La prossima evoluzione per gli Amacavillagi
Uno studio sul significato e la rilevanza degli Amacavillagi nell’urgenza di oggi
In questo saggio spero di trasmettere i miei pensieri sull’impatto rivoluzionario positivo del movimento Amacavillagio finora, la mia rispettosa critica di alcuni dei suoi limiti e perché credo che ora sia il momento per il movimento e i suoi aderenti di spostare l’attenzione. Mentre molte delle mie prospettive e conclusioni si basano sulle mie osservazioni, questo articolo accademico e studio del 2017 intitolato The Meaning and Relevance of Ecovillages for the Construction of Sustainable Societal Models conferma la necessità di una nuova direzione, se siamo seriamente intenzionati a creare un nuovo mondo che funzioni per tutti, e molto presto.
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Se avessi un dollaro da ogni persona che incontro in questi giorni che vuole scappare e unirsi o costruire un Amacavillagio sarei un uomo ricco. Ma qui sta il problema… e la possibilità. Con un cambiamento collettivo nella nostra attenzione potremmo essere tutti ricchi e sostenibili oltre misura, prima di quanto si possa pensare. Permettetemi di spiegare.
Amacavillagio di Sólheimar — Islanda
L’importanza evolutiva degli Amacavillagi
Il movimento degli Amacavillagi è stato abbastanza evolutivamente appropriato e potente, contribuendo a portarci a ciò che è necessario dopo. Non posso dirlo meglio io stesso, quindi evidenzierò qui alcuni dei risultati del movimento degli Amacavillagi come affermato nello studio:
“iniziative di Amacavillagio… si sono propagati diffondendo idee e pratiche alternative in tutta la società
promuovono azioni concrete nella costruzione di alternative sociali
Sono sempre più legati ad altri movimenti e istituzioni sociali, funzionando come nodi chiave nelle reti orientate alla sostenibilità.
gli Amacavillagi contribuiscono in modo significativo agli sforzi per ripensare la sostenibilità
sono diventati particolarmente visibili dalla loro articolazione come movimento sociale nel 1995 con la creazione del Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)
cause comuni come la “ri-localizzazione economica”, la riduzione della povertà, la giustizia globale, il rispetto della diversità culturale e spirituale e l’evoluzione di una cultura post-consumista
la maggior parte degli Amacavillagi ha un obiettivo esplicito di sensibilizzazione finalizzata allo scambio di esperienze con il mondo
fungere da “modelli”, “esempi”, “laboratori di sostenibilità” o “siti dimostrativi”
sovvertire la logica capitalista dell’infinita crescita economica e del profitto sopra ogni altra cosa, in associazione con una visione del mondo fondata sulla soddisfazione dei reali bisogni umani.
Questa è tutta una buona notizia in un mondo con così tanti problemi, e il crescente interesse per gli Amacavillagi sembra avere perfettamente senso. Sarebbe così bello se potessimo tutti andare a unirci a una comunità di persone che vogliono vivere in relazioni felici, sane e sostenibili con persone che la pensa allo stesso modo. Forse abbiamo solo bisogno di “essere il cambiamento” che desideriamo vedere nel mondo, e andare a farlo, andare a costruirlo, sporcarsi le mani nel terreno e far crescere il nuovo mondo. Lo capisco e risuona con esso.
Trascurare quel po ‘nel mezzo tra qua e là
Ma mi chiedo se siamo, come dice sempre il fondatore del World Summit Tonny Kregel, “dimenticando quel po’ nel mezzo”. Nel nostro lavoro con il Vertice Mondiale, Tonny si riferisce all’area di interesse tra il nostro attuale sistema socio-economico imperfetto e il mondo più bello che conosciamo nei nostri cuori è possibile. Ma se trascuriamo quel po ‘ nel mezzo, allora potrebbero volerci decenni o secoli per arrivarci, se ci arriviamo affatto. Il fatto è che non abbiamo decenni; tutti i segnali indicano la necessità di un cambiamento radicale ora, o almeno tra un paio d’anni. Mentre rispetto e ammiro pienamente le intenzioni, la teoria, la passione, la compassione e il senso di azione “smettiamola di parlare e iniziamo a costruire” dei molti appassionati di Amacavillagio, ho alcune preoccupazioni che potremmo davvero mettere il carro davanti ai buoi. Questo piccolo nel mezzo è l’urgente necessità di spostare la nostra attenzione da tutti i progetti, gruppi e movimenti disparati e disconnessi, e invece di unificarci attorno al progetto più importante di tutti, uno che influenzerà positivamente tutti ovunque – il progetto di capovolgere il paradigma oltre i nostri governi falliti e il sistema economico molto presto.
Tenendo presente quel po ‘nel mezzo, diamo un’occhiata ad alcuni dei problemi con gli Amacavillagi che lo studio ha trovato e ad altri problemi che lo studio non affronta.
Possiamo mai avere comunità sostenibili incorporate in un sistema globale di capitalismo?
L’articolo afferma: “Altre strade sono necessarie per pensare – e praticare – la sostenibilità in una forma più olistica, il che porta a mettere in discussione i principi fondanti della società capitalista”. Sono d’accordo. In un saggio che ho scritto sulla permacultura (la pratica che molti Amacavillagi abbracciano) intitolato Piantare i semi di un nuovo paradigma – Cultura permanente globale (permacultura),ho sostenuto che dobbiamo prendere la prospettiva del “più intero di interi sistemi” e vedere che non possiamo avere una cultura umana sostenibile incorporata in un ecosistema insostenibile. Eppure il fatto è che gli Amacavillagi stanno cercando di prosperare, per non parlare di sopravvivere, in una battaglia in salita contro le forze dominanti del capitalismo globale.
E anche se il movimento dell’Amacavillagio cerca di lavorare all’interno dei sistemi esistenti ai più alti livelli governativi, è ancora problematico finché tali sistemi sono insostenibili. Ad esempio, uno degli obiettivi di sviluppo del millennio delle Nazioni Unite è quello di creare una crescita economica continua … questo è un problema su un pianeta di risorse limitate. Vuole anche creare più posti di lavoro, eppure stiamo entrando in un paradigma post-lavoro, post-lavoro-per-reddito. Come afferma lo studio,
“… [un movimento Amacavillagio] la partnership con l’ONU ha i suoi limiti, considerando che l’entità internazionale segue una logica che non cerca la trasformazione strutturale della società (come l’ordine economico o politico-istituzionale)”.
Quindi, prendendo la prospettiva più completa di un intero sistema, dobbiamo affrontare il nostro intero sistema socio-economico perpetuo basato sulla crescita, che include i nostri politici che non possono mai sfidare il paradigma della crescita o non verrebbero mai eletti.
Per il bene del tutto – Un obbligo morale
Quindi costruiamo ora sulla prospettiva di tutti i nostri sistemi fino al più grande insieme. Il movimento del Vertice Mondiale con cui sono coinvolto sta sviluppando alcuni potenti principi e criteri fondamentali che pensiamo contribuiranno a formare la base di una nuova cultura del dono pacifica, sostenibile, fiorente e autogovernata. Tra questi c’è una nozione – che ha anche un significato spirituale se prendiamo in considerazione il “voto del Bodhisattva” del Buddismo – che dovremmo agire”per il bene del tutto”,per la liberazione di TUTTI gli esseri senzienti. (E forse dovremmo includere i nostri amici batteri, funghi, protozoi e virus mentre impariamo di più sui micro-biomi.) Riconosciamo che siamo una tribù umana, solo una specie incorporata in una rete interdipendente di vita su questo pianeta. Qualsiasi azione che non sia all’altezza di questo riconoscimento del tutto ha il potenziale di esternare il danno ad altre persone, specialmente agli emarginati, e a tutte le altre creature e forme di vita. Martin Luther King, Jr. lo riconobbe quando disse:
“L’ingiustizia ovunque è una minaccia per la giustizia ovunque. Siamo intrappolati in una rete ineludibile di mutualità, legati in un unico abito del destino. Qualunque cosa colpisca direttamente, colpisce tutti indirettamente”.
Quindi questo significa, per lo meno, che dobbiamo iniziare a basare le nostre decisioni su ciò che è la maggior parte della vita che afferma per il maggior numero di persone e vita senziente. Tutto ciò che non sia questo non è solo miope, ma irresponsabile e immorale.
Villaggi di Privilegio
Mentre i singoli Amacavillagi stessi possono essere basati su pratiche sostenibili, non possiamo ignorare i problemi più grandi che affliggono il resto dell’umanità dalla posizione un po ‘privilegiata in cui si trovano gli Amacavillagi. Il fatto è che ci sono miliardi di persone che non possono permettersi o non possono sradicare logisticamente le loro famiglie e trasferirsi in un Amacavillagio. Dobbiamo affrontare i fatti di ciò che sta realmente accadendo all’interno del movimento degli Amacavillagi, come lo studio ha rilevato:
“nonostante l’interesse spesso espresso per la diversità, [gli Amacavillagi] hanno un profilo omogeneo che è principalmente di classe media o medio-alta, etnicamente “bianca”, con livelli di istruzione superiore.
Uno dei grandi ostacoli alla diversità socioeconomica negli Amacavillagi è il costo della vita. Ad esempio, in EVI alcuni membri del gruppo originale hanno avanzato l’obiettivo di offrire alloggi a basso costo, ma questo è stato abbandonato.
… gli Amacavillagi possono creare nuovi spazi di esclusione e ingiustizia e perpetuare divisioni di classe ed etniche.
Immersi nel capitalismo, gli Amacavillagi tendono naturalmente a riprodurre tali modelli. Ad esempio, molti dimostrano una struttura sociale di proprietari e affittuari”.
… alcune inevitabili tensioni persistono tra Auroville e i villaggi [poveri] circostanti a causa dell’ampia disparità socioeconomica, che si riflette nelle politiche abitative, nella divisione del lavoro e nelle relazioni razziali e di genere.
Se vogliamo riconoscere e garantire i diritti umani per tutti, allora non ci dovrebbero essere esclusioni e nessuno dovrebbe essere lasciato indietro. Dobbiamo lavorare su soluzioni per il bene di tutta l’umanità.
Non c’è modo di sfuggire ai nostri sistemi, solo di trascenderli
Mentre lo studio fa luce su questi problemi di “responsabilità morale” con gli Amacavillagi, supponendo che scegliamo di accettare la prospettiva “per il bene del tutto”, ci sono anche alcuni problemi di efficacia molto reali. Lo studio afferma:
“Gli Amacavillagi affrontano una serie di difficoltà nel raggiungere la sostenibilità (sia internamente che nel loro tentativo di influenzare la società). Alcune sfide emergono all’interno del processo di legittimazione del movimento. Ad esempio, La democrazia inclusiva – una teoria e un progetto politico emersi attraverso il lavoro del filosofo e attivista Takis Fotopoulos – presenta alcune importanti critiche agli Amacavillagi, associandoli a forme di utopismo, apolitismo, evasione / isolazionismo, elitarismo o persino individualismo associato all’evasione, che mette in discussione il loro status di movimento sociale e la validità come fonte di trasformazione sociale.
La mia convinzione è che nessuno abbia mai intenzione che ciò accada – diventare privilegiato, o elitario, o eccessivamente individualista, o evasivo – ma finisce per essere l’effetto netto. Quindi non c’è nessuno da incolpare; è un problema di sistema, soprattutto quando si cerca di creare Amacavillagi sostenibili che sono incorporati in un sistema socioeconomico che non è sostenibile.
