Bennet Geis
Plague DBQ
November 4, 2018
Starting one of the most destructive periods in European history, the Bubonic Plague arrived in Sicily in 1347, carried by ships from the Black Sea. Over the next few years, the first wave of what was named the “Black Death” spread across Europe, and would ultimately reduce Europe’s population by roughly one third. The disease’s name came from the symptom of dark, bulbous swellings that victims experienced and contributed to a revulsion around the plague. The plague was extremely contagious and people contracted the illness when coming in proximity with victims or coming in contact with things they had touched. While it is now known that the plague was carried by fleas who, due to the movement of rats and their proximity to humans, easily passed the plague on, no one in the fourteenth century understood. At the time, there was little scientific knowledge of the cause of the disease and how it spread. Thus, Europeans responded to the plague in different ways. Some responded by appealing to religion or superstition, some responded by taking actions to help victims and prevent the spread, while others responded out of self-interest.
Due to lack of natural explanation, many Europeans responded to the plague by appealing to religion or supernatural forces. Throughout the centuries in which plagues struck, European society was strongly influenced by the Catholic Church. Christianity played a role in nearly every European life, as order and rituals in society were governed by the church. Many God-fearing Europeans believed that the plague was the punishment ot of an angry God, punishing people for their sins. M. Bertrand, a French physician, claims in A Historical Relation of the Plague at Marseilles in the Year 1720, that the plague is created by God to punish people, and thus, attempts to treat it as a common illness are futile. Bertrand made this argument in hopes that the general population, as well as other physicians, would appeal to God and attempt to repent for their sins rather than seek natural treatments. As late as the book, published in 1720, a physician’s medical knowledge was limited and his practices were reliant on invocations of religion and the supernatural. Due to the lack of understanding about the biology of diseases, the physician saw religion as the only logical explanation. The conviction that the plague was God’s punishment, expressed by the physician, was not an uncommon response. The most extreme example was the rise of the Flagellants, a fanatic religious group that sought to atone for their sins by publicly whipping themselves, believing such penance would spare them God’s wrath. The popularity of such an extremist movement reflects the belief that Europeans had in the power of God, and the widespread belief that atoning for one’s sins might save a person from the plague. Those who were members of the Catholic Church, attempted to cure victims with treatments that invoked God. The practice of communion in the Catholic Church held that consecrated holy bread was flesh of Jesus’ body, so the food held distinct significance in relation to the church. In her 1624 legal disposition, Lisabetta Centenni, an Italian housewife, tells of an instance in which a Sister of the church attempted to cure her husband through religious means, by sending a piece of bread said to have touched the body of St. Dominica (Doc 7). When her husband’s fever broke, the housewife believed that the holy bread had cured him. While the sister had no medical qualification, the housewife’s testimony argues that her husband’s survival was a work of God. In the role of a housewife, Centenni would have been the primary caregiver to her husband, and her faith in Christianity to help her perform that duty illustrates how those who tended to plague victims appealed to God in hopes of curing their patients. While some Plague victims survived, Centenni’s religiosity predisposed her to believe that her husband’s recovery was the work of God. In addition to the power of religion, superstition was a common part of medieval Europeans’ worldview. Some plague victims responded out of superstitious beliefs, as is indicated by the practice of hanging toads around a victim’s neck. According to The Reform of Medicine, a text written by H. De Rochas, a French physician, those suffering from the plague would hang the toads under the belief that their venom would draw out the poison of the disease. (Doc 10) Those who turned to this method did so out of desperation, as the theory had no scientific basis and was based off superstitious beliefs. The plague drove Europeans to respond in such extreme manners. While some lost faith in religion due to the plague, and instead turned to superstitious and unfounded methods, belief in the supernatural was a part of Europeans worldviews alongside their religious faith. Some of those who responded to the plague with religious appeals did so in the belief that they were protected, due to their faith in God. An English traveler, Sir John Reresby, writes in his memoirs that he chose to travel to Rome, despite the Plague, due to his faith in God. (Doc 12) Reresby believed that the plague was God’s punishment and because of his faith, he would be spared by God’s will.
