenever the diseased mixed with healthy people, like a
fire through dry grass or oil it would rush upon the healthy. And this
wasn't the worst of the evil: for not only did it infect healthy persons
who conversed or mixed with the sick, but also touching bread or any
other object which had been handled or worn by the sick would transport
the sickness from the victim to the one touching the object. It is a
wondrous tale that I have to tell: if I were not one of many people who
saw it with their own eyes, I would scarcely have dared to believe it,
let alone to write it down, even if I had heard it from a completely
trustworthy person. I say that the pestilence I have been describing was
so contagious, that not only did it visibly pass from one person to
another, but also, whenever an animal other than a human being touched
anything belonging to a person who had died from the disease, I say not
only did it become contaminated by the sickness, but also died literally
within the instant. Of all these things, as I have said before, my own
eyes had experience many times: once, the rags of a poor man who had
just died from the disease were thrown into the public street and were
noticed by two pigs, who, following their custom, pressed their snouts
into the rags, and afterwards picked them up with their teeth, and shook
them against their cheeks: and within a short time, they both began to
convulse, and they both, the two of them, fell dead on the ground next
to the evil rags.
Because of all these things, and many others that were similar or even
worse, diverse fears and imaginings were born in those left alive, and
all of them took recourse to the most cruel precaution: to avoid and run
away from the sick and their things; by doing this, each person believed
they could preserve their health. Others were of the opinion that they
should live moderately and guard against all excess; by this means they
would avoid infection. Having withdrawn, living separate from everybody
else, they settled down and locked themselves in, where no sick person
or any other living person could come, they ate small amounts of food
and drank the most delicate wines and avoided all luxury, refraining
from speech with outsiders, refusing news of the dead or the sick or
anything else, and diverting themselves with music or whatever else was
pleasant. Others, who disagreed with this, affirmed that drinking beer,
enjoying oneself, and going around singing and ruckus-raising and
satisfying all one's appetites whenever possible and laughing at the
whole bloody thing was the best medicine; and these people put into
practice what they heartily advised to others: day and night, going from
tavern to tavern, drinking without moderation or measure, and many times
going from house to house drinking up a storm and only listening to and
talking about pleasing things. These parties were easy to find because
everyone behaved as if they were going to die soon, so they cared
nothing about themselves nor their belongings; as a result, most houses
became common property, and any stranger passing by could enter and use
the house as if he were its master. But for all their bestial living,
these people always ran away from the sick. With so much affliction and
misery, all reverence for the laws, both of God and of man, fell apart
and dissolved, because the ministers and executors of the laws were
either dead or ill like everyone else, or were left with so few
officials that they were unable to do their duties; as a result,
everyone was free to do whatever they pleased. Many other people steered
a middle course between these two extremes, neither restricting their
diet like the first group, nor indulging so liberally in drinking and
other forms of dissolution like the second group, but simply not going
beyond their needs or satisfying their appetite beyond the necessary,
and, instead of locking themselves away, these people walked about
freely, holding in their hands a posy of flowers, or fragrant herbs, or
diverse exotic spices, which sometimes they pressed to their nostrils,
believing it would comfort the brain with smells of that sort because
the stink of corpses, sick bodies, and medicines polluted the air all
about the city. Others held a more cruel opinion, one that in the end
probably guaranteed their safety, saying that there was no better or
more effective medicine against the disease than to run away from it;
convinced by this argument, and caring for no-one but themselves, huge
numbers of men and women abandoned their rightful city, their rightful
homes, their relatives and their parents and their things, and sought
out the countryside, as if the wrath of God would punish the iniquities
of men with this plague based on where they happened to be, as if the
wrath of God was aroused against only those who unfortunately found
themselves within the city walls, or as if the whole of the population
of the city would be exterminated in its final hour.
Of all these people with these various opinions, not all died, nor did
they all survive; on the contrary, many from each camp fell ill in all
places, and having, when they were healthy, set an example to all those
who remained healthy, they languished in their illness completely alone,
having been abandoned by everybody. One citizen avoided another,
everybody neglected their neighbors and rarely or never visited their
parents and relatives unless from a distance; the ordeal had so withered
the hearts of men and women that brother abandoned brother, and the
uncle abandoned his nephew and the sister her brother and many times,
wives abandoned their husbands, and, what is even more incredible and
cruel, mothers and fathers abandoned their children and would refuse to
visit them. As a result, of that innumerable number of those, men and
women, who fell ill, there remained no-one to care for them except for
friends, which were very few, or avaricious servants, who, despite the
high salaries and easy service, became very scarce. And there were some
men and women of such vulgar mind, that most of them were not accustomed
to service, and did nothing other than serve things whenever the sick
person asked and watch while they died; and the wages of this service
was often death. And some of the sick were totally abandoned by
neighbors, relatives, and friends, and, on account of the scarcity of
servants, turned to a custom no-one had ever heard of before: no sick
woman, even if she were a svelte, beautiful, and gentle lady, would care
if she were being served by a man, young or otherwise, and would have no
shame exposing every part of her body to him as if he were another
woman, if the necessity of her sickness required her to; and this is why
the women who were cured were a little less chaste afterwards. Moreover,
many people died by chance who would have survived had they been helped.
And so, because of the shortage of people to care for the sick, and the
violence of the disease, day and night such a multitude died that it
would dumbfound any to hear of it who did not see it themselves. As a
result, partly out of necessity, there arose customs among those
surviving that were contrary to the original customs of the city.
There used to be a custom, which is today still followed, where the
women relatives and neighbors of a dead person would gather in the house
and there mourn; on the other hand, there would gather at the front of
the dead man's house neighbors and other citizens as well, whose numbers
followed from the quality of the deceased man, and along with these
priests in their finery, and with all the funeral pomp and candles and
singing, he would be carried by those closest to him to the church of
his choice. When the ferocity of the pestilence began to mount, for the
most part people ceased with this custom and replaced it with a far
different one. For not only did many people die without women
surrounding them, most passed away from this life without anyone there
to witness it at all; there were very few who departed amid the pious
wailing and beloved tears of those close to them, far from this, most
took up the custom of laughing and partying while their loved ones died;
this latter usage, the women, who formerly had been so merciful and
concerned with the health of the deceased one's soul, especially
mastered. Also, it became rare for the body to be born to the church
accompanied by more than ten or twelve men, who were not noble and
cherished citizens, but a kind of grave-digger fraternity made up of the
least men of the city (they demanded to be called sextons, and demanded
high wages) who would bear them away; and these would bear the body
quickly away, not to the church the dead man had asked for, but to the
nearest one they could find, with four to six priests, maybe with a
candle but sometimes not, in front; and with the help of these sextons,
without fatiguing themselves with any long ceremony or rite, in any old
tomb that they found unoccupied they'd dump the corpse.
As for the lesser people, who were for the most part middle class, they
presented the most miserable spectacle: for these, who had no hope or
who were seized with poverty, had to remain in the area, and fell ill by
the thousands every day, and since they had no servants or any other
kind of help, almost without exception all of them died. And many would
meet their end in the public streets both day and night, and many
others, who met their ends in their own houses, would first come to the
attention of their neighbors because of the stench of their rotting
corpses more than anything else; and with these and others all dying,
there were corpses everywhere. And the neighbors always followed a
particular routine, more out of fear of being corrupted by the corpse
than out of charity for the deceased. These, either by themselves or
with the help of others when available, would carry the corpse of the
recently deceased from the house and leave it lying in the street
outside where, especially in the morning, a countless number of corpses
could be seen lying about. Funeral biers would come, and if there was a
shortage of funeral biers, some other flat table or something or other
would be used to place the corpses on. Nor did it infrequently happen
that a single funeral bier would carry two or three people at the same
time, but rather one frequently saw on a single bier a husband and a
wife, two or three brothers, a father and a son, or some other
relatives. And an infinite number of times it happened that two priests
bearing a cross would be going to bury someone when three or four other
biers, being born by bearers, would follow behind them; the priests
would believe themselves to be heading for a single burial, and would
find, when they arrived at the churchyard, that they had six or eight
more burials following behind them. Nor were there ever tears or candles
or any company honoring the dead; things had reached such a point, that
people cared no more for the death of other people than they did for the
death of a goat: for this thing, death, which even the wise never accept
with patience, even though it occur rarely and relatively unobtrusively,
had appeared manifestly to even the smallest intellects, but the
catastrophe was so unimaginably great that nobody really cared. There
was such a multitude of corpses that arrived at all churches every day
and every hour, that sacred burial ground ran out, which was especially
a problem if each person wanted their own plot in accordance with
ancient custom. When the cemeteries were for the most part full, they
excavated great pits in which they'd place hundreds of newly arrived
corpses, and each corpse would be covered with a thin layer of dirt
until the pit was filled.