Posizione, Posizione, Posizione
Ed ecco come la posizione geografica può influenzare negativamente l’efficacia dell’Amacavillagio e può aumentare un senso di isolamento che allontana le persone dall’impegnarsi con il mondo e le sue sfide:
“Molti vedono la posizione geografica rurale come un fattore che genera isolamento. La maggior parte degli Amacavillagi sono stabiliti nelle aree rurali a causa delle ridotte barriere economiche e legali … le comunità geograficamente isolate potrebbero avere un potenziale e una portata limitati in termini di impatto sociale”.
Gli Amacavillagi possono sviluppare un certo “isolamento” dalla società in virtù di una perdita di slancio iniziale. Ad esempio, a Toustrup Mark (Danimarca) il coinvolgimento nella politica, nel movimento ambientalista e nelle attività culturali si è gradualmente indebolito man mano che l’intensità della vita comunitaria diminuiva. In EVI, nel tempo, c’è stato anche un calo osservabile della partecipazione sociale alle riunioni e al processo decisionale… C’è una tendenza all’entusiasmo e all’energia iniziale dei movimenti a perdere forza nel tempo… Pertanto, è importante evitare … romanticizzare: non tutti i membri dell’Amacavillagio sono altamente idealisti o attivamente impegnati
“Molte comunità intenzionali orientate alla sostenibilità (non necessariamente Amacavillagi) si “ritirano” in luoghi remoti alla ricerca di un “idillio rurale” come forma di rifiuto di partecipare alla società”.
Penso che dobbiamo lavorare per riportare il senso perduto di comunità e partecipazione sociale ovunque … nelle nostre comunità esistenti.
Partecipazione al mercato (Eco Gentrification) – La realtà è che non possiamo sfuggire o ritirarci completamente dal nostro sistema economico anche se volessimo, anche se non fosse moralmente ingiusto farlo, perché è così onnipresente. Il nostro sistema di scambio del mercato monetario è integrato nel tessuto della vita ovunque su questo pianeta e richiede ingiustamente la nostra partecipazione ad esso. In quanto tali, i problemi inerenti alle economie di mercato – scarsità, concorrenza, disuguaglianza, confini e restrizioni artificiali, limitazioni intrinseche di qualità dovute ai costi, controllo governativo, ecc. – sono gli stessi problemi che ci impediscono di costruire Amacavillagi della massima qualità possibile in grado di scalare fino all’accessibilità a tutti, anche nelle aree urbane dove sono più necessari. A causa dei vincoli di costo, molti Amacavillagi sono a bassa tecnologia, sono a corto di risorse e denaro scarsi (che possono influire negativamente anche sulle migliori relazioni), non possono scalare e lottano per sopravvivere semplicemente, il che fa sì che molti Amacavillagi soddisfino sempre di più i turisti facoltosi. La triste realtà è che tutti gli aspiranti progetti di Amacavillagio sono in competizione l’uno contro l’altro per lo stesso finanziamento di avviamento di avvio, impedendo a molti di loro di realizzarsi. Quindi, nonostante l’interesse apparentemente aumentato per creare Amacavillagi, il fatto è che NON stanno crescendo di numero, proprio a causa del nostro sistema economico monetario. Lo studio rivela:
“Contrariamente a quanto originariamente previsto dal movimento, non c’è stato alcun aumento significativo nella costruzione di nuovi Amacavillagi. In realtà, questo sta diventando ancora più difficile … a causa degli alti prezzi dei terreni e dei regolamenti governativi di zonizzazione e costruzione. Quando possibile, la creazione di nuovi Amacavillagi avviene in scenari molto specifici e ristretti: come abbiamo visto, generalmente è necessario che ci sia un notevole investimento finanziario e la maggior parte sono stabilite in aree rurali (mentre le aree urbane ospitano più della metà della popolazione globale e continueranno a crescere). Così, l’idea degli Amacavillagi come “modelli replicabili” che era importante per il movimento è diventata anacronistica.
Man mano che le finanze diventano più difficili man mano che entriamo nel capitalismo in fase avanzata, le cose diventano ancora più difficili per il movimento degli Amacavillagi. Per passare davvero a un paradigma globale sostenibile, e farlo con l’urgenza che è richiesta, dobbiamo trascendere gli attuali sistemi che ci limitano e soffocano le intenzioni originali del movimento Amacavillagio. Come suggerisce lo studio, dobbiamo iniziare, “mettere in discussione i principi fondanti della società capitalista” e realizzare la “trasformazione strutturale dell’ordine economico [e] politico-istituzionale”. In breve, abbiamo bisogno di un movimento rivoluzionario per trascendere i nostri sistemi, e dobbiamo evitare continui tentativi falliti di riformare i sistemi lavorando al loro interno. (Nota: il Vertice Mondiale sostiene solo la rivoluzione pacifica.)
Permesso dello Stato – Se le nostre élite politiche in qualsiasi governo ovunque pensassero davvero che gli Amacavillagi fossero una minaccia allo status quo del loro potere, pensi davvero che permetterebbero loro di esistere? Sembra esserci una relazione tenue tra i governi e alcuni Amacavillagi, specialmente se stanno facendo qualcosa al di fuori del mainstream. Ho visitato personalmente l’Amacavillagio di Tamera in Portogallo e ho appreso che hanno avuto ampi negoziati con il governo locale. Mentre mi è stato detto che i rapporti con le autorità erano per lo più positivi, alla fine il governo ha imposto restrizioni alla crescita a Tamera regolando quante strutture permanenti possono costruire sulla terra. Quindi quanta libertà ha davvero Tamera? Quanto è scalabile il loro modello?
Oltre ai significativi ostacoli economici alla creazione di nuovi Amacavillagi, lo studio discute anche le difficoltà governative coinvolte.
“prima della loro installazione, [gli Amacavillagi] dovevano passare attraverso ampi negoziati con le autorità locali per soddisfare i requisiti comunali”.
Quindi, alla fine della giornata, gli Amacavillagi sono ancora sotto il controllo dei governi e hanno ancora bisogno del permesso delle “autorità”. In molti luoghi, ordinanze indebitamente severe e restrizioni di zonizzazione scoraggiano stili di vita off-grid o sperimentali. E in un momento di grande urgenza in cui è richiesta una posizione più rivoluzionaria, ciò che sembra aver preso il suo posto è una posizione più sottomessa, o ingannevole, con i governi, come suggerisce lo studio,
“In precedenza gli Amacavillagi tendevano a localizzarsi “fuori” o “in opposizione” al mainstream, cercando di raggiungere la massima autosufficienza possibile; ma, oggi sono sempre più coinvolti in alleanze con… istituzioni.”
Se i governi e l’industria avessero la capacità di influenzare radicalmente la portata e la portata del cambiamento positivo di cui abbiamo bisogno, sarei favorevole alle alleanze con loro. Ma sono convinto che non solo i governi e l’industria NON sono in grado di risolvere i nostri problemi; sono loro il problema. Ecco perché il Vertice Mondiale riguarda l’aggiramento – non la lotta – dei nostri sistemi esistenti per crearne di nuovi.
Città di prova sperimentale proposta — The Venus Project
Uno spostamento dell’attenzione sulla causa principale
Ho scritto un saggio intitolato Squilibrato Spheres of Activism e “The Great Turning” that Needs to Get Turning per affrontare questo cambiamento di focus che è necessario in modo da non trascurare quel “po ‘nel mezzo”. È tempo di affrontare la causa strutturale alla radice dei nostri problemi a cui così tanti Amacavillagi in buona fede vogliono rispondere … il nostro sistema socio-economico obsoleto, che include sia il sistema economico che il nostro sistema politico come due facce della stessa medaglia. Ma ecco i due punti di fondamentale importanza da capire che possono aiutarci a fare il cambiamento mentale:
- È POSSIBILE capovolgere il nostro paradigma
- È possibile capovolgere il paradigma PRESTO, in un anno o due
Quando vediamo questo, come il Vertice mondiale, non solo come una possibilità, ma come una necessità, allora cambia tutto. Cambia dove decidiamo di concentrarci. Cambia dove scegliamo di donare i nostri sforzi, il nostro tempo e il nostro denaro. Forse decidiamo di smettere di competere l’uno contro l’altro nella raccolta di fondi per Amacavillagi o altri progetti che richiederanno anni e decenni, se mai, per essere completati e saranno di qualità inferiore quando saremo tecnicamente in grado di fare molto di più. Forse invece decidiamo di concentrarci sull’unificazione di gruppi e movimenti in tutto il mondo, per il bene superiore di tutta l’umanità, per lo scopo più urgente di capovolgere il paradigma, prima di tutto. Nel mio saggio From Dystopia to a Utopian Reality as Soon as Now descrivo come abbiamo letteralmente a portata di mano la possibilità di passare a un mondo post-capitalista, post-scarsità che non è più roba da fantascienza. E dopo averlo fatto, non saremo più ostacolati da vincoli economici o di risorse. Possiamo utilizzare le migliori risorse disponibili per costruire qualsiasi tipo di Amacavillagio che vogliamo ai più alti standard di qualità, in modo che le cose durino. Questa di per sé è una misura di alta sostenibilità. Sia che tu voglia case a cupola hi-tech moderne e brillanti, o case sugli alberi di ritorno alla natura, o che riadattiamo radicalmente le nostre strutture già splendidamente costruite (sono a Praga, Repubblica Ceca al momento e sono in soggezione per la bellissima architettura anche di condomini di base di cento anni fa). L’energia rinnovabile sarà open source e liberamente disponibile per tutti. Prendi tutti i pannelli solari di cui hai bisogno per il tuo Amacavillagio, gratuitamente … li abbiamo e possiamo farne di più. Useremo i migliori design che ottimizzano la sostenibilità, e non solo andare con container usati per le case perché ne abbiamo così tanti. A meno che non sia quello che vuoi. Mi viene in mente la citazione di Buckminster Fuller,
Se sei in un naufragio e tutte le barche sono sparite, un piano superiore abbastanza galleggiante da tenerti a galla che arriva rende un fortuito salvagente. Ma questo non vuol dire che il modo migliore per progettare un salvagente sia sotto forma di un piano per pianoforte.
(Non preoccuparti, troveremo altri usi per i container di spedizione 🙂
Costruiamo il mondo intero come un unico eco-villaggio globale, uno che lavora per tutti in armonia sostenibile con la terra e tutti gli esseri senzienti. Sembra impossibile? Lascia che te lo dica… sta diventando sempre più possibile ogni giorno. Quando le pressioni bio-psico-sociali diventano abbastanza grandi, ciò che una volta sembrava radicale diventa pratico. Come suggeriscono le notizie quotidiane, ci stiamo avvicinando molto a qualche emergenza radicalmente pratica.
Tamera Healing Biotope — Portogallo
Il paradigma geotribale
Cosa succede dopo il flip? Bene, penso che ritribalizziamo a livello glocale (globale e locale), ma in modo olistico sano; non in un modo che crei separazione. Iniziamo a riconoscere e tenere conto del fatto che non esiste “un modo giusto di vivere”e che non tutte le persone hanno bisogno di vivere come me. Finalmente ci renderemo conto che siamo una geotribù globale che consente la bella diversità di molte diverse tribù di persone che coesistono all’interno del cerchio open source dell’umanità. Le persone possono andare via e trovare la loro tribù unica che è un abbinamento perfetto per il loro cuore, mente e spirito. Ad ogni tribù sarà permesso e incoraggiato a vivere in un modo che funzioni per loro purché non interferisca con le altre tribù che vivono nel modo in cui vogliono. Avremo tribù geek, tribù freak, bruciatori, tecnici, hugger di alberi, scienziati, nuovi agers, esseri di luce, atei, tribù religiose, esseri intergalattici, tribù LGBTQ, tribù di artisti e musicisti, tribù indigene, libertari individualisti, anarco-primitivisti che vogliono indossare perizolite e persino le tribù dei valori tradizionali (che ora hanno un’espressione più sana della loro visione del mondo perché non sono minacciate dall’economia sopravvivenza e politicamente manipolato). Proprio come un fiore non è migliore o peggiore di qualsiasi altro fiore, o non odia o si sente minacciato da nessun altro fiore, semplicemente perché è diverso, iniziamo ad apprezzare la bellezza aggiunta della diversità di ogni fiore, poiché arricchisce l’intero giardino.
