Analyse the various ways in which people coped during and in the years following the Black Death.
Introduction — 100 words
Background
Thesis statement (clearly responds to question) main issue why do we care
Main points
The rampant devastation experienced by the European population during the Black Death assumed apocalyptic proportions. The Black Death was formerly known as the horrific plague epidemic that indiscriminately wiped out 60% of the European population in the 14th century. The ways in which people of that time responded to and dealt with such an unforeseen and terrifying arrival offers an open dissection into the human psyche when met with catastrophic events. People turned upon each other, The European population responded with widespread fear and confusion, which in some cases led to a disconcerting transformation of religious practices. There was also a clear psychological change which was illustrated in the shift into a more macabre form of art and dark humour. Furthermore, medical advancements and improved infrastructure followed suit to tackle and contain the spread of the disease. Different people would have had developed their own methods in order to survive such a crippling period of time. These coping mechanisms are all contrasting and drastic with some entirely exposing the vileness of human nature. In order to examine extreme reactions from the population, one must first understand the earth shaking impact of the Black death. Psychological trauma and emotional stress induced
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In the face of the trauma of the Black Death, members of medieval European society reacted in two general ways. They either engaged in extreme religiosity or in mad revelry. The first coping mechanism—that of extreme religiosity—involved things like partaking of confession, dedicating one’s life to prayer, and even public flogging (including self-torture) in repentance for one’s sins. Ironically enough, the processions of flogging that occurred in heavily populated streets did the opposite of prevent the plague—they were the perfect environments for disease transmission.
The second general coping mechanism was mad revelry, this involved engaging in acts of intense, bodily passion and sensual desire. “Each person lived according to his own caprice, and everyone tended to seek pleasure in eating and drinking, hunting, catching birds, and gaming.” This approach of engaging in the joie de vie or ‘joy of life,’ of carousing and indulging one’s whole being in the pleasurable offerings of life came out of the realization that no one was safe from the plague and that life is fleeting.
Levenstein sums up the pervasive sense of human helplessness with respect to containing the disease through the lens of the case study of Boccaccio’s Florence:
The plague Boccaccio describes in the introduction to Decameron [could not] be
controlled by any human act. Municipal ordinances regulating the transport of refuse
from the city and limiting the movements of the afflicted [did] not prevent the spread of
the disease; devout prayer [brought] no improvement to the suffering city. The responses
of the Florentines to the threat of the epidemic– inducing seclusion, flight, herbal
remedies, and continual carousing, neither guarantee[d] health nor accelerate[d] illness:
regardless of their behavior, all Florentines [and all those in infected areas of Europe]
[we]re equally susceptible to the disease.”
observations of the manifestations of the plague in Florence:The Sienese Agnolo di Tura del Grasso writes in his Cronaca Senese, “the victims died almost immediately. They would swell beneath their armpits and in their groins and fall over dead while talking.”would like to highlight how the combination of primary source material and fictional narrative bring the mere factual record of plague symptoms to life. Indeed, this approach of unorthodox source integration sheds light on the psychological impact and experience of the Black Death in a way that neither type of source could ever achieve alone.
The plague created a breeding ground for tensions to escalate and violence to ensue.Because medical science of the time failed to answer so many questions, individuals within society formulated reasoning of their own—all of which were wrong and counterproductive.
During the course of the Black Death, the European population was struck with force and everyone suffered tremendously. the extent of the force triggered paranoia in everybody. They had no means to seek answers to why this was happening, making them confused and fearful. This confusion gradually mutated into religious extremities as a resort to comforting themselves or dealing with it effectively. odd mixture of religious reactions. On the other hand, peasants believed it was the wrath of god sending the plague down as punishmentAs a result, some attempted to fight the plague with intensive prayer and pious living. Others rejected prayer altogether and obeyed the maxim "Eat, drink and be marry, for tomorrow you may die", indulging in excessive eating, drinking and adulterous activities. And some still resorted to " extreme asceticism to cleanse themselves of sin and gain god's forgiveness", which entailed undergoing torture and horrific beatings in order to be granted penitence.
doubted the role of the church
elicited the most inhumane behaviour ever Erfurt massacre 1349
religiously justified, made up for
confusion led them to lose faith and point at the shortcomings and responsibilities of others specific groups were made scapegoats
abandoned family
cope by believing in something, blind faith, giving it a reason, your own reason to psychologically explain the event to yourself massacres of Jews comforted themselves by pinning the blame onto certain groups of minorities had to find a reason bad things, locked infected in a room instead of treating them religious upheaval enjoyment of life, appreciated life more standard of living increased and people became more attached to the pleasures of life struggled with the failure of their religion, church couldn't stop the plague.
