A Time of Troubles (14th-15th centuries)

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A Time of Troubles (14th-15th centuries) Civiliza
tion decreased with the decrease of mankind.
Cities and buildings were laid waste, roads and
way signs were obliterated, settlements and
mansions became empty, dynasties and tribes grew
weak. The entire inhabited world changed. . .
. Muslim account of the plague
The Great Famine most of n. Europe
(1315-22) heavy rains cold winters
(1315-18) crop failures livestock
epidemics disease, malnutrition,
starvation famine in s. Europe (1330s-40s)
Killed 1/4th to 1/3rd of population 19-38 million
dead (1347-51) wave after wave (1361-63, 1369-71,
1374-75) n. Italy (1630) --gt Verona, Mantua
(60-70) London (1664-65) 70,000 dead (20 dead)
The "Black Death" Central Asia --gt China India
(1330s) Caffa ---gt Mediterranean ports, Sicily
(1347) Italy, Spain, England, France
(1348) Austria, Hungary, Germany (1349) Low
Countries (1349) Baltic region, Scandinavia (1350)
Effects of the Plague population decline
(60-75)--gt(1347-1450) psychological
impact -flagellants anti-Semitism -orgies
millenialism, murder violence -preoccupation
with death (sermons, art, etc.)
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How was the Black Death explained?
Plague came from poisonous clouds or miasmas
arising from the earth, some said. Conjunctions
of the planets, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes
and comets were blamed. . . . Dogs and cats (but
never rats) were killed for spreading the plague.
Drunkards, gravediggers, strangers from other
countries, beggars, cripples, gypsies, lepers,
and Jews were all tortured and killed. . . .
Jews were tortured into confessing that they had
poisoned wells or performed black magic. There
was no escape. . . . . No society suffering a
loss of one-third of its population could
function effectively. . . . So it was in the
world of the Black Death. The foundations of
society were gnawed from under it by rats. . . .
More Cunning than Man (1983)
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Primary Source 1
Oh God! See how the heathen Tartar races,
pouring together from all sides, suddenly
invested the city of Caffa and besieged the
trapped Christians there for almost three years.
There, hemmed in by an immense army, they could
hardly draw breath, although food could be
shipped in, which offered them some hope. But
behold, the whole army was affected by a disease
which overran the Tartars and killed thousands
upon thousands every day. It was as though
arrows were raining down from heaven to strike
and crush the Tartars' arrogance. All medical
advice and attention was useless the Tartars
died as soon as the signs of disease appeared on
their bodies swellings in the armpit or groin
caused by coagulating humours, followed by a
putrid fever. The dying Tartars, stunned and
stupefied by the immensity of the disaster
brought about by the disease, and realizing that
they had no hope of escape, lost interest in the
siege. But they ordered corpses to be placed in
catapults and lobbed into the city in the hope
that the intolerable stench would kill everyone
inside. What seemed like mountains of dead were
thrown into the city, and the Christians could
not hide or flee or escape from them. . . . And
soon the rotting corpses tainted the air and
poisoned the water supply, and the stench was so
overwhelming that hardly one in several thousand
was in a position to flee the remains of the
Tartar army. . . .
Gabriele de' Mussi, Historia de Morbo (1348)
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Primary Source 2
THE UNIVERSAL AND DISTANT CAUSE We say that the
distant and first cause of this pestilence was
and is the configuration of the heavens. In
1345, at one hour after noon on 20 March, there
was a major conjunction of three planets in
Aquarius. This conjunction . . . by causing a
deadly corruption of the air around us, signifies
mortality and famine. . . . Aristotle testifies
that this is the case . . . he says that
mortality of races and the depopulation of
kingdoms occur at the conjunction of Saturn and
Jupiter. . . . For Jupiter, being wet and hot,
draws up evil vapors from the earth. . . . THE
PARTICULAR AND NEAR CAUSE Although major
pestilential illnesses can be caused by the
corruption of water or food, as happens at times
of famine and infertility, yet we still regard
illnesses proceeding from the corruption of the
air as much more dangerous. . . . We believe
that the present epidemic or plague has arisen
from air corrupt in its substance. . . . And
this corrupted air, when breathed in, necessarily
penetrates to the heart and corrupts the
substance of spirit there and rots the
surrounding moisture, and the heat thus caused
destroys the life force, and this is the
immediate cause of the present epidemic. . . .