Abbiamo già dimostrato che i modi di vivere dell’Amacavillagio possono funzionare e sono sostenibili
Molte persone sembrano pensare che abbiamo bisogno di più prove che i modi sostenibili di vivere funzionano. Quindi abbiamo bisogno di costruire sempre più città sperimentali di prova. Suggerisco che abbiamo già le prove; sappiamo che funzioneranno. Sappiamo che i loro modi sono sostenibili. Il fatto che gli Amacavillagi abbiano fatto bene come hanno fatto, pur essendo incorporati in un sistema duro e insostenibile chiamato capitalismo, parla del loro successo. Vedere quanto bene gli Amacavillagi hanno fatto fino a questo punto nonostante siano in condizioni di scarsità economica e governi difficili, mi aiuta a visualizzare cosa sarà possibile quando toglieremo queste limitazioni artificiali. Utilizzando appieno la nostra conoscenza dell’intero sistema, le nostre comprensioni scientifiche, la nostra tecnologia superiore e la coscienza superiore, sappiamo già che possiamo costruire città incredibili che funzioneranno per tutti. E proprio come nella parabola del cespuglio di rose sappiamo che se prendiamo un cespuglio di rose morente dal terreno cattivo e lo piantiamo in condizioni ottimali del suolo, prospererà davvero. Quindi non abbiamo bisogno di ulteriori test. È tempo di farlo. È tempo di spostare la nostra attenzione e creare un Amacavillagio globale e chiamarlo Terra.
Unità — Puntare le nostre frecce nella stessa direzione
In conclusione, penso che il desiderio di così tante persone di scappare e unirsi o creare Amacavillagi la dice lunga su quanto siano rotti i nostri sistemi attuali. I nostri sistemi sociali non riescono a soddisfare – riferendosi alla gerarchia dei bisogni di Mazlow – non solo i bisogni fisiologici di miliardi di persone in tutto il pianeta, ma anche i nostri bisogni sociali e di sicurezza più elementari. Abbiamo perso gran parte del nostro senso di comunità, la nostra connessione non solo l’uno con l’altro, ma anche con la natura. Forse la cosa più importante è che abbiamo perso il nostro senso del significato. Nel mio saggio sulla rivoluzione del lavoro in cambio di reddito che è necessaria, faccio riferimento all’antropologo David Graeber che sottolinea che così tanti di noi stanno facendo lavori di stronzate senza senso che noi stessi crediamo non contribuiscano nulla alla società. Stiamo trascorrendo troppo della nostra vita facendo il pendolare in lavori che succhiano l’anima in città e cubicoli rumorosi e affollati. Facciamo fatica a sbarcare il lunario e non possiamo goderci abbastanza tempo con i nostri amici e familiari. Non c’è da meravigliarsi che così tanti di noi vogliano solo dire al diavolo con tutto e andarsene. Per parafrasare Graeber, c’è qualcosa di molto sbagliato in ciò in cui ci siamo trasformati, e ora dobbiamo puntare collettivamente le nostre frecce al cuore del nostro problema di civiltà – il nostro intero sistema socio-economico di stronzate – e trascenderlo. Possiamo farlo. Se unifichiamo e puntiamo le nostre frecce nella stessa direzione – verso la bestia stessa – possiamo liberare noi stessi e tutta l’umanità dalla sua ira. E poi sbocceremo.
QUANDO INIZIERA’ LA STAGIONE INFLUENZALE INIZIERA’ IL CAOS”
siamo appena in tempo a capovolgere tutto con aerogel e enterogel che distrugge i nano tubi …di carbonio ..pronti partenza ..si cambia ..
professore Harnel Burkal insime a Ln patologhi tedeschi i risultati definitivi immunoistochimici durano mesi :
infiltrazioni Linfocitarie
i primi morti di luglio 2021 patologo anatomia dott Rayan coll . polmoni reni cervello testicoli cancroa ll utero infezioni virali herpes mononucleosi completa alterata risposta immunitaria esaminano i vaccini spagna hose luisi sevigliano peter shimarker heidelberg .
presentato referti autotopi su 10 pazienti deceduti in stretta correlazione di tempo con il vaccino il 20 settembre 2021: relazioni del convegno :
NEI VACCINATI SONO APPENA STATE SCOPERTE PATOLOGIE MORTALI MAI RISCONTRATE PRIMA.
🔥 NE PARLA LA DOTT.SSA HEIKE MULLER, MOGLIE DI DURNWALDER, VICEPRIMARIO OSPEDALE DI BOLZANO
Fra Alexis Bugnolo: “Chi ti vaccina sa benissimo che questi vaccini ti uccideranno. Conoscono la scienza. Qualsiasi scienziato sa che gli anticorpi di innesco alla fine ti uccideranno. Dobbiamo essere in grado di affrontare la realtà. L’intenzione è quella di sterminare l’umanità.
Da quello che so circa 2 miliardi di persone sono state vaccinate. Secondo il premio Nobel Luc Montagnier, chiunque sia stato vaccinato con un vaccino deteriora il proprio sistema immunitario perché reagisce in modo eccessivo al coronavirus.
Tutte queste persone moriranno tra 2 anni. Tra 2 anni, vedremo 2 miliardi di persone morte sulla terra. Quando penso che l’85% dei miei amici è vaccinato, non molti di noi sopravviveranno.
Come antropologo, ti consiglio di prepararti psicologicamente a questo risultato. Ci sono persone che saranno così scioccate da perdere la testa. Perderanno la loro fede, tutti i loro mezzi…
Com’è possibile che non saremo riusciti ad evitarlo? Quando qualcuno cercherà di saltare da un dirupo, Dio lo fermerà?
Qualsiasi persona intelligente ha avuto abbastanza tempo per esaminare questa bufala sanitaria e vedere che è falsa.
La maggior parte delle persone ha preferito mettere tutto da parte e correre a farsi vaccinare in modo da poter viaggiare o svolgere molte attività liberamente. Improvvisamente, sei un idiota e un codardo. Stai quindi negando la verità. Non puoi ignorare la verità se sei una persona obiettiva. La scienza e tutti questi esperimenti te lo dimostrano.
Quindi la mia conclusione è praticamente certa. Viviamo oggi come nell’estate del 1914 fino a prima dello scoppio della guerra mondiale. Nessuno avrebbe potuto immaginare a quel tempo che nei successivi 3 o 4 anni ci sarebbero stati 20 milioni di morti in Europa a causa della guerra. D’estate, in tempo di pace, c’erano ancora persone che amavano viaggiare per l’Europa. Perché vogliono che tu pensi che tutto vada bene. Perché sanno che non appena ti prenderai il coronavirus, morirai. Ma se non sei stato vaccinato, questo non ti succederà. Tuttavia, se 1/3 delle persone nel mondo morirà entro 1 anno o 2 anni, ci saranno gravi disagi economici, di sicurezza e sociali.
Innanzitutto non ci sono abbastanza ambulanze per trasportare tutti i defunti. Non ci saranno abbastanza direttori di pompe funebri. La maggior parte di loro (caregiver) sono stati vaccinati e moriranno anche loro. Devi prevederlo e consiglio a tutti di acquistare un’uniforme Hazmat perché ci sono buone probabilità che sarai chiamato a spostare i morti nelle tombe. Dovranno scavare enormi fosse comuni. Non ci saranno più abbastanza sacchi della spazzatura. Alcune persone dovranno occuparsene, e potrà causare enormi infezioni, ma come cristiani è nostro dovere. Li aiuterà a pentirsi prima di andarsene in silenzio.
Dobbiamo davvero capire che tra i migliori scienziati del mondo, questo è ciò che dicono stia accadendo. E ora che l’umanità è stata delusa dai cattivi insegnamenti dei globalisti, la pagheranno cara!
E sarà un periodo orribile, vale a dire il periodo più buio di tutta l’umanità. Sarà una delle più grandi catastrofi e la gente non sarà in grado di sopportarla. Restiamo calmi e concentrati. Mettiamo da parte tutte le nostre differenze. Se queste persone iniziano a dire che è colpa nostra, cioè dei non vaccinati, dovremo fuggire… Ci saranno persone che si risentiranno molto e che vorranno attaccarci.
Se vuoi avere un’idea di come sarà, ti esorto a leggere il libro di Barbara Tuchman intitolato “The Black Death”, un libro del 13° secolo. Sono sempre stato interessato a ciò che può accadere nelle società quando scoppiano epidemie su vasta scala.
Le persone che sono state vaccinate non muoiono a causa di un virus che è contagioso. Se non sei stato vaccinato, nessuna malattia ti abbatterà, ma puoi ancora contrarre altre malattie. Il resto morirà per una reazione eccessiva del sistema immunitario. Non è una peste nera, non puoi prenderla, quindi non preoccuparti. Non essere preoccupato. Esistono farmaci per ridurre queste reazioni eccessive, ma si esauriranno molto rapidamente.
Queste persone dovranno prendere questi farmaci per tutta la vita… non appena ci sarà un coronavirus, moriranno. Le persone che sono state vaccinate hanno avuto un’infiammazione cardiaca anche se non lo sanno. I loro cuori sono più deboli e alcuni muoiono di attacchi di cuore. Ci saranno molti che moriranno disperati perché queste persone sono così orgogliose di essere state vaccinate che non lo ammetteranno mai.
E quando sarà chiaro a tutti che saranno le persone vaccinate a morire, queste persone si arrabbieranno molto, ci saranno rivolte in tutte le grandi città, vedremo la caduta dei governi e uccideranno queste persone, giornalisti e medici per quello che hanno fatto loro poco prima di morire loro stessi. Ci saranno molti disordini civili. Ti consiglio di fuggire dalle grandi città e di andare in campagna per difenderti e armarti. Sarebbe bello sapere se i tuoi vicini sono stati vaccinati o meno per vedere un po’ chi ti sarebbe ostile. Questo sarà molto utile quando verrai attaccato nella tua casa e dovrai fuggire da qualcuno vicino a te.
Devi già sapere se hai qualcuno di cui poterti fidare. Potrebbero benissimo denunciarti. So che ti sembra fantascienza, ma è la verità e qualcuno doveva dirtelo perché non credo che nessuno avrebbe il coraggio di avvertirti. Perché credo che la verità sia la migliore difesa, arma e alleata. Dobbiamo prepararci quest’estate, perché sta arrivando l’influenza stagionale e il caos sta prendendo forma. “:
Scoppio della peste e diffusione in Europa
L’area di origine della pandemia sembra esser stata quella regione dell’Asia centrale a cavallo del Pamir, dell’Altaj e del Tannu-Tuva. La causa scatenante parrebbe esser stata la moria di roditori, in quelle regioni, dovuta alla scarsità di cibo conseguente all’irrigidimento delle condizioni climatiche. In assenza di roditori, le pulci, vettori del bacillo della peste, affamate attaccarono anche l’uomo e gli altri mammiferi. Il tutto venne aggravato dal fatto che i rifiuti, abbondanti ed a cielo aperto nelle città medioevali, attrassero i roditori affamati, sia selvatici che domestici. Infine, l’efficiente sistema di comunicazioni dell’impero mongolo propagò il contagio in poco tempo da un capo all’altro del continente asiatico, fino all’Europa che – geograficamente – altro non è che una propaggine dell’Asia.