And beyond all the particulars we suffered in the city, I will tell you
not only about the ill times passing through the city, but also mention
that the countryside was not spared these circumstances. For here, in
the fortified towns, similar things occurred but on a lesser scale than
in the city, through the small villages and through the camps of the
miserable and poor laborers and their families, without any care from
physicians or help from servants, and in the highways and the fields and
their houses, day and night at whatever hour, not like humans but more
like animals they died; and because of this, they came to neglect their
customs, as did the people in the city, and had no concern for their
belongings. Beyond all this, they began to behave as if every day were
the day of their certain death, and they did no work to provide for
their future needs by caring for their fields or their animals, but
rather consumed everything they owned. Because of this, it happened that
oxen, asses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and dogs, the most faithful
human companions, were driven from the houses, and in the fields, where
the crops had been abandoned, not even reaped let alone gathered, they
would wander about at their pleasure; and many, as if they possessed
human reason, after they had pastured all day long, would return
satiated to their houses without any guidance from any shepherd.
Let us leave the countryside and return to the city.
How much more can be said of the cruelty of heaven, and possibly, in
part, that of humanity, which between March and July of that year,
because of the ferocity of the pestilence and the fact that many of the
sick were poorly cared for or abandoned in their hour of need by people
frightened for their health, killed off one hundred thousand human
creatures for certain within the walls of the city of Florence Who,
before this fatal calamity, would have thought there were so many within
the city? Oh, how many grand palaces, how many beautiful homes, how many
noble dwellings, filled with families, with lords and ladies, became
completely emptied even of children! Oh, how many famous families, how
many vast estates, how many renowned fortunes remained without any
rightful successors! How many noble men, how many beautiful ladies, how
many light-hearted youth, who were such that Galen, Hippocrates, or
Asclepius would declare them the healthiest of all humans, had breakfast
in the morning with their relatives, companions, or friends, and had
dinner that evening in another world with their ancestors! As I think
over these miseries, sorrow grows inside me . . .
Translated from the Italian by Richard Hooker ((c)1993) <H3ENDNOTES< H3>PosyA
posy of flowers was thought to ward off the contagion; the children's
song, "London Bridge is Falling Down" is a song about the plague: the
"pocketful of posies" refers to the posies of flowers people would carry
around during epidemics.
Sexton A sexton is a paid laborer who buries corpses; like most
occupations in the Middle Ages, it was a profession and had its own
guild (see our textbook). The fellows here, however, would be considered
by Boccaccio's audience as "non-professional" opportunists.
Ancient Physicians These are the three great physicians of antiquity.
Galen wrote several works on science including one on medicine;
Hippocrates lived in Ancient Greece and a number of medical writings,
mostly written by his followers, were collected under his name;
Asclepius is a legendary figure who cured death and was punished by
Apollo for going to far with his medical knowledge. The standard medical
textbook in Boccaccio's time was Galen's.
Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle: Concerning A
Mortality In The City Of Florence In Which Many People Died (1348)
"Neither physicians nor medicines were effective. Whether because these
illnesses were previously unknown or because physicians had not
previously studied them, there seemed to be no cure. There was such a
fear that no one seemed to know what to do. When it took hold in a house
it often happened that no one remained who had not died. And it was not
just that men and women died, but even sentient animals died. Dogs,
cats, chickens, oxen, donkeys sheep showed the same symptoms and died of
the same disease. And almost none, or very few, who showed these
symptoms, were cured. The symptoms were the following: a bubo in the
groin, where the thigh meets the trunk; or a small swelling under the
armpit; sudden fever; spitting blood and saliva (and no one who spit
blood survived it). It was such a frightful thing that when it got into
a house, as was said, no one remained. Frightened people abandoned the
house and fled to another."
-Marchione di Coppo Stefani
Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle
Marchione di Coppo Stefani was born in Florence in 1336. He wrote his
Florentine Chronicle in the late 1370s and early 1380s. Stefani,
Marchione di Coppo. Cronaca fiorentina. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,
Vol. 30. , ed. Niccolo Rodolico. Citta di Castello: 1903-13.
Rubric 643: Concerning A Mortality In The City Of Florence In Which Many
People Died.
In the year of the Lord 1348 there was a very great pestilence in the
city and district of Florence. It was of such a fury and so tempestuous
that in houses in which it took hold previously healthy servants who
took care of the ill died of the same illness. Almost non of the ill
survived past the fourth day. Neither physicians nor medicines were
effective. Whether because these illnesses were previously unknown or
because physicians had not previously studied them, there seemed to be
no cure. There was such a fear that no one seemed to know what to do.
When it took hold in a house it often happened that no one remained who
had not died. And it was not just that men and women died, but even
sentient animals died. Dogs, cats, chickens, oxen, donkeys sheep showed
the same symptoms and died of the same disease. And almost none, or very
few, who showed these symptoms, were cured. The symptoms were the
following: a bubo in the groin, where the thigh meets the trunk; or a
small swelling under the armpit; sudden fever; spitting blood and saliva
(and no one who spit blood survived it). It was such a frightful thing
that when it got into a house, as was said, no one remained. Frightened
people abandoned the house and fled to another. Those in town fled to
villages. Physicians could not be found because they had died like the
others. And those who could be found wanted vast sums in hand before
they entered the house. And when they did enter, they checked the pulse
with face turned away. They inspected the urine from a distance and with
something odoriferous under their nose. Child abandoned the father,
husband the wife, wife the husband, one brother the other, one sister
the other. In all the city there was nothing to do but to carry the dead
to a burial. And those who died had neither confessor nor other
sacraments. And many died with no one looking after them. And many died
of hunger because when someone took to bed sick, another in the house,
terrified, said to him: "I'm going for the doctor." Calmly walking out
the door, the other left and did not return again. Abandoned by people,
without food, but accompanied by fever, they weakened. There were many
who pleaded with their relatives not to abandon them when night fell.
But [the relatives] said to the sick person, "So that during the night
you did not have to awaken those who serve you and who work hard day and
night, take some sweetmeats, wine or water. They are here on the
bedstead by your head; here are some blankets." And when the sick person
had fallen asleep, they left and did not return. If it happened that he
was strengthened by the food during the night he might be alive and
strong enough to get to the window. If the street was not a major one,
he might stand there a half hour before anyone came by. And if someone
did pass by, and if he was strong enough that he could be heard when he
called out to them, sometimes there might be a response and sometimes
not, but there was no help. No one, or few, wished to enter a house
where anyone was sick, nor did they even want to deal with those healthy
people who came out of a sick person's house. And they said to them: "He
is stupefied, do not speak to him!" saying further: "He has it because
there is a bubo in his house." They call the swelling a bubo. Many died
unseen. So they remained in their beds until they stank. And the
neighbors, if there were any, having smelled the stench, placed them in
a shroud and sent them for burial. The house remained open and yet there
was no one daring enough to touch anything because it seemed that things
remained poisoned and that whoever used them picked up the illness.
At every church, or at most of them, they dug deep trenches, down to the
waterline, wide and deep, depending on how large the parish was. And
those who were responsible for the dead carried them on their backs in
the night in which they died and threw them into the ditch, or else they
paid a high price to those who would do it for them. The next morning,
if there were many [bodies] in the trench, they covered them over with
dirt. And then more bodies were put on top of them, with a little more
dirt over those; they put layer on layer just like one puts layers of
cheese in a lasagna.