The pandemic ended up killing approximately half of Europe’s population, indiscriminate of people’s wealth, social standing, or religious piety. Survivors “were like persons distraught and almost without feeling,” writes Agnolo, a despair echoed throughout Europe. “God is deaf nowadays and will not hear us. And for our guilt he grinds good men to dust,” wrote the late 14th century English cleric, William Langland, in his epic poem “Piers Plowman.”With so many dead and dying, patterns that had kept medieval society stable were replaced by hostility, confusion, greed, remorse, abuse—and, at times, genuine caring. Contemporary chronicles tell of eruptions of violence, “Christians massacred Jews in Germany and other parts of the world where Jews lived, and many thousands were burned everywhere, indiscriminately,” wrote Jean de Venette, describing a ritualized attacks against Jews who became scapegoats.Some Christians became more pious, believing that their piety might endear them to a God who they believed had sent the plague to punish them for their sins. Texts from this time describe Penitent pilgrims, at times flagellating themselves with whips, crowding the roads. Others reacted by assuming a no-holds-barred attitude toward life, giving “themselves over to pleasures: monks, priests, nuns and lay men and women all enjoyed themselves….Everyone thought themselves rich because he had escaped and regained the world,” according to Agnolo.
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Unsurprisingly, an event of such horror and size deeply entered the public consciousness, and so its art. The Black Death was life. It was a daily concern. Death became an even more integral part of their art. Death was supreme.
Below are some of the paintings undertaken at the time of the plague or within a century or so, and still draped in its dark veil. Although not all of the following works directly depict the plague, and were painted sometime afterwards, the grim reaper is never too far from the painter’s brush. They are as bleak as they are beautifulWhile the story of the plague is well known, the artistic record from across medieval Europe offers a broad picture of various ways in which people coped with death, reflecting not only a keen awareness of its presence in daily life (17.190.306), but also of Christian belief in the afterlife and the desire to honor and memorialize the dead.formed a new relationship with deathThat is to say, the papal bull, in combination with the familiarity with mortality in which the Black Death resulted essentially paved the way for the production of art that was explorative and interpretive of the corpse and of death, in general.The Black Death powerfully reinforced realism in art. The fear of hell became horribly real and the promise of heaven seemed remote.The trauma of the Black Death gave rise to the most popular artistic channel for the representation of death, the Dance of Death.
The second pandemic of plague during the mid 14th century significantly affected European culture, the idea of death, and religion. During this time, many artistic representations captured moments of terrible misfortune, sarcasm, and—sometimes—hope.
‘Plague Art’ is the term used to describe art during and especially after the period of the Black Death. There are many facets of the art, some are gruesome while others depict the psychosocial responses of people to the plague and yet others have deep religious symbolism, which points to hope. In terms of imagery one of the most common in Plague Art is the arrow, which is the symbol for divine punishment. The mid-fourteenth century fresco, The Black Death, is a depiction of just such imagery. It features a divine and imposing figure in the center holding bundles of arrows in each hand. The group of people surrounding her is visibly comprised of members of different social classes and the arrow of divine punishment afflicts all of them; no one is spared. It is interesting to note that many of the arrow wound sites are the very sites where the buboes of the plague were known to appear—primarily, in the under the arm region.Depictions of this overwhelming morbidity, this intimate interaction and relationship with death, even infiltrated religious institutions, themselves. Through the 15th century, the image of La Danse Macabre was very common. AThe primary message conveyed through these works of art, which represent the psychology of the period is that death strikes everyone; no one is exempt. In so doing, these works reflect a change in the medieval European psyche. That change, of course, is the shift of focus to the deathly and to an intimate and interactive relationship with death and morbidity. Again, it is important to note that this mental focus on and conception of death with the Black Death ushered in spilled over into generation subsequent to that which eye-witnessed the plague. The fact that the Heidelberg Dance of Death was produced in 1485—more than a century after the Black Death—is enough to substantiate this paper’s claim that the most resounding and long-lasting effect of the event was to do with the mentality and psychology of death.
The term Memento mori, which translates as “Remember your mortality” or as “Remember you will die,” refers to this genre of artwork that serves to remind people of their irrevocable relationship and tie to death. At this point in this paper’s analysis of medieval European society’s post-plague relationship with death, it is almost as though the term demands to be capitalized—which will be done from here on out. Death was not some distant, untouchable possibility, but rather a proximal, tangible, and person or figure with whom the entirety of medieval European society was now intimately, albeit reluctantly, acquainted.