Nel 1338 o 1339 raggiunse le comunità afferenti alle Chiese orientali cristiane assire presso il lago Issyk-Kul, nell’odierno Kirghizistan. Le prime testimonianze scritte circa l’epidemia sono state rinvenute proprio presso questo lago, che costituiva una tappa obbligata sul cammino della Via della Seta. Nel 1345 si segnalarono i primi casi a Sarai sul Volga meridionale ed in Crimea. Nel 1346 la peste fece le prime vittime ad Astrakhan. L’anno successivo il morbo raggiunse i confini dell’Europa di allora. L’Orda d’Oro, guidata da Ganī Bek, assediava Caffa (l’attuale Feodosija o Феодосия), ricca colonia e scalo sulla via dell’oriente della Repubblica di Genova, nella penisola di Crimea. La peste raggiunse la città al seguito dell’Orda d’Oro: le cronache dell’epoca riportano (come ha scritto Michel Balard sulla scorta della cronaca[1] anonima, ma attribuita a un certo frate francescano, Michele da Piazza[2]) che gli assedianti gettavano con le catapulte i cadaveri degli appestati entro le mura della città. Gli abitanti di Caffa avrebbero immediatamente gettato in mare i corpi, ma la peste comunque entrò in città in questo modo.
Una volta a Caffa, la peste fu introdotta nella vasta rete commerciale dei Genovesi, che si estendeva su tutto il Mediterraneo. A bordo delle navi commerciali che partivano da Caffa nell’autunno del 1347 la peste giunse a Costantinopoli, prima città europea contagiata, e in seguito arrivò a Messina e nel corso dei successivi tre anni contagiò tutta l’Europa fino alla Scandinavia e alla Polonia. L’Egitto trasmise la peste alla Nubia (Sudan) ed all’Africa centrale. Le prime regioni europee ad esser contagiata furono gli Urali, il Caucaso, la Crimea, e la Turchia.
- Gli equipaggi infetti delle navi trasportarono il contagio da Genova a Marsiglia, da dove la peste risalì la valle del Rodano verso nord. Dopo poco tempo raggiunse la Linguadoca e Montpellier, nell’agosto 1348 anche Carcassonne, Bordeaux, Aix-en-Provence e Avignone, dove nei primi tre giorni del contagio morirono 1800 persone. All’epoca Avignone era la sede papale, ed una delle principali città europee. La peste aveva raggiunto in marzo Tolosa e in maggio Parigi. Anche Spagna, Marocco, Tunisia e Portogallo vennero contagiate via mare dalle galee genovesi. Nel contempo, da Costantinopoli, la peste si trasmise alla Grecia, alla Bulgaria, alla Romania ed in tutti i Balcani.
- L’Italia venne contagiata da tre direzioni: dalla Sicilia venne contagiata tutta l’Italia Meridionale ed il Lazio. Da Genova venne contagiata tutta la Lombardia, il Piemonte, la Svizzera. Da Venezia venne contagiata l’Emilia-Romagna, la Toscana, il Veneto, L’Istria e la Dalmazia.
- Dall’Asia centrale, la peste invase l’India e la Persia. Dalla Persia si riversò in Mesopotamia, Siria, Israele ed Arabia. I cronisti arabi scrivono che quegli anni rappresentavano “Il periodo della distruzione”. Attraverso l’antica Via delle Spezie tutta la Penisola Arabica prima, l’Eritrea assieme all’Etiopia ed alla Somalia poi vennero contagiate entro il 1349.
- Da Venezia la peste, passando per il Brennero, raggiunse l’Austria: la morte nera comparve prima in Carinzia, quindi in Stiria, ed infine Vienna. Vienna fu l’unica città in cui ogni moribondo ricevette l’estrema unzione.
- Dalla Francia settentrionale le direttrici del contagio furono verso l’Inghilterra Meridionale e verso il Belgio e l’Olanda.
- Dall’Inghilterra il contagio si diresse verso la Scozia, l’Irlanda e la Scandinavia.
- Dall’Olanda e dall’Austria il contagio attanagliò le valli del Reno e del Danubio, coinvolgendo Germania, Polonia, Ungheria, Boemia.
- Dalla Germania venne contagiata la Danimarca e dalla Danimarca venne esportata la peste alle sue dipendenze d’oltremare, Islanda e Groenlandia.
- Dalla Polonia l’epidemia penetrò nei Paesi Baltici, in Finlandia ed in Russia (già in parte raggiunta dall’epidemia della Mongolia e dell’Ucraina).
Per limitare i rischi di contagio, dopo il 1347 le navi, sulle quali si sospettava la presenza di peste, venivano messe in isolamento per 40 giorni (quarantena, dal francese “une quarantaine de jours”). La quarantena poteva impedire che gli equipaggi mettessero piede a terra, ma non impediva che lo facessero i ratti, contribuendo così alla diffusione della malattia.
Conseguenze demografiche della peste nera
| « Della minuta gente, e forse in gran parte della mezzana, era il ragguardamento di molto maggior miseria pieno; per ciò che essi, il più o da speranza o da povertà ritenuti nelle lor case, nelle lor vicinanze standosi, a migliaia per giorno infermavano; e non essendo né serviti né atati d’alcuna cosa, quasi senza alcuna redenzione, tutti morivano. E assai n’erano che nella strada pubblica o di dì o di notte finivano, e molti, ancora che nelle case finissero, prima col puzzo de lor corpi corrotti che altramenti facevano a’ vicini sentire sé esser morti; e di questi e degli altri che per tutto morivano, tutto pieno.Era il più da’ vicini una medesima maniera servata, mossi non meno da tema che la corruzione de’ morti non gli offendesse, che da carità la quale avessero a’ trapassati. Essi, e per sé medesimi e con l’aiuto d’alcuni portatori, quando aver ne potevano, traevano dalle lor case li corpi de’già passati, e quegli davanti alli loro usci ponevano, dove, la mattina spezialmente, n’avrebbe potuti veder senza numero chi fosse attorno andato: e quindi fatte venir bare, (e tali furono, che, per difetto di quelle, sopra alcuna tavole) ne portavano.Né fu una bara sola quella che due o tre ne portò insiememente, né avvenne pure una volta, ma se ne sarieno assai potute annoverare di quelle che la moglie e ‘l marito, di due o tre fratelli, o il padre e il figliuolo, o così fattamente ne contenieno. » | |
| (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decamerone) |
Si calcola che la Peste nera uccise tra i 20 e i 25 milioni di persone, un terzo della popolazione europea dell’epoca. Per le vittime in Asia e Africa mancano fonti certe. Le cifre devono venir considerate con prudenza, perché le testimonanianze dei contemporanei riportano numeri probabilmente esagerati, per esprimere il terrore e la crudeltà di questa pandemia. Per esempio, ad Avignone i cronisti dell’epoca stimarono fino a 125.000 morti, quando Avignone, a quei tempi, non contava più di 50.000 abitanti. Rappresentazione della peste bubbonica nella Bibbia di Toggenburg (1411)
Più delle cifre sono i destini individuali a dare un’idea concreta delle devastazioni della peste: Agnolo di Tura, cronista senese, lamentava di non trovare più nessuno che seppellisse i morti, e di aver dovuto seppellire con le proprie mani i suoi cinque figli. John Clyn, l’ultimo monaco ancora in vita in un convento irlandese a Kilkenny, metteva sulla carta, poco prima di morire egli stesso di peste, la sua speranza che all’epidemia sopravvivesse almeno un uomo, che potesse continuare la cronaca della peste che egli aveva cominciato. Giovanni Villani, cronista fiorentino, venne stroncato dalla peste in maniera tanto repentina che la sua cronaca si interrompe a metà di una frase. A Venezia morirono 20 medici su 24, ad Amburgo 16 membri del consiglio cittadino su 20. A Londra morirono tutti i mastri della corporazione dei sarti e dei cappellai. Un terzo dei notai di Francia morì, così come un terzo dei cardinali riuniti ad Avignone.
La Peste nera non colpì tutta Europa con la stessa intensità: alcune (rare) zone rimasero quasi immuni dal contagio (come alcune regioni della Polonia, il Belgio e Praga), altre invece furono quasi spopolate. In Italia la peste risparmiò Milano, mentre a Firenze uccise quattro quinti degli abitanti. In Germania invece, mentre il meridione venne prevalentemente risparmiato, Amburgo, Brema e Colonia vennero colpite in maniera massiccia dall’epidemia. Gli effetti sulla popolazione furono senz’altro più gravi in Francia e in Italia che in Germania. In Scandinavia ebbe un effetto disastroso; specialmente in Norvegia, dove la pandemia colpì così tanto la popolazione da lasciarla senza sovrani. Fu in quel momento che i tre regni nordici: Danimarca, Norvegia e Svezia si unirono sotto la guida della regina Margherita I di Danimarca.
Furono necessari alcuni secoli perché la popolazione europea ritornasse alla densità precedente la pandemia. David Herlihy nota che il numero degli abitanti dell’Europa cessò di calare solo nei primi decenni del XV secolo, e che nei cinquant’anni successivi rimase stabile, per poi riprendere lentamente ad aumentare attorno al 1460. „Il medico della peste“, acquaforte di Paulus Fürst1656 (da J. Columbina). Durante l’epidemia di peste del 1656, a Roma, i medici ritenevano che questo abbigliamento proteggesse dal contagio. Indossavano un mantello cerato, una sorta di occhiali protettivi e guanti. Nel becco si trovavano sostanze aromatiche.
I medici e la loro reazione
I medici dell’epoca rimasero disorientati di fronte a questo fenomeno, per loro incomprensibile. Allora la formazione del medico prevedeva una solida preparazione astrologica, che impegnava la maggior parte del loro studio. Le teorie mediche risalivano all’antichità, a Ippocrate e Galeno, secondo i quali le malattie nascevano da una cattiva miscela (discrasia) dei quattro umori del corpo: sangue, flemma, bile gialla e bile nera. L’idea stessa del contagio era sconosciuta alla medicina galenica, e del tutto impensabile la trasmissione di malattie da animale a uomo. Si pensava piuttosto che dei “soffi pestiferi” avessero trasportato la malattia dall’Asia all’Europa, oppure che la malattia fosse causata da miasmi provenienti dall’interno della terra.
I consigli o regimi contro la peste, opere mediche che mostravano come difendersi dal contagio, divennero quasi un genere letterario. In particolare il più importante fu il Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, documento scritto in latino in cui erano contenute tutte le competenze mediche del tempo. Si consigliava di tener aperte solo le finestre rivolte a nord, perché i venti da sud – caldi e umidi – erano considerati dannosi. Il sonno durante il giorno era bandito, così come il lavoro pesante. Secondo molti la peste colpiva di preferenza le donne giovani e belle. E, in effetti, la peste contagiava con maggior facilità più le donne degli uomini, e più i giovani che gli anziani.
Il medico Gentile da Foligno elaborò la teoria del soffio pestifero: una congiunzione sfavorevole dei pianeti avrebbe risucchiato l’aria dalla terra, aria che sarebbe ritornata sulla terra in forma di “soffio pestifero”. La facoltà di medicina dell’Università di Parigi, incaricata da Filippo IV di Francia di redigere una relazione sulle cause dell’epidemia, fece propria questa tesi, e così questa spiegazione assunse grande autorevolezza e venne tradotta in numerose lingue europee.