The beccamorti [literally vultures] who provided their service, were
paid such a high price that many were enriched by it. Many died from
[carrying away the dead] , some rich, some after earning just a little,
but high prices continued. Servants, or those who took care of the ill,
charged from one to three florins per day and the cost of things grew.
The things that the sick ate, sweetmeats and sugar, seemed priceless.
Sugar cost from three to eight florins per pound. And other confections
cost similarly. Capons and other poultry were very expensive and eggs
cost between twelve and twenty-four pence each; and he was blessed who
could find three per day even if he searched the entire city. Finding
wax was miraculous. A pound of wax would have gone up more than a florin
if there had not been a stop put [by the communal government] to the
vain ostentation that the Florentines always make [over funerals]. Thus
it was ordered that no more than two large candles could be carried[in
any funeral]. Churches had no more than a single bier which usually was
not sufficient. Spice dealers and beccamorti sold biers, burial palls,
and cushions at very high prices. Dressing in expensive woolen cloth as
is customary in [mourning] the dead, that is in a long cloak, with
mantle and veil that used to cost women three florins climbed in price
to thirty florins and would have climbed to 100 florins had the custom
of dressing in expensive cloth not been changed. The rich dressed in
modest woolens, those not rich sewed [clothes] in linen. Benches on
which the dead were placed cost like the heavens and still the benches
were only a hundredth of those needed. Priests were not able to ring
bells as they would have liked. Concerning that [the government] issued
ordinances discouraging the sounding of bells, sale of burial benches,
and limiting expenses. They could not sound bells, sell benches, nor cry
out announcements because the sick hated to hear of this and it
discouraged the healthy as well. Priests and friars went [to serve] the
rich in great multitudes and they were paid such high prices that they
all got rich. And therefore [the authorities] ordered that one could not
have more than a prescribed number [of clerics] of the local parish
church. And the prescribed number of friars was six. All fruits with a
nut at the center, like unripe plums and unhusked almonds, fresh
broadbeans, figs and every useless and unhealthy fruit, were forbidden
entrance into the city. Many processions, including those with relics
and the painted tablet of Santa Maria Inpruneta, went through the city
crying our "Mercy" and praying and then they came to a stop in the
piazza of the Priors. There they made peace concerning important
controversies, injuries and deaths. This [pestilence] was a matter of
such great discouragement and fear that men gathered together in order
to take some comfort in dining together. And each evening one of them
provided dinner to ten companions and the next evening they planned to
eat with one of the others. And sometimes if they planned to eat with a
certain one he had no meal prepared because he was sick. Or if the host
had made dinner for the ten, two or three were missing. Some fled to
villas, others to villages in order to get a change of air. Where there
had been no [pestilence], there they carried it; if it was already
there, they caused it to increase. None of the guilds in Florence was
working. All the shops were shut, taverns closed; only the apothecaries
and the churches remained open. If you went outside, you found almost no
one. And many good and rich men were carried from home to church on a
pall by four beccamorti and one tonsured clerk who carried the cross.
Each of them wanted a florin. This mortality enriched apothecaries,
doctors, poultry vendors, beccamorti, and greengrocers who sold of
poultices of mallow, nettles, mercury and other herbs necessary to draw
off the infirmity. And it was those who made these poultices who made
alot of money. Woolworkers and vendors of remnants of cloth who found
themselves in possession of cloths [after the death of the entrepreneur
for whom they were working] sold it to whoever asked for it. When the
mortality ended, those who found themselves with cloth of any kind or
with raw materials for making cloth was enriched. But many found [who
actually owned cloths being processed by workers] found it to be
moth-eaten, ruined or lost by the weavers. Large quantities of raw and
processed wool were lost throughout the city and countryside.
This pestilence began in March, as was said, and ended in September
1348. And people began to return to look after their houses and
possessions. And there were so many houses full of goods without a
master that it was stupefying. Then those who would inherit these goods
began to appear. And such it was that those who had nothing found
themselves rich with what did not seem to be theirs and they were
unseemly because of it. Women and men began to dress ostentatiously.
Rubric 635
How Many Of The Dead Died Because Of The Mortality Of The Year Of Christ
1348
Now it was ordered by the bishop and the Lords [of the city
government]that they should formally inquire as to how many died in
Florence. When it was seen at the beginning of October that no more
persons were dying of the pestilence, they found that among males,
females, children and adults, 96,000 died between March and October.
Rubric 636
How They Passed Ordinances Concerning Many Things In Florence
In the said year, when the mortality stopped, women and men in Florence
were unmindful of [traditional modesty concerning] their dress. And
ordinances were passed concerning this giving authority to the Judge of
the Grascia to enforce these ordinances. The tailors made such boundless
demands for payment that they could not be satisfied. Authority was
granted [to the judge] that he should handle all matters himself.
Servants were so unhappy about the very high prices [they paid] that it
was necessary to make great efforts to restrain [the price rises]. The
workers on the land in the countryside wanted rent contracts such that
you could say that all they harvested would be theirs. And they learned
to demand oxen from the landlord but at the landlord's risk [and
liability for any harm done to the animal]. And then they helped others
for pay by the job or by the day. And they also learned to deny
[liability for] loans and [rental] payments. Concerning this serious
ordinances were instituted; and [hiring] laborers became much more
expensive. You could say that the farms were theirs; and they wanted the
oxen, seed, loans quickly and on good terms. It was necessary to put a
brake on weddings as well because when they gathered for the betrothal
each party brought too many people in order to increase the pomp. And
thus the wedding was made up of so many trappings. How many days were
necessary and how many women took part in a woman's wedding. And they
passed many other ordinances concerning [these issues].
Pistoia, "Ordinances for Sanitation in a Time of Morality"f (1348)
PISTOIA, "ORDINANCES FOR SANITATION IN A TIME OF MORTALITY"
Pistoia was a provincial city of about 11,000 in the early fourteenth
century located in the region of Tuscany, less than thirty kilometers
northwest of Florence. Its government was in the hands of a small
executive council made up of the Anziani or Elders of the People and the
Standardbearer of Justice. The chief administrative officers were the
Captain of the People and the Podesta who served six-month terms. They
could not be Pistoian or even Tuscan. They were allowed limited social
contact with Pistoians and their behavior was audited, or "syndicated"
at the end of their terms of office. This allowed anyone who felt
wronged by their actions to bring charges. The eight Anziani and the
Standardbearer of Justice were citizens of the city selected by lot to
serve two-month terms from among the citizens of the city who met age,
professional and property qualifications. This small council debated all
issues and made recommendations to a general city council, the Council
of the People which was required either to approve or reject proposals
without amendment. As will be clear from the ordinances, there were
virtually no issues which affected life in the city which the government
could not debate. The context of the Ordinances was the arrival of the
Plague early in the Spring of 1348. Plague probably cost the city and
surrounding countryside about one fourth of the total population. The
statutes themselves reflect both the scientific knowledge and the
practical issues which this crisis brought to a head.
In the name of Christ Amen. Herein are written certain ordinances and
provisions made and agreed upon by certain wise men of the People of the
city of Pistoia elected and commissioned by the lords Anziani and the
Standardbearer of Justice of the said city concerning the preserving,
strengthening and protecting the health of humans from various and
diverse pestilences which otherwise can befall the human body. And
written by me Simone Buonacorsi notary. . . in the year from the
Nativity of the Lord MCCCXLVIII, the first Indiction.
First. So that no contaminated matter which presently persists in the
areas surrounding the city of Pistoia can enter into the bodies of the
citizens of Pistoia, these wise men provided and ordered that no citizen
of Pistoia or dweller in the district or the county of Pistoia . . .
shall in any way dare or presume to go to Pisa or Lucca or to the county
or district of either. And that no one can or ought to come from either
of them or their districts ... to the said city of Pistoia or its
district or county on penalty of £ 50 ... And that gatekeeper of the
city of Pistoia guarding the gates of the said city shall not permit
those coming or returning to the said city of Pistoia from the said
cities of Pisa or Lucca, their districts or counties to enter the said
gates on penalty of £ 10 ... It is licit, however, for citizens now
living in Pistoia to go to Pisa and Lucca, their districts and counties
and then return if they have first obtained a license from the Council
of the People ....