In 14th century Europe, artistic and literary expression took on a dark humour and tone in order to cope with the tragedy. The black death was life.After the Black Death, art around the world, and in Siena, was affected in ways that related to the state of the people, and the state of the artists. Doubting a loving God, the art began to contain images of an angry, or at least indifferent, deity that was punishing people for the sins of humanity (Pollefey, 1998). Also, without a doubt, artistic ingenuity was stunted in that many practicing artists and craftsmen did not survive (Bowsky, 1964). Commissions would have been harder to come by as the depression caused by the plague left the rich with less money to use after the epidemic. Entertainment and expression were minimized by the need for survival. Like Siena, Sienese art lost out in relevance and prestige to well renowned art in Florence. Alternate interpretations of the implications of Plague on the city have been put forth. black death had immediate and devastating effects on painters effect on Sienese painter Bartolo di One of his best-known works, The Adoration of the Magi, with its depiction of Siena itself in the background, was also commissioned for the Duomo (Fig 1). Fredisecond wave of the Black Death, which had returned in 1362-63, produced a crisis in thinking about mortality that in fact led to an increase in demand for sacred art as a vehicle for self-memorialisation. This probably ensured more security for painters, including BartoloIn his influential book Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, Millard Meiss argued that painting in the third quarter of the 14th century demonstrated a clear break with the art of the previous 50 years. This break, he said, was characterised by painting that reflected a renewed religious conservatism which stressed hierarchical, spiritual, supernatural and judgmental representationsFinally, Meiss argued, post-1348 art embodied a gloomy pessimism, tension and fear, including an increased obsession with death.
In response to the prevalence of death and suffering and death being such an integral part of their life, people developed a sense of psychological morbidity which showed through Macabre art and dark humour, paving the way for cultural change and shaping artistic transformation. Nobody escaped the wrath of the plague — people of all ages, conditions, social classes suffered and everyone who survived witnessed that suffering. The people finding outlets of expression for death and personifying it in its most dramatic form allowed them to better come to terms with the rifeness of it all and attempt to capture and grasps the situation in which they are in. For instance, the
Italian Boccaccio set his Decameron in the plague year, 1348 (Keys 35). This collection of vulgar tales was a predecessor to Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Boccacio and Chaucer both mocked the hopelessness of those who have nothing else to lose. The art of the period also showed the bleakness of the situation. Drawings were morose, full of death and destruction.The arrival of plague harkened in a new darker era of painting. Paintings were overflowing with tortured souls, death, dying, fire and brimstone. Thousands of painters, craftsmen, patrons of the arts perished during the mid 14th century. The heart of the cultural world was torn open. The horrors of the black death pervaded all aspects of Medieval culture and especially art. The effects were lasting, bringing a somber darkness to visual art, literature, and music. The dreadful trauma of this era instigated the imaginations of writers and painters in worrying and unsettling ways for decades to follow. The insecurity of daily survival created a atmosphere of gloom and doom influencing artist to move away from optimistic themes and turn to images of Hell, Satan and the Grim Reaper. Many painters simply gave up art believing that it was hopeless to try and create beauty in a hellish world.
Dance Macabre expressed the idea of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life The outbreak of the plague served as an inspiration to the Decameron — a collection of stories told by a group of people escaping the plague
frescoes and murals dealing with deathHost Jackie Wolf talks with Dr. Christopher Macklin, Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has been studying the use of music and medicine in the Middle Ages, and more specifically the Black Death. From 1346-1352, the disease killed approximately 1-in-3 adults in Western Europe. Dr. Macklin is interested in how music was employed in response to the Black Death and how plagues and art relate on an emotional and social level.Dr. Macklin cites a specific composition, “O sancte Sebastiane”, by Guillaume Dufay, as being particularly important for those coping with the Black Plague in the 14th century. This piece, citing the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, is a telling story of the mythology and symbolic historical representation of the Black Plague.This motet was composed in honor of the martyr Saint Sebastian, whose feast-day is January 20. It's believed to have been composed during an epidemic of the plague in Ferrara, to obtain the Saint's blessing for the town. All three of the texts are prayers directed to the listening ear of Sebastian, who was the protector against the plague. In legend he was a converted Roman soldier, and later captain, who was murdered sometime around the end of the fourth century for trying to help Christians and for converting Romans to the new religion.Only knowledge of the context for which the piece was composed betrays its intent; the beautifully crisp lines have none of the somber weight of desperation one might expect from a piece composed under such gloomy circumstances. The exordium (introduction) is a sweet, chanson-like canon between the two top voices. When the isorhythmic tenor enters, accompanied by a line mostly in perfect counterpoint, the top lines further lighten, as they will continue to. Their melodic material throughout is intervallically very similar to the canon, creating a strong, luscious continuity.Statements of the talea alternate between accompanied and non-accompanied, creating pleasant contrast of textures, while full triadic harmonies make it very accessible to the modern ear. There's something to be said for the sound of medieval melody cloaked in triadic harmony that Dufay achieves. The harmonies help a great deal in winning us over to the rhetoric of a basically medieval musical syntax that would otherwise seem much more remote.During the final section, spanning the last minute of the piece, the top lines engage in virtuosic loveplay that vacillates between imitation and free elaboration. From the very start of the work, their music has been gradually growing more animated, without losing its lyrical grace and softness. But at the very conclusion it bursts into a flurry of tiny notes, all a melisma on "amen," full of little vocal scoops (up a whole tone) and dips. These seem the swerving of drunken wings, or the lilt and twist of a passionate dance. Where exactly is the gloom of pestilence in all this charming music?