Molti medici, di fronte alla peste, fuggivano. Se fuggivano erano considerati dei vigliacchi. Se restavano, erano considerati interessati solamente al denaro. Riferisce il cronista Marchionne di Coppo Stefani: “Medici non se ne trovavano, perocché moriano come gli altri; e quelli che si trovavano, volevano smisurato prezzo innanzi che intrassero nella casa.” In caso di peste, l’unico dovere del medico era di invitare l’ammalato a confessarsi. Il rimedio cui i medici più frequentemente ricorrevano erano fumigazioni con erbe aromatiche. Papa Clemente VI, per tutta la durata dell’epidemia ad Avignone, rimase rinchiuso nei suoi appartamenti, dove erano accesi grandi falò. È probabile che in questo modo riuscì realmente a sfuggire al contagio: il calore allontana le pulci.
A lungo termine la peste fece sì che la medicina si emancipasse dalla tradizione galenica. Papa Clemente consentì che si sezionassero cadaveri, pur di scoprire le cause dalla malattia. La ricerca diretta sul corpo umano per mezzo di studi anatomici ebbe un maggior impulso dopo la peste, un primo passo in direzione della medicina moderna e della scienza empirica. Ma dovevano trascorrere quasi 200 anni prima che Girolamo Fracastoro (1483–1533) si confrontasse in maniera più sistematica con l’idea di contagio.
La peste e la società medievale
Molti ritennero che la Peste fosse una punizione divina, e cercarono conforto nella religione. Movimenti religiosi nacquero spontaneamente in conseguenza della peste, o nel timore dell’epidemia, e molti di essi sfidavano il monopolio ecclesiastico sulla sfera spirituale. La vita quotidiana era segnata da rogatorie e processioni. I flagellanti percorrevano le strade delle città. Il culto di San Rocco, patrono degli appestati, divenne particolarmente intenso, e i pellegrinaggi divennero più frequenti. In molti luoghi sorsero chiese votive e altri monumenti, come le cosiddette “colonne della peste”, per la paura degli uomini e per il loro desiderio di essere liberati dal flagello.
Nella generale disperazione, vi furono altri che decisero di gustare ogni minuto, almeno il pensiero di esso.[3] L’economia non poteva reggere l’urto dell’epidemia. La manodopera moriva, fuggiva, o non riusciva più a svolgere il proprio compito. Per molti non aveva più senso coltivare i campi, se comunque la morte ben presto doveva raggiungerli.
La persecuzione degli ebrei
L’autorità della Chiesa e dello Stato crollò molto rapidamente, anche per l’inefficacia delle misure messe in campo contro il contagio. Boccaccio, nel Decameron, annota: E in tanta afflizione e miseria della nostra città era la reverenda autorità delle leggi, così divine come umane, quasi caduta e dissoluta tutta per li ministri e esecutori di quelle, li quali, sì come gli altri uomini, erano tutti o morti o infermi o sì di famigli rimasi stremi, che uficio alcuno non potean fare; per la qual cosa era a ciascun licito quanto a grado gli era d’adoperare.[4]
A soffrire maggiormente di questa perdita di autorità fu chi si trovava a margini della società medievale. Soprattutto in Germania l’epidemia fu accompagnata da una gravissima persecuzione degli ebrei, probabilmente la più grave fino alla Shoah.
I pogrom ebbero inizio quando la popolazione esasperata individuò negli ebrei i colpevoli della catastrofe. Le autorità tentarono di arginare le violenze. Già nel 1348 papa Clemente VI definiva “inconcepibili” le accuse che gli ebrei diffondessero la peste avvelenando i pozzi, perché l’epidemia infuriava anche dove non c’erano ebrei, e laddove vi erano ebrei, anch’essi finivano vittime del contagio.
Il papa invitava il clero a porre gli ebrei sotto la sua protezione. Clemente VI vietò di uccidere ebrei senza processo e di saccheggiare le loro case. Le bolle papali ebbero effetto solo ad Avignone, mentre altrove contribuirono ben poco alla salvezza degli ebrei. Lo stesso vale per la regina Giovanna I di Napoli che, nel maggio 1348, aveva diminuito i tributi dovutile dagli ebrei che vivevano nei suoi possedimenti provenzali, per compensare le perdite dovute ai saccheggi subiti. Nel giugno dello stesso anno i funzionari reali vennero cacciati dalle città della Provenza, fatto che illustra la debolezza della tutela degli ebrei causata dalla perdita di autorità dei monarchi.
L’accusa che gli ebrei avvelenassero fonti e pozzi cominciò a circolare agli inizi del 1348: in Savoia alcuni ebrei, inquisiti, sotto tortura avevano ovviamente ammesso questo reato. La loro confessione si diffuse rapidamente in tutta Europa, e scatenò un’ondata di violenze, soprattutto in Alsazia, in Svizzera e in Germania. Il 9 gennaio 1349, a Basilea, venne uccisa una parte degli ebrei che vi abitavano. Il consiglio cittadino della città aveva allontanato i più agitati tra quelli che istigavano alla violenza, ma la popolazione si rivoltò, costringendo gli amministratori a togliere il bando e a cacciare gli ebrei. Una parte di loro venne rinchiusa in un edificio su di un’isola sul Reno, cui poi venne dato fuoco. Anche a Strasburgo il governo cittadino aveva tentato di proteggere gli ebrei, ma venne esautorato dalle corporazioni. Il nuovo governo si mostrò tollerante verso l’annunciato massacro, che ebbe luogo nel febbraio 1349, quando la peste ancora non aveva raggiunto la città. Vennero uccisi 900 ebrei, sui 1884 residenti a Strasburgo.
Si discute sul ruolo dei flagellanti nei pogrom. Si riteneva che, ancora prima dell’arrivo della peste, essi avessero istigato la popolazione contro gli ebrei in città come Friburgo, Colonia, Augusta, Norimberga, Königsberg e Ratisbona. La ricerca più recente è però del parere che i flagellanti siano stati una “comoda giustificazione” (Haverkamp).
Nel marzo 1349, 400 ebrei di Worms preferirono appiccare il fuoco alle loro case e morirvi che finire nelle mani della folla in rivolta. Lo stesso fecero in luglio agli ebrei di Francoforte. A Magonza gli ebrei si difesero, e uccisero 200 dei cittadini che li stavano attaccando. Ma alla fine anche a Magonza, che all’epoca era la più grande comunità ebraica d’Europa, gli ebrei si suicidarono incendiando le proprie case. I pogrom proseguirono sino alla fine del 1349. Gli ultimi ebbero luogo ad Anversa e Bruxelles. Quando la peste cessò, ben pochi ebrei erano rimasti in vita tra Germania e Paesi Bassi.
Conseguenze a lungo termine della peste nera
La peste nera provocò un mutamento profondo nella società dell’Europa medievale. Come ha dimostrato David Herlihy, dopo il 1348 non fu più possibile mantenere i modelli culturali del XIII secolo. Le gravissime perdite in vite umane causarono una ristrutturazione della società che, a lungo termine, avrebbe avuto effetti positivi. Herlihy definisce la peste “l’ora degli uomini nuovi”: il crollo demografico rese possibile ad una percentuale significativa della popolazione la disponibilità di terreni agricoli e di posti di lavoro remunerativi. I terreni meno redditizi vennero abbandonati, il che, in alcune zone, comportò l’abbandono di interi villaggi. Le corporazioni ammisero nuovi membri, cui prima si negava l’iscrizione. I fitti agricoli crollarono, mentre le retribuzioni nelle città aumentarono sensibilmente. Per questo un gran numero di persone godette, dopo la peste, di un benessere che in precedenza era irraggiungibile.
L’aumento del costo della manodopera favorì un’accentuata meccanizzazione del lavoro. Così il tardo Medioevo divenne un’epoca di notevoli innovazioni tecniche. David Herlihy cita l’esempio della stampa. Fino a quando i compensi degli amanuensi erano rimasti bassi, la copia a mano era una soluzione soddisfacente per la riproduzione delle opere. L’aumento del costo del lavoro diede il via a una serie di esperimenti che sfociò nell’invenzione della stampa a caratteri mobili di Gutenberg. Sempre Herlihy ritiene che l’evoluzione della tecnica delle armi da fuoco sia da ricondurre alla carenza di soldati.
La Chiesa, cui moltissime vittime dell’epidemia avevano lasciato in eredità i loro beni, uscì dalla peste nera più ricca, ma anche meno popolare di prima. Non era riuscita a dare una risposta soddisfacente al perché Dio avesse messo alla prova l’umanità in maniera tanto dura, né era riuscita ad essere vicina al proprio gregge, quando questo ne aveva maggior bisogno. Il movimento dei flagellanti aveva messo in discussione l’autorità della Chiesa. Anche dopo che questo movimento tramontò, molti cercarono Dio in sette mistiche e in movimenti di riforma, che alla fine distrussero l’unità spirituale dei cristiani.
Secondo alcuni storici della cultura, tra cui in particolare Egon Friedell, la peste nera causò la crisi delle concezioni medievali di uomo e di universo, scuotendo le certezze della fede che avevano dominato fino ad allora, e vede un rapporto causale diretto tra la catastrofe della peste nera e il Rinascimento.
Il ritorno della peste nei secoli successivi
Si ritiene che lo stesso agente patogeno del 1348 sia responsabile delle periodiche epidemie scoppiate in Europa, con vari gradi di intensità e mortalità, ad ogni generazione fino al XVIII secolo. Tra queste, la peste del 1576–1577 (cosiddetta Peste di San Carlo) e soprattutto la terribile peste del 1630 abbattutasi nel Nord Italia ed immortalata da Alessandro Manzoni ne I Promessi sposi. Da ricordare pure la grande peste di Londra del 1665–1666 e quella di Vienna del 1679. La peste di Marsiglia del 1720–1722 è invece considerata di origine vicino-orientale.
In una recente ricerca scientifica, che ha utilizzato nuove tecniche, gli scienziati Hendrik Poinar, Kirsti Bos e Johannes Krause hanno provato che fu una variante della Yersinia pestis, ormai estinta, a causare la prima epidemia tra il 1347 e il 1353
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989) was an American author of
popular history and a lecturer at various schools, including
Harvard University. Her Pulitzer Prize winning Guns of
August (1962) recounts the build-up to World War One, and
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century
(1978), of which chapter five comprises the following reading selection, won the U.S. National Book Award in History.
[The page numbers refer to the 1980 paperback edition.]
In October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais,
Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come
from the Black Sea port of Caffa (now Feodosiya) in the
Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post. The
diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the
size of an egg or an apple in the armpits and groin. The
swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by
spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal
bleeding. The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly
within five days of the first symptoms. As the disease
spread, other symptoms of continuous fever and spitting of
blood appeared instead of the swellings or buboes. These
victims coughed and sweated heavily and died even more
quickly, within three days or less, sometimes in 24 hours. In
both types everything that issued from the body — breath,
sweat, blood from the buboes and lungs, bloody urine, and
blood-blackened excrement — smelled foul. Depression and
despair accompanied the physical symptoms, and before the
end “death is seen seated on the face.”
The disease was bubonic plague, present in two forms:
one that infected the bloodstream, causing the buboes and
internal bleeding, and was spread by contact; and a second,
more virulent pneumonic type that infected the lungs and
was spread by respiratory infection. The presence of both at
once cause the high mortality and speed of contagion. So
lethal was the disease that cases were known of persons
going to bed well and dying before they ‘woke, of doctors
catching the illness at a bedside and dying before the patient. So rapidly did it spread from one to another that to a
French physician, Simon de [93] Covino, it seemed as if one
sick person “could infect the whole world.” The malignity
of the pestilence appeared more terrible because its victims
knew no prevention and no remedy.