II. Item. The foresaid wise men provided and ordered that no person
whether citizen, inhabitant of the district or county of the city of
Pistoia or foreigner shall dare or presume in any way to bring ... to
the city of Pistoia, its district or county, any used cloth, either
linen or woolen, for use as clothing for men or women or for bedclothes
on penalty of £ 200. ... Citizens of Pistoia, its district and county
returning to the city, district or county will be allowed to bring with
them the linen or woolen cloths they are wearing and those for personal
use carried in luggage or a small bundle weighing 30 pounds or less. ...
And if any quantity of cloth of the said type or quality has been
carried into the said city, county or district, the carrier shall be
held to and must remove and export it from the said city, county and
district within three days of the adoption of the present ordinance
under the foresaid penalty for each carrier or carriers and for each
violation.
III. Item. They provided and ordered that the bodies of the dead, after
they had died, can not be nor ought to be removed from the place in
which they are found unless first such a body has been placed in a
wooden casket covered by a lid secured with nails, so that no stench can
issue forth from it; nor can it be covered except by a canopy, blanket
or drape under a penalty for £ 50 of pennies paid by the heirs of the
dead person.... And also that likewise such dead bodies of the dead must
be carried to the grave only in the said casket under the said penalty
as has been said. And so that the foresaid shall be noted by the rectors
and officials of the city of Pistoia, present and future rectors of the
parishes of the city of Pistoia in whose parish there is any dead person
are held to and must themselves announce the death and the district [of
the city] in which the dead person lived to the podesta and captain or
others of the government of the said city. And they must notify them of
the name of the dead person and of the district in which the dead person
had lived or pay the said penalty for each contravention. And the
podesta and captain to whom such an announcement or notification has
been made, immediately are held to and must send one of their officials
to the same location to see and inquire if the contents of the present
article and other statutes and ordinances concerning funerals are being
observed and to punish anyone found culpable according to the said
penalty.... And the foresaid shall not be enforced nor is it extended to
poor and miserable persons who are declared to be poor and miserable
according to the form of any statutes or ordinances of the said city.
IV. Item. In order to avoid the foul stench which the bodies of the dead
give off they have provided and ordered that any ditch in which a dead
body is to be buried must be dug under ground to a depth of 2 1/2
braccia by the measure of the city of Pistoia.
V. Item. They have provided and ordered that no person of whatever
condition or status or authority shall dare or presume to return or to
carry to the city of Pistoia any dead body in or out of a casket or in
any manner on penalty of £ 25 of pennies paid by whoever carries,
brings, or orders [a body] to be carried or brought for each occasion.
And that the gatekeepers of the said city shall not permit such a body
to be sent into the said city on penalty of the foresaid fine by each
gatekeeper at the gate through which the said body was sent.
VI. Item. They have provided and ordered that any person who will have
come for the burial or to bury any dead person can not and may not be in
the presence of the body itself nor with the relatives of such a dead
person except for the procession to the church where it will be buried.
Nor shall such persons return to the house where the defunct person
lived or enter into that house or any other house on the said occasion
on penalty of £ 10
VII. Item. They have provided and ordered that when anyone has died no
person should dare or presume to present or to send any gift before or
after burial to the former dwelling place of such a dead person or any
other place on the said occasion or to attend or to go to a meal in that
house or place on the said occasion on penalty of £ 25.... Children,
carnal brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews of such a dead person
and their children, however, shall be expected [from this provision].
VIII. Item. They have provided and ordered that in order to avoid
useless or fruitless expenses no person should dare or presume to dress
in new clothing during the period of mourning for any dead person or
during the eight days after that, on penalty of £ 25 of pennies for
whoever contravenes [this] and for each time. Wives of such dead persons
however, shall be exempted; they can be dressed in whatever new clothing
they wish without penalty.
IX. Item. They have provided and ordered that no paid mourner... shall
dare or presume to mourn publicly or privately or to invite other
citizens of Pistoia to go to the funeral or to the dead person; nor may
anyone engage the foresaid mourner, hornplayer, cryer or drummer.
X. Item. So that the sounds of bells might not depress the infirm nor
fear arise in them [the Wise Men] have provided and ordered that the
bellringers or custodians in charge of the belltower of the cathedral of
Pistoia shall not permit any bell in the said campanile to be rung for
the funeral of the dead nor shall any person dare or presume to ring any
of these bells on the said occasion.... At the chapel or parish church
of the said dead person or at the friary if the person is to be buried
at a church of the friars, they can ring the bell of the chapel, parish
church or the church of the friars so long as it is rung only one time
and moderately, on the foresaid penalty in the foresaid manner [for each
violation].
XI. Item. They have provided and ordered that no one shall dare or
presume to gather or cause to gather any persons for the purpose of
bringing any widow from the former habitation of a dead person, unless
at the time she is being returned from the church or cemetery where such
a dead person was buried. [Blood relatives] of such a widow, however,
wishing to bring the widow from the house at times other than at the
time of burial may send up to four women to accompany the said woman,
who is to be brought from the foresaid house of the dead person....
XII. Item. They have provided and ordered that no person should dare or
presume to raise or cause to be raised any wailing or clamor over any
person or because of any person who has died outside the city, district
or county of Pistoia; nor on the said occasion should any persons be
brought together in any place except blood relatives and associates of
such a dead person, nor on the said occasion should any bell be rung or
caused to be wrung, nor announcements be made through the city of
Pistoia by mourners, nor on the said occasion should any invitation [to
join the mourners ] be made on a penalty of £ 25.... It must be
understood, however, in any written ordinances speaking of the dead and
of honoring the burial of the dead that the foresaid shall not have
force in the burial of the body of any soldiers of the militia, doctors
of laws, judges or physicians whose bodies, because of their dignity,
may be honored licitly at burial in a manner pleasing to their heirs.
XIV. Item. They have provided and ordered that butchers and retail
vendors of meat, individually and in common, can not, nor ought to hold
or maintain near a tavern or other place where they sell meats, or near
a shop or beside or behind a shop any stable, pen or any other thing
which will give off a putrid smell; nor can they slaughter meat animals
nor hang them after slaughter in any stable or other place in which
there is any stench on a penalty of £ 10.
XXII. Item. So that stench and putrefaction shall not be harmful to men,
henceforth tanning of hides can not and must not be done within the
walls of the city of Pistoia on penalty of £ 25....
XXIII. Item. For the observance of each and every provision contained in
the present articles and everything in the article speaking of funerals
of the dead, of butchers and retail vendors of meats, they provided and
ordered that the lord podestˆ and captain and their officials charged
pro tem with the foresaid [duties] shall and must proceed against,
investigate, and inquire. . . concerning acts contrary to the foresaid
[ordinances], and cause whatever of the foresaid ordained to be reviewed
as often as possible, and punish the guilty by the foresaid fines. . . .
Also any person may accuse or denounce before either the said podestˆ or
captain any persons acting against the foresaid or any of the foresaid
or the content of the said statutes or ordinances. And such
denunciations or accusers shall, can and may have one fourth of the fine
after it is levied and paid, which fourth part the treasurer pro tem of
the treasury of the said city shall be held to and have to pay and give
to the said accuser and informer as soon as the fine and penalty have
been paid. And sufficient proof shall be offered by one witness worthy
of belief, or four persons of good reputation who have learned [of the
contravention]. . . .
A Description of the Plague
This first account is from Messina, and it described the arrival and
initial progress of the disease.
At the beginning of October, in the year of the incarnation of the Son
of God 1347, twelve Genoese galleys . . . entered the harbor of Messina.
In their bones they bore so virulent a disease that anyone who only
spoke to them was seized by a mortal illness and in no manner could
evade death. The infection spread to everyone who had any contact with
the diseased. Those infected felt themselves penetrated by a pain
throughout their whole bodies and, so to say, undermined. Then there
developed on the thighs or upper arms a boil about the size of a lentil
which the people called "burn boil". This infected the whole body, and
penetrated it so that the patient violently vomited blood. This vomiting
of blood continued without intermission for three days, there being no
means of healing it, and then the patient expired.