While the majority of Europeans were under the influence of religion, some also responded with recognition of actions needed to combat the plague. Though attempts were made to improve cleanliness over the centuries, European cities remained unsanitary and ideal for widespread plague as late as the seventeenth century. Overcrowded conditions and the presence of animals and human waste in the streets contributed to the spread of the disease. Erasmus of Rotterdam was a humanist scholar. In a 1512 letter, Erasmus states that the plague is due to the filth and poor sanitary conditions in the cities (Doc 2). Erasmus wrote that the plague was caused by living conditions in hopes of seeing unsanitary conditions improve. His letter is pointed at public officials who could improve conditions, and people living in the city, who could protect themselves from the disease by avoiding public areas that would spread the disease. His response reflects an attitude of goodwill, in which he searches for action to combat the plague. As a humanist scholar, it is not surprising that the Erasmus rejected superstitious beliefs and supernatural explanations, instead seeking a rational way to solve human problems. The recognition that plague was spread through contact, especially through waste, stands in contrast to prevailing notions at the time. Many believed the disease was carried “bad air” and that by breathing in sweet odors from flowers, herbs, and spices, they could protect themselves. Some took charitable action. In a 1630 letter to the Health Magistracy of Florence, Father Dragoni describes how he fed the servants of infected houses and paid guards and gravediggers with alms, or charity (Doc 9). Father Dragoni’s letter shows that some clerical figures responded with more than appeals for help from God. Father Dragoni took practical action by supporting those who took care of the sick, guarded villages from the spread of the disease, and buried the dead. It was a Catholic priest’s duty to care for the sick and take care of his people. The Father’s actions in helping others who did their part in combating the plague reflects how Christian teachings led some to respond with charitable action. It is likely that Father Dragoni, as a priest, acted out of compassion and charity. Additional preventative responses to the plague included rigid measures to stop its spread. Heinrich von Staden, a traveler to Russia, described how houses that were infected were nailed up to quarantine individuals who caught the plague, and roads were guarded so people couldn’t travel (Doc 5). Von Staden’s depiction of a ruthless response, which caused people to die of hunger or be buried in their own homes, indicates that some Europeans recognized how the plague spread by natural causes. Knowing that the plague spread from person to person, the political leaders and health officials in some areas attempted to halt its spread through quarantine. This response is also expressed by Sicilian physician Giovan Filippo in 1576 through his motto: gold, fire, the gallows (Doc 6). The physician’s motto accounted for the expense of quarantining, the burning of infected things were destroyed, and the punishment for violating health regulations. It is not surprising that a physician would be concerned in preventing the spread of the plague, as he would feel the responsible for the public’s health. The physician’s pragmatic approach to quarantining the plague reflects the fact that some Europeans had at least rudimentary understanding of how the plague spread and took decisive actions to prevent it.
Other Europeans were not motivated by fear of God or public goodwill and instead reacted to the Black Death with acts of self-interest. Context about how the conditions of the Plague were seen by some as an opportunity to get ahead. Nicolas Versoris, author of the Book of Reason (1523) describes how the rich fled the cities when the plague struck, so that the poor and working class citizens bore the brunt of the death toll. (Doc 3) Most of those who died were poor, which meant that much of the middle class was killed off. Versoris writes about how the upper class largely fled to highlight the inequities between the rich and the working class. By pointing out how the plague predominantly affected the lower class and killed off much of the wage-earning population, Versoris implies that the rich who fled were selfish and negligent. Versoris would have sympathized with the working class and indignant at how many upper-class people of the city were able to escape the plague. Certain people were also willing to disregard the lives of others in their attempts to survive or improve their financial situation. In his 1583 book, The Deceptions of Demons, German physician Johann Weyer claims that 40 people smeared the bolts of a town’s gates with an ointment to spread the plague, and those who touched the gates were infected (Doc 4). He also states that the heirs of those who died had paid the people to smear the gates, hoping to receive their inheritances sooner. The physician recorded the story with the intent of exposing how people had reacted to the plague in a self-serving, malicious way. It is not surprising that as a physician, Weir would have been angered by opportunistic acts that jeopardized public health. Stories of such financially-motivated acts of self-interest were not isolated. In his diary, published 1651, Miguel Parets, a Barcelona tanner, claims many nurses made patients die more quickly, so they could collect their fees sooner. (Doc 11) Parets’ diary is intended to document a corrupt practice among nurses to expose how the Plague drove individuals to harm others out of self-interest. Parets, a tanner, would likely have been in the middle to lower class and seen a lack of quality medical care or effective responses to meet the demands of the plague.
The plague had a profound effect on European people. Many fled cities and shut themselves off from the world. Some believed they were facing God’s punishment and responded with prayer or fanatic atonement for their sins. In contrast, there were Europeans developed more pragmatic responses that reflected a humanist outlook. Some took the upheaval the plague caused as an opportunity to better their personal prospects. No matter what Europeans’ responses were, the plague spread and wiped out millions indiscriminately in more than one wave. The first Black Death, however, had the greatest impact, killing of large numbers of the working class and clergy and permanently altering Europe socially and economically.