The physical suffering of the disease and its aspect of
evil mystery were expressed in a strange Welsh lament
which saw “death coming into our midst like black smoke, a
plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which
has no mercy for fair countenance. Woe is me of the shilling
in the armpit! It is seething, terrible … a head that gives
pain and causes a loud cry … a painful angry knob … Great
is its seething like a burning cinder … a grievous thing of
ashy color.” Its eruption is ugly like the “seeds of black
peas, broken fragments of brittle sea-coal … the early ornaments of black death, cinders of the peelings of the cockle
weed, a mixed multitude, a black plague like halfpence, like
berries …” .
Rumors of a terrible plague supposedly arising in China
and spreading through Tartary (Central Asia) to India and
Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and all of Asia Minor
had reached Europe in 1346. They told of a death toll so
devastating that all of India was said to be depopulated,
whole territories covered by dead bodies, other areas with
no one left alive. As added up by Pope Clement VI at Avignon, the total of reported dead reached 23,840,000. In the
absence of a concept of contagion, no serious alarm was felt
in Europe until the trading ships brought their black burden
of pestilence into Messina while other infected ships from
the Levant carried it to Genoa and Venice.
By January 1348 it penetrated France via Marseille, and
North Africa via Tunis. Shipborne along coasts and navigable rivers, it spread westward from Marseille through the
ports of Languedoc to Spain and northward up the Rhône to
Avignon, where it arrived in March. It reached Narbonne,
Montpellier, Carcassonne, and Toulouse between February
and May, and at the same time in Italy spread to Rome and
Florence and their hinterlands. Between June and August it
reached Bordeaux, Lyon, and Paris, spread to Burgundy and
Normandy, and crossed the Channel from Normandy into
southern England. From Italy during the same summer it
crossed the Alps into Switzerland and reached eastward to
Hungary.
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 2 of 17
In a given area the plague accomplished its kill within
four to six months and then faded, except in the larger cities,
where, rooting into the close-quartered population, it abated
during the winter, only to reappear in spring and rage for
another six months.
In 1349 it resumed in Paris, spread to Picardy, Flanders,
and the Low Countries, and from England to Scotland and
Ireland as well as to [94] Norway, where a ghost ship with a
cargo of wool and a dead crew drifted offshore until it ran
aground near Bergen. From there the plague passed into
Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Iceland, and as far as Greenland. Leaving a strange pocket of immunity in Bohemia and
Russia unattacked until 1351, it had passed from most of
Europe by mld-1350. Although the mortality rate was erratic, ranging from one fifth in some places to nine tenths or
almost total elimination in others, the overall estimate of
modern demographers has settled — for the area extending
from India to Iceland — around the same figure expressed
in Froissart’s casual words: “a third of the world died.” His
estimate, the common one at the time, was not an inspired
guess but a borrowing of St. John’s figure for mortality
from plague in Revelation, the favorite guide to human affairs of the Middle Ages.
A third of Europe would have meant about 20 million
deaths. No one knows in truth how many died. Contemporary reports were an awed impression, not an accurate count.
In crowded Avignon, it was said, 400 died daily; 7,000
houses emptied by death were shut up; a single graveyard
received 11,000 corpses in six weeks; half the city’s inhabitants reportedly died, including 9 cardinals or one third of
the total, and 70 lesser prelates. Watching the endlessly
passing death carts, chroniclers let normal exaggeration take
wings and put the Avignon death toll at 62,000 and even at
120,000, although the city’s total population was probably
less than 50,000.
When graveyards filled up, bodies at Avignon were
thrown into the Rhone until mass burial pits were dug for
dumping the corpses. In London in such pits corpses piled
up in layers until they overflowed. Everywhere reports
speak of the sick dying too fast for the living to bury.
Corpses were dragged out of homes and left in front of
doorways. Morning light revealed new piles of bodies. In
Florence the dead were gathered up by the Compagnia della
Misericordia — founded in 1244 to care for the sick —
whose members wore red robes and hoods masking the face
except for the eyes. When their efforts failed, the dead lay
putrid in the streets for days at a time. When no coffins were
to be had, the bodies were laid on boards, two or three at
once, to he carried to graveyards or common pits. Families
dumped their own relatives into the pits, or burled them so
hastily and thinly “that dogs dragged them forth and devoured their bodies.”
Amid accumulating death and fear of contagion, people
died without last rites and were buried without prayers, a
prospect that terrified the last hours of the stricken. A
bishop in England gave permission to laymen to make confession to each other as was done by the Apostles, “or if no
man is present then even to a woman,” and if no priest could
[95] be found to administer extreme unction, “then faith
must suffice.” Clement VI found it necessary to grant remissions of sin to all who died of the plague because so many
were unattended by priests. “And no bells tolled,” wrote a
chronicler of Siena, “and nobody wept no matter what his
loss because almost everyone expected death…. And people
said and believed, ‘This is the end of the world’.”
In Paris, where the plague lasted through 1349, the reported death rate was 800 a day, in Pisa 500, in Vienna 500
to 600. The total dead in Paris numbered 50,000 or half the
population. Florence, weakened by the famine of 1347, lost
three to four fifths of its citizens, Venice two thirds, Hamburg and Bremen, though smaller in size, about the same
proportion. Cities, as centers of transportation, were more
likely to be affected than villages, although once a village
was infected, its death rate was equally high. At Givry, a
prosperous village in Burgundy of 1,200 to 1,500 people,
the parish register records 615 deaths in the space of fourteen weeks, compared to an average of thirty deaths a year
in the previous decade. In three villages of Cambridgeshire,
manorial records show a death rate of 47 percent, 57 percent, and in one case 70 percent. When the last survivors,
too few to carry on, moved away, a deserted village sank
back into the wilderness and disappeared from the map altogether, leaving only a grass-covered ghostly outline to show
where mortals once had lived.
In enclosed places such as monasteries and prisons, the
infection of one person usually meant that of all, as happened in the Franciscan convents of Carcassonne and Marseille, where every inmate without exception died. Of the
140 Dominicans at Montpellier only seven survived. Petrarch’s brother Gherardo, member of a Carthusian monastery, buried the prior and 34 fellow monks one by one,
sometimes three a day, until he was left alone with his dog
and fled to look for a place that would take him in. Watching every comrade die, men in such places could not but
wonder whether the strange peril that filled the air had not
been sent to exterminate the human race. In Kilkenny, Ireland, Brother John Clyn of the Friars Minor, another monk
left alone among dead men, kept a record of what had happened lest “things which should be remembered perish with
time and vanish from the memory of those who come after
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 3 of 17
us.” Sensing “the whole world, as it were, placed within the
grasp of the Evil One,” and waiting for death to visit him
too, he wrote, “I leave parchment to continue this work, if
perchance any man survive and any of the race of Adam
escape this pestilence and carry on the work which I have
begun.” Brother John, as noted by another hand, died of the
pestilence, but he foiled oblivion. [96]
The largest cities of Europe, with populations of about
100,000, were Paris and Florence, Venice and Genoa. At the
next level, with more than 50,000, were Ghent and Bruges
in Flanders, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Naples, and Palermo,
and Cologne. London hovered below 50,000, the only city
in England, except York with more than 10,000. At the level
of 20,000 to 50,000 were Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier,
Marseille, and Lyon in France, Barcelona, Seville, and
Toledo in Spain, Siena, Pisa, and other secondary cities in
Italy, and the Hanseatic trading cities of the Empire. The
plague raged through them all, killing anywhere from one
third to two thirds of their inhabitants. Italy, with a total
population of 10 to 11 million, probably suffered the heaviest toll. Following the Florentine bankruptcies, the crop
failures and workers’ riots of 1346-47, the revolt of Cola di
Rienzi that plunged Rome into anarchy, the plague came as
the peak of successive calamities. As if the world were indeed in the grasp of the Evil One, its first appearance on the
European mainland in January 1348 coincided with a fearsome earthquake that carved a path of wreckage from
Naples up to Venice. Houses collapsed, church towers toppled, villages were crushed, and the destruction reached as
far as Germany and Greece. Emotional response, dulled by
horrors, underwent a kind of atrophy epitomized by the
chronicler who wrote, “And in these days was burying
without sorrowe and wedding without friendschippe.”
In Siena, where more than half the inhabitants died of
the plague, work was abandoned on the great cathedral,
planned to be the largest in the world, and never resumed,
owing to loss of workers and master masons and “the melancholy and grief” of the survivors. The cathedral’s truncated transept still stands in permanent witness to the sweep
of death’s scythe. Agnolo di Tura, a chronicler of Siena,
recorded the fear of contagion that froze every other instinct. “Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother
another,” he wrote, “for this plague seemed to strike through
the breath and sight. And so they died. And no one could be
found to bury the dead for money or friendship…. And I,
Angolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with
my own hands, and so did many others likewise.”
There were many to echo his account of inhumanity and
few to balance it, for the plague was not the kind of calamity
that inspired mutual help. Its loathsomeness and deadliness
did not herd people together in mutual distress, but only
prompted their desire to escape each other. “Magistrates and
notaries refused to come and make the wills of the dying,”
reported a Franciscan friar of Piazza in Sicily; what was
worse, “even the priests did not come to hear their confessions.” A clerk of the Archbishop of Canterbury reported
the same of English [97] priests who “turned away from the
care of their benefices from fear of death.” Cases of parents
deserting children and children their parents were reported
across Europe from Scotland to Russia. The calamity chilled
the hearts of men, wrote Boccaccio in his famous account of
the plague in Florence that serves as introduction to the Decameron. “One man shunned another … kinsfolk held aloof,
brother was forsaken by brother, oftentimes husband by
Wife; nay, what is more, and scarcely to be believed, fathers
and mothers were found to abandon their own children to
their fate, untended, unvisited as if they had been strangers.”
Exaggeration and literary pessimism were common in the
14th century, but the Pope’s physician, Guy de Chauliac,
was a sober, careful observer who reported the same phenomenon: “A father did not visit his son, nor the son his
father. Charity was dead.”
Yet not entirely. In Paris, according to the chronicler
Jean de Venette the nuns of the Hôtel Dieu or municipal
hospital, “having no fear of death, tended the sick with all
sweetness and humility.” New nuns repeatedly took the
places of those who died, until the majority “many times
renewed by death now rest in peace with Christ as we may
piously believe.” When the plague entered northern France
in July 1348, it settled first in Normandy and, checked by
winter, gave Picardy a deceptive interim until the next
summer. Either in mourning or warning, black flags were
flown from church towers of the worst-stricken villages of
Normandy. “And in that time,” wrote a monk of the abbey
of Fourcarment, “the mortality was so great among the people of Normandy that those of Picardy mocked them.” The
same unneighborly reaction was reported of the Scots, separated by a winter’s immunity from the English. Delighted to
hear of the disease that was scourging the “southrons,” they
gathered forces for an invasion, “laughing at their enemies.”
Before they could move, the savage mortality fell upon
them too, scattering some in death and the rest in panic to
spread the infection as they fled.
In Picardy in the summer of 1349 the pestilence penetrated the castle of Coucy to kill Enguerrand’s mother,
Catherine, and her new husband. Whether her nine-year-old
son escaped by chance or was perhaps living elsewhere with
one of his guardians is unrecorded. In nearby Amiens, tannery workers, responding quickly to losses in the labor
force, combined to bargain for higher wages. In another
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 4 of 17
place villagers were seen dancing to drums and trumpets,
and on being asked the reason, answered that, seeing their
neighbors die day by day while their village remained immune, they believe they could keep the plague from entering
“by the jollity that is in us. That is why we [98] dance.” Further north in Tournai on the border of Flanders, Gilles li
Muisis, Abbot of St. Martin’s, kept one of the epidemic’s
most vivid accounts. The passing bells rang all day and all
night, he recorded, because sextons were anxious to obtain
their fees while they could. Filled with the sound of mourning, the city became oppressed by fear, so that the authorities forbade the tolling of bells and the wearing of black and
restricted funeral services to two mourners. The silencing of
funeral bells and of criers’ announcements of deaths was
ordained by most cities. Siena imposed a fine on the wearing of mourning clothes by all except widows.