Not only all those who had speech with them died, but also those who had
touched or used any of their things. When the inhabitants of Messina
discovered that this sudden death emanated from the Genoese ships they
hurriedly ordered them out of the harbor and town. But the evil remained
and caused a fearful outbreak of death. Soon men hated each other so
much that if a son was attacked by the disease his father would not tend
him. If, in spite of all, he dared to approach him, he was immediately
infected and was bound to die within three days. Nor was this all; all
those dwelling in the same house with him, even the cats and other
domestic animals, followed him in death. As the number of deaths
increased in Messina many desired to confess their sins to the priests
and to draw up their last will and testament. But ecclesiastics, lawyers
and notaries refused to enter the houses of the diseased.
Soon the corpses were lying forsaken in the houses. No ecclesiastic, no
son, no father and no relation dared to enter, but they hired servants
with high wages to bury the dead. The houses of the deceased remained
open with all their valuables, gold and jewels. . . . When the
catastrophe had reached its climax the Messinians resolved to emigrate.
One portion of them settled in the vineyards and fields, but a larger
portion sought refuge in the town of Catania. The disease clung to the
fugitives and accompanied them everywhere where they turned in search of
help. Many of the fleeing fell down by the roadside and dragged
themselves into the fields and bushes to expire. Those who reached
Catania breathed their last in the hospitals there. The terrified
citizens would not permit the burying of fugitives from Messina within
the town, and so they were all thrown into deep trenches outside the
walls.
Thus the people of Messina dispersed over the whole island of Sicily and
with them the disease, so that innumerable people died. The town of
Catania lost all its inhabitants, and ultimately sank into complete
oblivion. Here not only the "burn blisters" appeared, but there
developed gland boils on the groin, the thighs, the arms, or on the
neck. At first these were of the size of a hazel nut, and developed
accompanied by violent shivering fits, which soon rendered those
attacked so weak that they could not stand up, but were forced to lie in
their beds consumed by violent fever. Soon the boils grew to the size of
a walnut, then to that of a hen's egg or a goose's egg, and they were
exceedingly painful, and irritated the body, causing the sufferer to
vomit blood. The sickness lasted three days, and on the fourth, at the
latest, the patient succumbed. As soon as anyone in Catania was seized
with a headache and shivering, he knew that he was bound to pass away
within the specified time. . . . When the plague had attained its height
in Catania, the patriarch endowed all ecclesiastics, even the youngest,
with all priestly powers for the absolution of sin which he himself
possessed as bishop and patriarch. But the pestilence raged from October
1347 to April 1348. The patriarch himself was one of the last to be
carried off. He died fulfilling his duty. At the same time, Duke
Giovanni, who had carefully avoided every infected house and every
patient, died.
Giovanni Sercambi: An Image of Plague (1348)
The Black Death of 1347-1351
During the next few years, the European economy slowly improved, and
agricultural and manufacturing production eventually reached pre-famine
levels. This return to normalcy was suddenly ended in the year 1347 by a
disaster even worse than the Great Famine.
Since the failure of Justinian's attempt to reconquer the lands of the
Western Empire in 540-565, Europe had been relatively isolated, its
population sparse, and intercommunication among its villages slight. It
was as if the continent were divided up into a number of quarantine
districts. Although many diseases were endemic (that is, they were
always present), contagious diseases did not spread rapidly or easily.
So the last pandemic (an epidemic that strikes literally everywhere
within a short time) to strike Europe had been the one brought to the
West by Justinian's armies in 547. By the 14th century, however, the
revival of commerce and trade and the growth of population had altered
that situation. There was much more movement of people from place to
place within Europe, and European merchants travelled far afield into
many more regions from which they could bring home both profitable wares
and contagious diseases. Moreover, the diet, housing, and clothing of
the average men and women of Western Europe were relatively poor, and a
shortage of wood for fuel had made hot water a luxury and personal
hygiene substandard.
Contrary to popular belief, medieval people actually liked to wash. They
particularly enjoyed soaking in hot tubs and, as late as the mid-
thirteenth century, most towns and even villages had public bath houses
not unlike the Japanese do today. The conversion of forest into arable
land had reduced the supply of wood, however, and the bath houses began
to shut down because of the expense of heating the water. They tried
using coal, but decided that burning coal gave off unhealthy fumes (They
were right, by the way) and abandoned the use of the stuff. By the
mid-fourteenth century, only the rich could afford to bathe during the
cold Winter months, and most of the population was dirty most of the
time, even if they did not enjoy being so
The Black Death seems to have arisen somewhere in Asia and was brought
to Europe from the Genoese trading station of Kaffa in the Crimea (in
the Black Sea). The story goes that the Mongols were besieging Kaffa
when a sickness broke out among their forces and compelled them to
abandon the siege. As a parting shot, the Mongol commander loaded a few
of the plague victims onto his catapults and hurled them into the town.
Some of the merchants left Kaffa for Constantinople as soon as the
Mongols had departed, and they carried the plague with them. It spread
from Constantinople along the trade routes, causing tremendous mortality
along the way.
The disease was transmitted primarily by fleas and rats. The stomachs of
the fleas were infected with bacteria known as Y. Pestis. The bacteria
would block the "throat" of an infected flea so that no blood could
reach its stomach, and it grew ravenous since it was starving to death.
It would attempt to suck up blood from its victim, only to disgorge it
back into its prey's bloodstreams. The blood it injected back, however,
was now mixed with Y. Pestis. Infected fleas infected rats in this
fashion, and the other fleas infesting those rats were soon infected by
their host's blood. They then spread the disease to other rats, from
which other fleas were infected, and so on. As their rodent hosts died
out, the fleas migrated to the bodies of humans and infected them in the
same fashion as they had the rats, and so the plague spread
The disease appeared in three forms:
bubonic [infection of the lymph system -- 60% fatal]
pneumonic [respiratory infection -- about 100% fatal], and
septicaemic [infection of the blood and probably 100% fatal]
The plague lasted in each area only about a year, but a third of a
district's population would die during that period. People tried to
protect themselves by carrying little bags filled with crushed herbs and
flowers over their noses, but to little effect. Those individuals
infected with bubonic would experience great swellings ("bubos" in the
Latin of the times) of their lymph glands and take to their beds. Those
with septicaemic would die quickly, before any obvious symptoms had
appeared. Those with respiratory also died quickly, but not before
developing evident symptoms: a sudden fever that turned the face a dark
rose color, a sudden attack of sneezing, followed by coughing, coughing
up blood, and death.
It is a popular (although incorrect) belief that this latter sequence is
recalled in a children's game-song that most people know and have both
played and sung:
Ring around the rosie,
A pocketful of posie,
Ashes, ashes
All fall down!
According to this conception, the ring mentioned in the verse is a
circular dance, and the plague was often portrayed as the danse macabre,
in which a half-decomposed corpse was shown pulling an apparently
healthy young man or woman into a ring of dancers that included man and
women from all stations and dignities of life as well as corpses and
skeletons. The rosie is believed to represent the victim with his or her
face suffused with blood, and the posie is the supposedly prophylactic
bag of herbs and flowers. Ashes, ashes is the sound of sneezing, and all
fall down! is the signal to reenact the death which came so often in
those times.
Partially due to the lack of children's skills to provide for
themselves, the children suffered. A common nursery rhyme is proof.
Ring a-round the rosy
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes!
We all fall down!
Ring around the rosy: rosary beads give you God's help. A pocket
full of posies: used to stop the odor of rotting bodies which was at one
point thought to cause the plague, it was also used widely by doctors to
protect them from the infected plague patients. Ashes, ashes: the church
burned the dead when burying them became to laborious. We all fall down:
dead. Not only were the children effected physically, but also mentally.
Exposure to public nudity, craziness, and (obviously) abundant death was
premature. The decease of family members left the children facing death
and pain at an early age. Parents even abandoned their children, leaving
them to the streets instead of risking the babies giving them the
dreaded "pestilence". Children were especially unlucky if they were
female. Baby girls would be left to die because parents would favor male
children that could carry on the family name.