Report of the Paris medical faculty (October 1348)
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Primary Source 3
At the beginning of October, in the year of the
incarnation of the Son of God 1347, twelve
Genoese galleys were fleeing from the vengeance
which our Lord was taking on account of their
nefarious deeds and entered the harbour 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. . . . Those infected felt
themselves penetrated by a pain throughout their
whole bodies. . . . Then there developed in
their thighs or on their upper arms a boil. . . .
This infected the whole body and penetrated it
so far 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. But
not only all those who had intercourse with them
died, but also those who had touched or used any
of their things. . . . Soon men hated each other
so much that, if a son was attacked by the
disease, his father would not tend him. . . . 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 attorneys refused to
enter the houses of the diseased . . . . The
plague raged with greater vehemence than before.
Flight was no longer of avail. 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.
. . .
Michael Platiensis, account of the plague (ca.
1357)
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Primary Source 4
there are many masters of the art of medicine who
are . . . entirely ignorant of astrology a
science vital to the physician . . . . For the
arts of medicine and astrology balance each
other, and in many respects one science cannot be
understood without the other . . . Bleeding,
which is the beginning of the cure, should not be
put off until the first or second day. On the
contrary, if someone can be found to do it, blood
should be taken . . . in the very hour in which
the patient was seized by illness. . . . If,
after the phlebotomy, the poisonous matter
spreads again, the bleeding should be repeated in
the same vein . . .
Medical treatise, John of Burgundy (1365)
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Primary Sources 5 6
The plague raged so fiercely that many cities and
towns were entirely emptied of people. . . . Some
say it was brought about by the corruption of the
air others that the Jews planned to wipe out all
the Christians with poison and had poisoned wells
and springs everywhere. And many Jews confessed
as much under torture that they had bred spiders
and toads in pots and pans, and had obtained
poison from overseas. . . . Throughout Germany,
in all but a few places, they were burnt. . . .
Franciscan friars account (1349)
In the year of our Lord 1349 the hand of Almighty
God struck the human race a deadly blow. . . . .
This stroke felled Christians, Jews and infidels
alike. It killed confessor and penitent
together. In many places it did not leave a
fifth of the people alive. This blow struck the
whole world with immense terror. . . .
Chronicle of a Cistercian abbey, Lincolnshire
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Primary Sources 7 8
In 1349 . . . an unexpected and universal
pestilence from the eastern lands of the Indians
and Turks infected the center of the world and
slaughtered the Saracens, Turks, Syrians,
Palestinians and finally the Greeks with such
butchery that they, driven by terror, resolved to
receive the Christian faith and sacraments,
having heard that the Christians beyond the Greek
Sea were not dying more suddenly or in greater
numbers than usual. At last fierce destruction
came to the countries beyond the Alps, and from
there, in stages, to western France and Germany,
and, in the seventh year since its beginning, to
England. . . .
Geoffrey le Baker
On all sides is sorrow everywhere is fear. I
would, my brother, that I had never been born,
or, at least, had died before these times. How
will posterity believe that there has been a time
when without the lightnings of heaven or the
fires of earth, without wars or other visible
slaughter, not this or that part of the earth,
but well-nigh the whole globe, has remained
without inhabitants. When has any such thing
been even heard or seen in what annals has it
ever been read that houses were left vacant,
cities deserted, the country neglected, the
fields too small for the dead and a fearful and
universal solitude over the whole earth?. . .
Petrarch