However some sources gave light to the issue that the black death occured almost everywhere in Europe and the macabre existed before the disaster
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confronted the horrorsremember what remedies the contemps [sic] had tried… They had carried nosegays of flowers and drunk powdered emeralds and applied leeches to the buboes, but all of those were worse than useless.” Indeed, the most common methods of treatment were herb lore—infusions of leaves and seeds, poultices—and bloodletting by means of cutting or leeches (in accordance with the then-prevalent, but useless medical theory of the four humors).Without the modern medical knowledge, without the discovery and availability of antibiotics, the plague was effectively untreatable. As it became exceedingly clear that treatment of the plague was practically impossible, extreme measures were adopted in an attempt to prevent the spread of infection. Among these measures were corpse burning, quarantining, abandonment of the sick, and flight. For example, it was common practice to gather and pack corpses, as well as living, infected bodies into houses and burning them to the ground.Many have associated the rhyme “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” (also known as “Ring Around the Rosies”) with the Great Plague and understand it as a description of the symptoms of, dealings with, and result of the pestilence. The English rhyme goes as follows:
Ring-a-ring-a-roses,
A pocket full of posies;
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.
Quarantine, abandonment, and flight were three other major methods employed in the attempt at prevention of disease spread.Boccaccio writes in The Decameron, the only help for sickened people was the aid of friends or servants who were few and far between. He writes: “what is…almost incredible, parents avoided visiting or nursing their very children, as though these were not their own flesh.” Guy de Chauliac, personal physician to Pope Clement VI (1342-1352), also reports on this phenomenon: “A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. Charity was dead.”
doctors did not understand how the disease was transmitted
altered medieval europe social structureThe Black Plague also resulted in severe depopulation and some immediate economic decline. However, with the extreme loss of life there was an overabundance of goods, a decrease in their price, a surplus of jobs and consequently a rise in wages. The standard of living actually increased. Also the need for paid workers resulted in movement away from feudalism and the development of a working class. All of these events paved the way for the coming Renaissance.
turned it into opportunities peasant revolts (lost militarily but gained legal change) john ball as quoted in Jean Froissart chronicles radical message wanted to be equal The late Roman Empire led big farms to convert themselves into self-sufficient estates, due to a trade crisis and labor shortage.Tenant farmer status became hereditary, as the result of changes in Roman labor law that tried to freeze existing social structures in place.As the Western Roman Empire collapsed, landholders gradually transitioned from outright slavery to serfdom, a system in which unfree laborers were tied to the land active response means of tackling and controlling it toll in numbers, changed economic systems and housing and improved medical practices. along with the plague came the need for a cure, replaced former medical systems this tragic period was actually a stepping stone milestone in modern medicine
Conclusion — 100 words
main issue why do we care
acknowledge opposing arguments
restate importance of own opinion
recommend future action Restates thesis and summarises reasoning
The Black Death triggered a multitude of responses from the people which in turn made conditions favourable for economic change, medical advancements, decline of Feudalism, emergence of the Renaissance and the end of the Middle Ages
Important to study this reactions as they represent the significance of the Black death as a turning point or watershed in the history of the middle ages. medieval to modern day Europe. irrevocable damage extant artworksreveals about human dealings with the terror of history, this paper points to a sense of learned human helplessness against nature
Appendix Figure 1:
Bibliography
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