Some Consequences of the Plague
The disease finally played out in Scandinavia in about 1351 [see Ingmar
Bergman's film The Seventh Seal], but another wave of the disease came
in 1365 and several times after that until -- for some unknown reason --
the Black Death weakened and was replaced by waves of typhoid fever,
typhus, or cholera. Europe continued to experience regular waves of such
mortality until the mid-19th century. Although bubonic plague is still
endemic in many areas, including New Mexico in the American Southwest.
it does not spread as did the Black Death of 1347-1351.
The effects of that plague and its successors on the men and women of
medieval Europe were profound: new attitudes toward death, the value of
life, and of one's self. It kindled a growth of class conflict, a loss
of respect for the Church, and the emergence of a new pietism (personal
spirituality) that profoundly altered European attitudes toward
religion. Still another effect, however, was to kindle a new cultural
vigor in Europe, one in which the national languages, rather than Latin,
were the vehicle of expression. An example of this movement was Giovanni
Boccaccio's The Decameron, a collection of tales written in 1350 and set
in a country house where a group of noble young men and women of
Florence have fled to escape the plague raging in the city.
A Short Conclusion
These were natural disasters, but they were made all the worse by the
inability of the directing elements of society, the princes and clergy,
to offer any leadership during these crises. In the next few lectures we
will examine the reasons for their failure to do so.
And Innocent Merriment
It was once the custom to follow every drama with a farce or ballet. I
suppose that the theory was that the emotions of the audience were so
exhausted by the passions that had been enacted, that they (the
audience, not the emotions) needed a bit of good clean fun to restore
the balance of their humors (I really should tell you about humors
sometime). Following this venerable tradition, The Management now offers
you a bit of doggerel.
"A sickly season," the merchant said,
"The town I left was filled with dead,
and everywhere these queer red flies
crawled upon the corpses' eyes,
eating them away."
"Fair make you sick," the merchant said,
"They crawled upon the wine and bread.
Pale priests with oil and books,
bulging eyes and crazy looks,
dropping like the flies."
"I had to laugh," the merchant said,
"The doctors purged, and dosed, and bled;
"And proved through solemn disputation
"The cause lay in some constellation.
"Then they began to die."
"First they sneezed," the merchant said,
"And then they turned the brightest red,
Begged for water, then fell back.
With bulging eyes and face turned black,
they waited for the flies."
"I came away," the merchant said,
"You can't do business with the dead.
"So I've come here to ply my trade.
"You'll find this to be a fine brocade..."
And then he sneezed.
the Xenopsylla cheopsis.
A known carrier for the Bubonic Plague.
Since China was one of the busiest of the world's trading nations, it
was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread
to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant
ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in
trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on
board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to
the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what
happened:
"Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly
drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon
death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused
to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to
care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as
they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was
no one to give them a Christian burial."
The disease struck and killed people with terrible speed. The Italian
writer Boccaccio said its victims often
"ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors in
paradise."
By the following August, the plague had spread as far north as England,
where people called it "The Black Death" because of the black spots it
produced on the skin. A terrible killer was loose across Europe, and
Medieval medicine had nothing to combat it.
In winter the disease seemed to disappear, but only because fleas--which
were now helping to carry it from person to person--are dormant then.
Each spring, the plague attacked again, killing new victims. After five
years 25 million people were dead--one-third of Europe's people.
Even when the worst was over, smaller outbreaks continued, not just for
years, but for centuries. The survivors lived in constant fear of the
plague's return, and the disease did not disappear until the 1600s.
Medieval society never recovered from the results of the plague. So many
people had died that there were serious labor shortages all over Europe.
This led workers to demand higher wages, but landlords refused those
demands. By the end of the 1300s peasant revolts broke out in England,
France, Belgium and Italy.
The disease took its toll on the church as well. People throughout
Christendom had prayed devoutly for deliverance from the plague. Why
hadn't those prayers been answered? A new period of political turmoil
and philosophical questioning lay ahead.
The Effect on Music and Art
People's attitudes towards music and art changed as they began to
see the depression surrounding them. The horrific nature of the Black
Death was reflected in the realistic depictions of human suffering and
carnage as well as the symbolic use of the skeleton.
"The Dance of Death"
by Hans Holbein the Younger
Before the Black Death, music was happy and frequently heard.
During the Black Death music was played very grimly or never played at
all. The only exceptions were people who decided that since they were
going to die anyway, they might as well spend the rest of their life in
happiness. The somber change in art and music demonstrated the grim
reality of the world around them.
I say, then, that the years of the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of
God had attained to the number of one thousand three hundred and
forty-eight, when into the notable city of Florence, fair over every
other of Italy, there came to death-dealing pestilence, which, through
the operation of the heavenly bodies or of our own iniquitous doings,
being sent down upon mankind for our correction by the just wrath of
God, had some years before appeared in the parts of the East and after
having bereft these latter of an innumerable number of inhabitants,
extending without cease from one place to another, had now unhappily
spread towards the West.
---Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron
Imagine, that a mere five days after having read this that all of your
best friends have succumbed to an illness which cannot be explained.
Imagine also, that all the residents who live on your street have died
under similar circumstances in the same amount of time. If you can
conceive of such a dreaded act occurring within your experience than you
may have some glimpse into the mindset of the mid-14th century European
who was unfortunate enough to have experienced the BLACK DEATH.
In October 1347, twelve Genoese trading ships put into the harbor at
Messina in Sicily. The ships had come from the Black Sea where the
Genoese had several important trading posts. The ships contained rather
strange cargo: dead or dying sailors showed strange black swellings
about the size of an egg located in their groins and armpits. These
swellings oozed blood and pus. Those who suffered did so with extreme
pain and were usually dead within a few days. The victims coughed and
sweat heavily. Everything that issued from their body -- sweat, blood,
breath, urine, and excrement -- smelled foul.
The disease was bubonic plague and it came in two forms. In cases of
infection of the blood stream, boils and internal bleeding were the
result. In this guise the plague spread by physical contact. In the
pneumonic phase, the plague was spread by respiration (coughing,
sneezing, breathing). The plague was deadly -- a person could go to
sleep at night feeling fine and be dead by morning. In other instances,
a doctor could catch the illness from one of his patients and die before
the patient.
The Italian poet, GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO (1313-1375) has left us a chilling
account of the plague as it struck Florence in 1348. His Decameron
relates the story of seven ladies and three gentlemen who leave the city
for their country villa for a period of ten days. They each take turns
telling stories, one hundred in all, in the garden. Many of these are
licentious while others are full of pathos and a poetical fancy. The
backdrop of the first story is the plague and it is here Boccaccio
relates that:
in men and women alike there appeared, at the beginning of the malady,
certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits, whereof
some waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an
egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.
Rumors of a plague supposedly arising in China and spreading through
India, Persia, Syria and Egypt had reached Europe in 1346. But no one
paid any attention. Of course, there have been plagues throughout
European history. Homer relates one such plague in the Iliad. Athens was
struck in the 5th century, Arabia in the sixth and seventh centuries,
and more recently, a plague in India raged from 1892 to 1910.
By January 1348, the plague had penetrated France by way of Marseilles
and North Africa by way of Tunis. Both Marseilles and Tunis are port
towns. The plague then spread west to Spain and and North to central
France by March. By May, the plague entered Rome and Florence. In June,
the plague had moved to Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London. Switzerland
and Hungary fell victim in July. JEAN DE VENETTE, a French friar, has
left us a chronicle about the progress of the plague as it moved through
Europe.
In any given period, the plague accomplished its work in three to six
months and then faded from view. The plague came and went like a tornado
-- its appearance and movement was totally unpredictable. In northern
cities, the plague lay dormant in winter and then reappeared the
following spring. In 1349, the plague reappeared at Paris and eventually
spread to Holland, Scotland and Ireland. In Norway, a ghost shipped
drifted offshore for months before it ran aground with its cargo of
death. By the end of 1349, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Iceland and
Greenland felt the full effects of the plague. The plague left nearly as
quickly as it had appeared. By mid-1350, the plague had completed its
deed across the continent of Europe.