Flight was the chief recourse of those who could afford it
or arrange it. The rich fled to their country places like Boccaccio’s young patricians of Florence, who settled in a pastoral palace “removed on every side from the roads” with
“wells of cool water and vaults of rare wines.” The urban
poor died in their burrows, “and only the stench of their
bodies informed neighbors of their death.” That the poor
were more heavily affliicted than the rich was clearly remarked at the time, in the north as in the south. A Scottish
chronicler, John of Fordun, stated flatly that the pest “attacked especially the meaner sort and common peopleseldom the magnates.” Simon de Covino of Montpellier
made the same observation. He ascribed it to the misery and
want and hard lives that made the poor more susceptible,
which was half the truth. Close contact and lack of sanitation was the unrecognized other half. It was noticed too that
the young died in greater proportion than the-old; Simon de
Covino compared the disappearance of youth to the withering of flowers in the fields.
In the countryside peasants dropped dead on the roads, in
the fields, in their houses. Survivors in growing helplessness
fell into apathy, leaving ripe wheat uncut and livestock untended. Oxen and asses, sheep and goats, pigs and chickens
ran wild and they too, according to local reports, succumbed
to the pest. English sheep, bearers of the precious wool, died
throughout the country. The chronicler Henry Knighton,
canon of Leicester Abbey, reported 5,000 dead in one field
alone “their bodies so corrupted by the plague that neither
beast nor bird would touch them,” and spreading an appalling stench. In the Austrian Alps wolves came down to prey
upon sheep and then, “as if alarmed by some invisible warning, turned and fled back into the wilderness.” In remote
Dalmatia bolder wolves descended upon a plague-stricken
city and attacked human survivors. For want of herdsmen,
cattle strayed from place to place and died in hedgerows and
ditches. Dogs and cats fell like the rest. The dearth of labor
held a fearful prospect because the 14th century [99] lived
close to the annual harvest both for food and for next year’s
seed. “So few servants and laborers were left,” wrote Knighton, “that no one knew where to turn for help.” The sense of
a vanishing future created a kind of dementia of despair. A
Bavarian chronicler of Neuberg on the Danube recorded.
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.” Fields went uncultivated, spring seed unsown. Second growth with nature’s
awful energy crept back over cleared land, dikes crumbled,
saltwater reinvaded and soured the lowlands. With so few
hands remaining to restore the work of centuries, people
felt, in Walsingham’s words, that “the world could never
again regain its former prosperity.”
Though the death rate was higher among the anonymous
poor, the known and the great died too. King Alfonso XI of
Castile was the only reigning monarch killed by the pest,
but his neighbor King Pedro of Aragon lost his wife, Queen
Leonora, his daughter Marie, and a niece in the space of six
months. John Cantacuzene, Emperor of Byzantium, lost his
son. In France the lame Queen Jeanne and her daughter-inlaw Bonne de Luxemburg, wife of the Dauphin, both died in
1349 in the same phase that took the life of Enguerrand’s
mother. Jeanne, Queen of Navarre, daughter of Louis X,
was another victim. Edward III’s second daughter, Joanna,
who was on her way to marry Pedro, the heir of Castile,
died in Bordeaux. Women appear to have been more vulnerable than men, perhaps because, being more housebound,
they were more exposed to fleas. Boccaccio’s mistress
Fiammetta, illegitimate daughter of the King of Naples,
died, as did Laura, the beloved — whether real or fictional
— of Petrarch. Reaching out to us in the future, Petrarch
cried, “Oh happy posterity who will not experience such
abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a fable.”
In Florence Giovanni Villani, the great historian of his
time, died at 68 in the midst of an unfinished sentence: “… e
dure questo pistolenza fino a … (in the midst of this pestilence there came to an end …).” Siena’s master painters, the
brothers Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, whose names
never appear after 1348, presumably perished in the plague,
as did Andrea Pisano, architect and sculptor of Florence.
William of Ockham and the English mystic Richard Rolle
of Rampole both disappear from mention after 1349. Francisco Datini, merchant of Prato, lost both his parents and
two siblings. Curious sweeps of mortality afflicted certain
bodies of merchants in London. All eight wardens of the
Company of Cutters, all six wardens of the Hatters, and four
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 5 of 17
wardens of the Goldsmiths died before July 1350. Sir John
Pulteney, [100] master draper and four times Mayor of London, was a victim, likewise Sir John Montgomery, Governor
of Calais.
Among the clergy and doctors the mortality was naturally high because of the nature of their professions. Out of
24 physicians in Venice, 20 were said to have lost their lives
in the plague, although, according to another account, some
were believed to have fled or to have shut themselves up in
their houses. At Montpellier, site of the leading medieval
medical school, the physician Simon de Covino reported
that, despite the great number of doctors, “hardly one of
them escaped.” In Avignon, Guy de Chauliac confessed that
he performed his medical visits only because he dared not
stay away for fear of infamy, but “I was in continual fear.”
He claimed to have contracted the disease but to have cured
himself by his own treatment; if so, he was one of the few
who recovered.
Clerical mortality varied with rank. Although the onethird toll of cardinals reflects the same proportion as the
whole, this was probably due to their concentration in Avignon. In England, in strange and almost sinister procession,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Stratford, died in
August 1348, his appointed successor died in May 1349,
and the next appointee three months later, all three within a
year. Despite such weird vagaries, prelates in general managed to sustain a higher survival rate than the lesser clergy.
Among bishops the deaths have been estimated at about one
in twenty. The loss of priests, even if many avoided their
fearful duty of attending the dying, was about the same as
among the population as a whole.
Government officials, whose loss contributed to the general chaos, found, on the whole, no special shelter. In Siena
four of the nine members of the governing oligarchy died, in
France one third of the royal notaries, in Bristol 15 out of
the 52 members of the Town Council or almost one third.
Tax-collecting obviously suffered, with the result that Philip
VI was unable to collect more than a fraction of the subsidy
granted him by the Estates in the winter of 1347-48.
Lawlessness and debauchery accompanied the plague as
they had during the great plague of Athens of 430 B.C.,
when according to Thucydides, men grew bold in the indulgence of pleasure: “For seeing how the rich died in a moment and those who had nothing immediately inherited their
property, they reflected that life and riches were alike transitory and they resolved to enjoy themselves while they
could.” Human behavior is timeless. When St. John had his
vision of plague in Revelation, he knew from some experience or race memory that those who survived “repented not
of the work of their hands …. Neither [101] repented they of
their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication,
nor of their thefts.”
Ignorance of the cause augmented the sense of horror. Of
the real carriers, rats and fleas, the 14th century had no suspicion, perhaps because they were so familiar. Fleas, though
a common household nuisance, are not once mentioned in
contemporary plague writings, and rats only incidentally,
although folklore commonly associated them with pestilence. The legend of the Pied Piper arose from an outbreak
of 1284. The actual plague bacillus, Pasturella pestis, remained undiscovered for another 500 years. Living alternately in the stomach of the flea and the bloodstream of the
rat who was the flea’s host, the bacillus in its bubonic form
was transferred to humans and animals by the bite of either
rat or flea. It traveled by virtue of Rattus rattus, the small
medieval black rat that lived on ships, as well as by the
heavier brown or sewer rat. What precipitated the turn of the
bacillus from innocuous to virulent form is unknown, but
the occurrence is now believed to have taken place not in
China but somewhere in central Asia and to have spread
along the caravan routes. Chinese origin was a mistaken
notion of the 14th century based on real but belated reports
of huge death tolls in China from drought, famine, and pestilence which have since been traced to the 1330s, too soon
to be responsible for the plague that appeared in India in
1346.
The phantom enemy had no name. Called the Black
Death only in later recurrences, it was known during the
first epidemic simply as the Pestilence or Great Mortality.
Reports from the East, swollen by fearful imaginings, told
of strange tempests and “sheets of fire” mingled , with huge
hailstones that “slew almost all,” or a “vast rain of fire” that
burned up men, beasts, stones, trees, villages, and cities. In
another version, “foul blasts of wind” from the fires carried
the infection to Europe “and now as some suspect it cometh
round the seacoast.” Accurate observation in this case could
not make the mental jump to ships and rats because no idea
of animal- or insect-borne contagion existed.
The earthquake was blamed for releasing sulfurous and
foul fumes from the earth’s interior, or as evidence of a titanic struggle of planets and oceans causing waters to rise
and vaporize until fish died in masses and corrupted the air.
All these explanations had in common a factor of poisoned
air, of miasmas and thick, stinking mists traced to every
kind of natural or imagined agency from stagnant lakes to
malign conjunction of the planets, from the hand of the Evil
One to the wrath of God. Medical thinking, trapped in the
theory of astral influences, [102] stressed air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation or visible carriers.
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 6 of 17
The existence of two carriers confused the trail, the more so
because the flea could live and travel independently of the
rat for as long as a month and, if infected by the particularly
virulent septicemic form of the bacillus, could infect humans without reinfecting itself from the rat. The simultaneous presence of the pneumonic form of the disease, which
was indeed communicated through the air, blurred the problem further.
The mystery of the contagion was “the most terrible of
all the terrors,” as an anonymous Flemish cleric in Avignon
wrote to a correspondent in Bruges. Plagues had been
known before, from the plague of Athens (believed to have
been typhus) to the prolonged epidemic of the 6th century
A.D., to the recurrence of sporadic outbreaks in the 12th and
13th centuries, but they had left no accumulated store of
understanding. That the infection came from contact with
the sick or with their houses, clothes, or corpses was quickly
observed but not comprehended. Gentile da Foligno, renowned physician of Perugia and doctor of medicine at the
universities of Bologna and Padua, came close to respiratory
infection when he surmised that poisonous material was
“communicated by means of air breathed out and in.” Having no idea of microscopic carriers, he had to assume that
the air was corrupted by planetary influences. Planets, however, could not explain the ongoing contagion. The agonized
search for an answer gave rise to such theories as transference by sight. People fell ill, wrote Guy de Chauliac, not
only by remaining with the sick but “even by looking at
them.” Three hundred years later Joshua Barnes, the 17th
century biographer of Edward III, could write that the power
of infection had entered into beams of light and “darted
death from the eyes.”
Doctors struggling with the evidence could not break
away from the terms of astrology, to which they believed all
human physiology was subject. Medicine was the one aspect of medieval life, perhaps because of its links with the
Arabs, not shaped by Christian doctrine. Clerics detested
astrology, but could not dislodge its influence. Guy de
Chauliac, physician to three popes in succession, practiced
in obedience to the zodiac. While his Cirurgia was the major treatise on surgery of its time, while he understood the
use of anesthesia made from the juice of opium, mandrake,
or hemlock, he nevertheless prescribed bleeding and purgatives by the planets and divided chronic from acute diseases
on the basis of one being under the rule of the sun and the
other of the moon.
In October 1348 Philip VI asked the medical faculty of
the University of Paris for a report on the affliction that
seemed to threaten human [103] survival. With careful thesis, antithesis, and proofs, the doctors ascribed it to a triple
conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the 40th degree
of Aquarius said to have occurred on March 20, 1345. They
acknowledged, however, effects “whose cause is hidden
from even the most highly trained intellects.” The verdict of
the masters of Paris became the official version. Borrowed,
copied by scribes, carried abroad, translated from Latin into
various vernaculars, it was everywhere accepted, even by
the Arab physicians of Cordova and Granada, as the scientific if not the popular answer. Because of the terrible interest of the subject, the translations of the plague tracts stimulated use of national languages. In that one respect, life
came from death.