In enclosed places like monasteries, nunneries and prisons, the
infection of one person usually meant the infection of all. Of one
hundred and forty Dominican friars at Montpellier, only one man
survived. Watching family and friends suffer and succumb to violent
deaths, men could not help but wonder whether this pestilence had been
sent to exterminate all sinners. After all, hadn't this happened once
before?
By the middle of the 14th century, the largest cities of Europe were
Paris, Florence, Venice, and Genoa. These were cities with populations
in excess of 100,000 people. London, Ghent, Milan, Bologna, Rome,
Naples, and Cologne all had around 50,000 people. Smaller cities such as
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, Barcelona, Seville, and Toledo contain
20 to 50,000 souls. The plague raged through all these cities killing
anywhere between thirty and sixty percent. To make matters worse, in
January 1348 -- remember, this is the month the plague first appeared on
the continent -- a serious earthquake hit an area between Naples and
Venice. Houses and churches collapsed, villages were destroyed, and foul
odors emanated from the earth.
The death rate from the plague was erratic and ranged from twenty
percent to one hundred percent. For the area extending from India to
Iceland, it can be assumed that between thirty and thirty-five percent
of Europe's population disappeared in the three years between 1347 and
1350. This meant about 20 million deaths out of an estimated population
of 70 million (see MAP).
Rich or poor, young or old, fit or ill, man or woman -- the plague made
no distinction when it came to choosing its victims. The plague, like a
tornado, will strike when and where it wants. For every case in which a
healthy child was the only survivor of a family of twelve there are
other cases in which the family elder was the only survivor. The plague
could take out an entire side of one street or the entire street or just
one house on the street. It oftentimes happened that a victim would
catch the plague but recover. On the other hand, most people who caught
the plague were dead within a few days. "To the cure of these maladies,"
wrote Boccaccio:
neither counsel of physician nor virtue of any medicine appeared to
avail or profit aught. . . . Not only did few recover thereof, but
well-nigh all died within the third day from the appearance of the
aforesaid signs, this one sooner and that one later, and for the most
part, without fever or other complication. . . . The mischief was even
greater; for not only did converse and consortion with the sick give to
the sound infection or cause of common death, but the mere touching of
the clothes . . . appeared of itself to communicate the malady to the
toucher.
Of this my own eyes had one day, among others, experienced in this way;
to wit, that the rags of a poor man who had died of the plague, being
cast out into the public way, two hogs came upon them and having first,
after their wont, rooted among them with their snouts, took them in
their mouths and tossed them about their jaws; then, in a little while,
after turning round and round, they both, as if they had taken poison,
fell down dead upon the rags with which they had in an ill hour
intermeddled.
Trying to determine the number of people who died with any accuracy is
difficult given the status of record-keeping at the time. However,
historians do have some records at their disposal which shed some light
on the numbers of people who met this awful fate. In Avignon, 400 people
died daily over a period of three months (36,000 out of a population of
50,000). A single graveyard received more than 11,000 corpses in six
weeks. In a three month period in 1349, 800 people died daily in Paris,
500 daily in Pisa, and 600 daily in Vienna. In Frankfurt 2,000 people
died over a period of ten weeks in 1349 and in that same period 12,000
lost their lives in Erfurt. Marchione di Coppo Stefani, who wrote his
Florentine Chronicle in the late 1370s, related that:
Now it was ordered by the bishop and the Lords [of the city government]
that they should formally inquire as to how many died in Florence. When
it was seen at the beginning of October that no more persons were dying
of the pestilence, they found that among males, females, children and
adults, 96,000 died between March and October [1348].
Amid the accumulating death and fear of contagion, people died without
being administered the last rites, in other words, they were buried
without prayer. Such an act terrified other victims since there seemed
to be nothing worse in the Age of Faith than to be buried improperly.
How did men and women react to the plague? What was their response? You
would expect those who remained to join together for mutual support.
What happened was the exact opposite. The plague forced people to run
from one another. Lawyers refused to witness wills, doctors refused to
help the sick, priests did not hear confessions, parents deserted
children, and husbands deserted their wives. In the words of the Pope's
physician, "charity was dead." Boccaccio tells us that "various fears
and notions were begotten in those who remained alive . . . namely, to
shun and flee from the sick and all that pertained to them, and thus
doing, each thought to secure immunity for himself."
In some villages it was reported that several villagers danced to drums
and trumpets. They believed that after seeing their family, friends,
neighbors and perhaps their priest die each day that in order to remain
immune, they must enjoy themselves. "They lived remotely from every
other," recorded Boccaccio,
taking refuge and shutting themselves up in those houses where none were
sick and where living was best; and there, partaking very temperately of
the most delicate viands and the finest wines and eschewing all
incontinence, they abode with music and other such diversions as they
might have, never allowing themselves to speak with any, nor choosing to
hear any news from without of death or the sick.
Flight from infected areas was the most basic response, especially among
those who could afford to flee. The idea was simple enough -- remove
yourself from those areas which were affected. This usually meant
fleeing from the city to the countryside, as did the wealthy
storytellers in Boccaccio's Decameron. But things could be just as bad
in the countryside. Peasants fell dead in their homes, on the roads and
in the fields. Wheat was left unharvested, and oxen, sheep, cows, goats,
pigs and chickens ran wild, and according to most contemporary accounts,
they too fell victim to the plague. English sheep -- the primary
provider of wool to Europe -- died in great numbers. One report
specified that five thousand lay dead in one field. All this led to a
sense of a vanishing future and created what historians have referred to
as a "dementia of despair." One German observer wrote that "men and
women wandered around as if mad and let their cattle stray because no
one had any inclination to concern themselves about the future."
General ignorance about the causes of the plague did nothing to dispel
fear and terror. The carriers of the plague -- rats and fleas -- were
not suspected for one very simple reason: rats and fleas were common and
familiar to the 14th century. Fleas are not mentioned in the records of
the plague and rats only incidentally. The actual plague bacillus,
Yersina pestis, was not discovered until the middle of the 19th century,
500 years too late! Living in the stomach of the flea or in the
bloodstream of the rat, the bacillus was transferred to humans by the
bite of either the flea or the rat. The plague's usual form of
transportation was the rattus rattus, the small medieval black rat that
was a constant companion of sailor's on board sailing vessels. The death
of the rat caused the relocation of the flea, and if its next host just
happened to be a human, then contagion was the result.
Medieval men and women were quite resourceful, however, in determining
the cause of the plague. The earthquake of 1348 was blamed for
corrupting the air with foul odors, thus precipitating the plague. The
alignment of the planets was specified as yet another cause: Saturn,
Jupiter and Mars aligned in the 40th degree of Aquarius on March 20,
1345.
For almost everyone, the plague signified the wrath of God. A plague so
sweeping and unforgiving could only be the work of some species of
Divine punishment upon mankind for its sins. Popes led processions
lasting three days and which were attended by two thousand followers,
according to some accounts. The people prayed, wept, gnashed their
teeth, pulled their hair, imploring the mercy of the Virgin Mary. The
majority of people were convinced that the plague was certainly the work
of God. And in September 1348, the Pope agreed. In a papal edict he
specifically referred to "this pestilence with which God is affecting
the Christian people."
The widespread acceptance of this view created an enormous sense of
collective guilt. If the plague had descended upon mankind as a form of
divine punishment, then the sins which created it must have been
terrible: greed, usury, worldliness, adultery, blasphemy, falsehood,
heresy, luxury, irreligion, fornication, sloth and laziness. Beneath all
of this was the matrix of Christianity itself -- nothing escaped the
psychological and social control of the Church. Even the boiling of an
egg was timed according to the time it took to say a prayer.
Efforts to cope with the plague were fruitless. Both the treatment and
prevention offered little in the way of immunity, cure or hope. The
physician's primary effort was to burn aromatic herbs and purify the
air. Their role was to relieve the patient since each victim's fate was
in the hands of God alone. Victims of the plague were treated by
blood-letting, purging with laxatives and the lancing of the
plague-boils. Victims were washed in vinegar or rose water, given bland
diets and told to avoid excitement. Regardless, if a patient suddenly
recovered, his recovery owed less to the care of the physician that it
did to luck.
People looked for answers. They needed answers to questions: where did
the plague come from? why is it here? why am I alive? A scapegoat was
needed since anger and frustration had to be focused. And Europe was
full of scapegoats. On charges that they had poisoned the water with the
"intent to kill and destroy all of Christendom," the extermination of
European Jews began in the spring of 1348. Jews from Narbonne and
Carcassone in France, were dragged from their homes and thrown into
bonfires. It was commonly accepted that the plague was God's punishment.
But anger could not be directed toward God. The Jew, as the eternal
stranger in Christian Europe, was the most obvious target. He was the
outsider who willingly separated himself from the Christian world.
During the epidemic of 1320-1321, hundreds of lepers died and it was
believed that the Jews had caused the deaths of these unfortunate souls.
When the plague came twenty-five years later, the Jews were once again
the target of blame. Why did this occur? According to the Church, the
Jews had rejected Jesus as their savior -- they refused to accept the
Gospel in place of Mosaic law. In the early 4th century, the Church
denied Jews their civil rights. But the Jews maintained a role in
medieval society as moneylenders. They were excluded from all crafts and
trades. There was also the belief that Jews often performed the ritual
murder of Christians, in order to re-enact the Crucifixion.
Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries the Church issued laws that
isolated the European Jew. Jews could not own Christian servants, could
not intermarry and could not build new synagogues. They were,
furthermore, barred from weaving, mining, metalworking, shoemaking,
baking, milling and carpentry. At the 4th Lateran Council of 1215, Pope
Innocent III forced the Jews to wear a yellow badge in the shape of a
coin. By the following century, other outcasts such as Muslims and
prostitutes were also forced to wear a similar badge. The Inquisition
stepped in and in Savoy in September 1348, the first trial was held
against the Jews. Their property was confiscated while they remained in
jail. Confessions were obtained by torture and eleven Jews were burned
at the stake. At Basle in Switzerland (January 9, 1349), several hundred
Jews were burned alive in a house specially constructed for this
purpose. A decree was passed that ordered that no Jew could settle in
Basle for two hundred years. In February 1349, the Jews of Strasburg,
numbering two thousand, were taken to the burial ground and burned at
the stake en masse. And, in early 1349, at Mainz in Germany, Jews took
the initiative and killed two hundred Christians. The Christian revenge
was horrible -- 12,000 Jews were slaughtered.
When the Black Death subsided in 1351, so too did the persecution of the
European Jew. But for a year or two following the appearance of the
plague, the massacre of Jews was exceptional in its extent and ferocity.
Coupled with the plague, the persecution of the Jews nearly wiped out
entire communities. In all, sixty large and 150 smaller Jewish
communities were exterminated. Between 1347 and 1351, there were
recorded more than 350 massacres which ultimately led to permanent
shifts of the Jewish population into Poland and Lithuania. It is a
curious comment on human nature that European men and women, already
overwhelmed by one of the greatest natural calamities, should seek to
rectify the situation with their own atrocities.
One of the more interesting and bizarre episodes of the Black Death was
the FLAGELLANT MOVEMENT. In 1348, processions of men, initially
well-organized, walked two by two, chanting their Pater Nosters and Ave
Marias, passed through Austria, Hungary, Germany, Bohemia, the Low
Countries and Picardy, summoning the townspeople to the marketplace. At
the head of the procession was the Master and his two lieutenants who
carried banners of purple velvet and cloth of gold. The marchers were
silent, their heads and faces hidden, and their eyes were fixed on the
ground before them. Word would travel ahead and the news of the
procession usually brought out all the townspeople. The church bells
would ring and announce their arrival.
The marchers, once they had arrived, would strip to the waist and form a
large circle. The flagellants marched around the perimeter of the circle
and at the order of the Master, would throw themselves to the ground.
The Master walked among them, beating those who had committed crimes or
who had violated the discipline of the Brotherhood. Following this
ceremony, the collective flagellation took place. Each brother carried a
heavy leather thong, tipped with metal studs. With this they began to
beat themselves and others. Three Brethren acted as cheerleaders while
the Master prayed for God's mercy on all sinners. During the ceremony,
each Brother tried to outdo the next in suffering. Meanwhile, the
townspeople looked on in amazement -- most quaked, sobbed and groaned in
sympathy. The public ceremony was repeated twice a day and once at night
for a period of thirty-three and a half days!
The Flagellant Movement was well-regulated and sternly disciplined. New
entrants (mostly laymen and unbeneficed clergy) had to make as
confession of all sins since the age of seven and then flagellate
themselves for thirty-three and a half days. Each member also vowed
never to bathe, shave, sleep in a bed, change their clothing or converse
in any way with members of the opposite sex. If that wasn't enough, they
also had to pay a small fee! The payment of a fee tells us that
membership in the Brethren was not for everyone. Excluded were those
people who could not afford to pay a fee, therefore, the Brethren was
clearly an exclusive organization and membership to the poor was out of
the question.
The public usually welcomed the procession of flagellants into their
villages and towns since it served as a major event in the otherwise
drab life of the peasant. But the flagellants also served as an occasion
for celebration. Those who attended the processions could work off
surplus emotion in a collective fashion. Although we may tend to laugh
at the flagellants and read them off as lunatics, they did help medieval
men and women cope with the ravages of the plague. After all, taking
part in a procession served as an inexpensive insurance policy that God
would forgive them. "Before the arrival of the Death," writes historian
Malcolm Lambert, "flagellation was one of the few outlets open to a
fear-ridden population; after it had arrived, the worst could be seen,
and there were practical tasks, such as burying the dead, available to
dampen emotions." (Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian
Reform to the Reformation, 1992, p.221.)
By 1349, the flagellant movement came into conflict with the Church at
Rome. This clash was perhaps inevitable. After all, the Masters were
claiming that they could purge sinners of their sins, something the
Church claimed it could do alone. The German flagellants began to attack
the hierarchy of the Church in direct fashion. In mid-1349, Pope Clement
VI issued a papal bull denouncing the flagellants as a heretical
movement. The flagellants had formed unauthorized associations, adopted
their own uniforms, and had written their own church statutes. Numerous
princes in France and in Germany began to prohibit the entrance of the
Brotherhood into their provinces. Masters were burned alive and the
flagellants were denounced by the clergy. By 1350, the flagellant
movement vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
It is easy to make fun of the flagellants as misguided fanatics but in
general they did accomplish something. In the towns they visited they
brought spiritual regeneration for people who needed it. Suffering the
anguish of losing your family and friends in rapid succession, medieval
men and women needed some sort of mechanism to purge themselves of both
guilt and anger, and the flagellants provided one such path. Adulterers
confessed their sins and thieves returned stolen goods. The flagellants
also provided a kind of diversion for the public and held out the
promise that their pain might bring an end to the greater suffering of
the living victims of the plague. "We all recognize the late Middle Ages
as a period of popular religious excitement or overexcitement, of
pilgrimages and penitential processions, of mass preaching, of
veneration or relics and adoration of saints, lay piety and popular
mysticism," wrote William Langer in 1958. "It was apparently also a
period of unusual immorality and shockingly loose living," he continued,
which we must take as the continuation of the "devil-may-care" attitude
of one part of the population. This the psychologists explain as the
repression of unbearable feelings by accentuating the value of a
diametrically opposed set of feelings and then behaving as though the
latter were the real feelings. But the most striking feature of the age
was an exceptionally strong sense of guilt and a truly dreadful fear of
retribution, seeking expression in a passionate longing for effective
intercession and in a craving for direct, personal experience of the
Deity, as well as in a corresponding dissatisfaction with the Church and
with the mechanization of the means of salvation as reflected, for
example, in the traffic of indulgences.
These attitudes, along with the great interest in astrology, the
increased resort to magic, and the startling spread of witchcraft and
Satanism in the fifteenth century were, according to the precepts of
modern psychology, normal reactions to the sufferings to which mankind
in that period was subjected.
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