To the people at large there could be but one explanation
— the wrath of God. Planets might satisfy the learned doctors, but God was closer to the average man. A scourge so
sweeping and unsparing without any visible cause could
only be seen as Divine punishment upon mankind for its
sins. It might even be God’s terminal disappointment in his
creature. Matteo Villani compared the plague to the Flood in
ultimate purpose and believed he was recording “the extermination of mankind.” Efforts to appease Divine wrath took
many forms, as when the city of Rouen ordered that everything that could anger God, such as gambling cursing, and
drinking, must be stopped. More general were the penitent
processions authorized at first by the Pope, some lasting as
long as three days, some attended by as many as 2,000,
which everywhere accompanied the plague and helped to
spread it.
Barefoot in sackcloth, sprinkled with ashes, weeping,
praying, tearing their hair, carrying candles and relics,
sometimes with ropes around their necks or beating themselves with whips, the penitents wound through the streets,
imploring the mercy of the Virgin and saints at their shrines.
In a vivid illustration for the Très Riches Heures of the Duc
de Berry, the Pope is shown in a penitent procession attended by four cardinals in scarlet from hat to hem. He
raises both arms in supplication to the angel on top of the
Castel Sant’Angelo, while white-robed priests bearing banners and relics in golden cases turn to look as one of their
number, stricken by the plague, falls to the ground, his face
contorted with anxiety. In the rear, a gray-clad monk falls
beside another victim already on the ground as the townspeople gaze in horror. (Nominally the illustration represents
a 6th century plague in the time of Pope Gregory the Great,
but as medieval artists made no distinction between past and
present, the scene is shown as the artist would have seen it
in the 14th century.) When it became evident that [104]
these processions were sources of infection Clement VI had
to prohibit them.
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 7 of 17
In Messina, where the plague first appeared, the people
begged the Archbishop of neighboring Catania to lend them
the relics of St. Agatha. When the Catanians refused to let
the relics go, the Archbishop dipped them in holy water and
took the water himself to Messina, where he carried it in a
procession with prayers and litanies though the streets. The
demonic, which shared the medieval cosmos with God, appeared as “demons in the shape of dogs” to terrify the people. “A black dog with a drawn sword in his paws appeared
among them, gnashing his teeth and rushing upon them and
breaking all the silver vessels and lamps and candlesticks on
the altars and casting them hither .and thither …. So the people of Messina, terrified by this prodigious vision, were all
strangely overcome by fear.”
The apparent absence of earthly cause gave the plague a
supernatural and sinister quality. Scandinavians believed
that a Pest Maiden emerged from the mouth of the dead in
the form of a blue flame and flew through the air to infect
the next house. In Lithuania the Maiden was said to wave a
red scarf through the door or window to let in the pest. One
brave man, according to legend, deliberately waited at his
open window with drawn sword and, at the fluttering of the
scarf, chopped off the hand. He died of his deed, but his
village was spared and the scarf long preserved as a relic in
the local church.
Beyond demons and superstition the final hand was
God’s. The Pope acknowledged it in a Bull of September
1348, speaking of the “pestilence with which God is afflicting the Christian people.” To the Emperor John Cantacuzene it was manifest that a malady of such horrors, stenches,
and agonies, and especially one bringing the dismal despair
that settled upon its victims before they died, was not a
plague “natural” to mankind but “a chastisement from
Heaven.” To Piers Plowman “these pestilences were for
pure sin.”
The general acceptance of this view created an expanded
sense of guilt, for if the plague were punishment there had
to be terrible sin to have occasioned it. What sins were on
the 14th century conscience? PrimarIly greed, the sin of
avarice, followed by usury, worldliness, adultery, blasphemy, falsehood, luxury, irreligion. Giovanni Villani, attempting to account for the cascade of calamity that had
fallen upon Florence, concluded that it was retribution for
the sins of avarice and usury that oppressed the poor. Pity
and anger about the condition of the poor, especially victimization of the peasantry in war, was often expressed by
writers of the time and was certainly on the conscience of
the century. Beneath it ail was the daily condition of medieval life, in [105] which hardly an act or thought, sexual,
mercantile, or military, did not, contravene the dictates of
the Church. Mere failure to fast or attend mass was sin The
result was an underground lake of guilt in the soul that the
plague now tapped.
That the mortality was accepted as God’s punishment
may explain in part the vacuum of comment that followed
the Black Death. An investigator has noticed that in the archives of Périgord references to the war are innumerable, to
the plague few. Froissart mentions the great death but once,
Chaucer gives it barely a glance. Divine anger so great that
it contemplated the extermination of man did not bear close
examination.
Efforts to cope with the epidemic availed little, either in
treatment or prevention. Helpless to alleviate the plague, the
doctors primary effort was to keep it at bay, chiefly by burning aromatic substances to purify the air. The leader of
Christendom, Pope Clement VI, was preserved in health by
this method, though for an unrecognized reason: Clement’s
doctor, Guy de Chauliac, ordered that two huge fires should
burn in the papal apartments and required the Pope to sit
between them in the heat of the Avignon summer. This drastic treatment worked, doubtless because it discouraged the
attention of fleas and also because de Chauliac required the
Pope to remain isolated in his chambers. Their lovely murals of gardens, hunting, and other secular joys, painted at
Clement’s command, perhaps gave him some refreshment.
A Pope of prodigal splendor and “sensual vices,” Clement
was also a man of great learning and a patron of arts and
science who now encouraged dissections of the dead “in
order that the origins of this disease might be known.”
Many were performed in Avignon as well as in Florence,
where the city authorities paid for corpses to be delivered to
physicians for this purpose.
Doctors’ remedies in the 14th century ranged from the
empiric and sensible to the magical, with little distinction
made between one and the other. Though medicine was
barred by the Church from investigation of anatomy and
physiology and from dissection of corpses, the classical
anatomy of Galen, transferred through Arab treatises, was
kept alive in private anatomy lessons. The need for knowledge was able sometimes to defy the Church: In 1340
Montpellier authorized an anatomy class every two years
which lasted. for several days and consisted of a surgeon
dissecting a cadaver while a doctor of medicine lectured.
Otherwise, the theory of humors, along with astrology,
governed [106] practice. All human temperaments were considered to belong to one or another of the four humors —
sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. In various
permutations with the signs of the zodiac, each of which
governed a particular part of the body, the humors and con-
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 8 of 17
stellations determined the degrees of bodily heat, moisture,
and proportion of masculinity and femininity of each person.
Notwithstanding all their charts and stars, and medicaments barely short of witches’ brews, doctors, gave great
attention to diet, bodily health, and mental attitude. Nor
were they lacking in practical skills. They could set broken
bones, extract teeth, remove bladder stones remove cataracts
of the eye with a silver needle, and restore a mutilated face
by skin graft from the arm. They understood epilepsy and
apoplexy as spasms of the brain. They used urinalysis and
pulse beat for diagnosis, knew what substances served as
laxatives and diuretics, applied a truss for hernia, a mixture
of oil, vinegar, and sulfur for toothache, and ground peony
root with oil of roses for headache.
For ills beyond their powers they fell back on the supernatural or on elaborate compounds of metallic, botanic, and
animal substances. The offensive, like the expensive, had
extra value. Ringworm was treated by washing the scalp
with a boy’s urine, gout by a plaster of goat dung mixed
with rosemary and honey. Relief of the patient was their
object — cure being left to God — and psychological suggestion often their means. To prevent pockmarks, a smallpox patient would be wrapped in red cloth in a bed hung
with red hangings. When surgery was unavailing, recourse
was had to the aid of the Virgin or the relics of saints.
In their purple or red gowns and furred hoods, doctors
were persons of important status. Allowed extra luxury by
the sumptuary laws, they wore belts of silver thread, embroidered gloves, and, according to Petrarch’s annoyed report, presumptuously donned golden spurs when they rode
to their visits attended by a servant. Their wives were permitted greater expenditure on clothes than other women,
perhaps in recognition of the large fees doctors could command. Not all were learned professors. Boccaccio’s Doctor
Simon was a proctologist who had a chamber pot painted
over his door to indicate his specialty.
When it came to the plague, sufferers were treated by
various measures designed to draw poison or infection from
the body: by bleeding, purging with laxatives or enemas,
lancing or cauterizing the buboes, or application of hot plasters. None of this was of much use. Medicines ranged, from
pills of powdered stag’s horn or myrrh and saffron to potions of potable gold. Compounds of rare spices and powdered pearls or emeralds were prescribed, possibly on the
theory, not [107] unknown to modem medicine, that a patient’s sense of therapeutic value is in proportion to the expense.
Doctors advised that floors should be sprinkled, and
hands, mouth, and nostrils washed with vinegar and rosewater. Bland diets, avoidance of excitement and anger especially at bedtime, mild exercise, and removal wherever possible from swamps and other sources of dank air were all
recommended. Pomanders made of exotic compounds were
to be carried on going out, probably more as antidote to the
plague’s odors than to its contagion. Conversely, in the curious belief that latrine attendants were immune, many people visited the public latrines on the theory that foul odors
were efficacious.
Sewage disposal was not unprovided for in the 14th century, though far from adequate. Privies, cesspools, drainage
pipes, and public latrines existed, though they did not replace open street sewers. Castles and wealthy town houses
had privies built into bays jutting from an outside wall with
a hole in the bottom allowing the deposit to fall into a river
or into a ditch for subsequent removal. Town houses away
from the riverbank had cesspools in the backyard at a regulated distance from the neighbor’s. Although supposedly
constructed under town ordinances, they frequently seeped
into wells and other water sources. Except for household
urinals, the contents of privies were prohibited from draining into street sewers. Public flouting of ordinances was
more to blame for unsanitary streets than inadequate technology.
Some abbeys and large castles, including Coucy, had
separate buildings to serve as latrines for the monks or garrison. The donjon at Coucy had latrines at each of its three
levels. Drainage was channeled into vaulted stone ditches
with ventilating holes and openings for removal, or into
underground pits later mistaken by investigators of a more
romantic period for secret passages and oubliettes. Under
the concept of “noble” architecture, the 15th and later centuries preferred to ignore human elimination. Coucy probably
had better sanitation than Versailles. During the plague, as
street cleaners and carters died, cities grew befouled, increasing the infection. Residents of a street might rent a cart
in common to remove the waste, but energy and will were
depressed. The breakdown in street-cleaning appears in a
letter of Edward III to the Mayor of London in 1349, complaining that the streets and lanes of London were “foul with
human feces and the air of the city poisoned to the great
danger of men passing, especially in this time of infectious
disease.” Removed as he probably was from the daily [108]
sight of corpses piling up, the King ordered that the streets
be cleaned “as of old.”
Stern measures of quarantine were ordered by many cities. As soon as Pisa and Lucca were afflicted, their neighbor
Pistoia forbade any of its citizens who might be visiting or
doing business in the stricken cities to return home, and
likewise forbade the importation of wool and linen. The
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 9 of 17
Doge and Council of Venice ordered burial on the islands to
a depth of at least five feet and organized a barge service to
transport the corpses. Poland established a quarantine at its
frontiers which succeeded in giving it relative immunity.
Draconian means were adopted by the despot of Milan,
Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, head of the most uninhibited
ruling family of the 14th century. He ordered that the first
three houses in which the plague was discovered were to be
walled up with their occupants inside, enclosing the well,
the sick, and the dead in a common tomb. Whether or not
owing to his promptitude, Milan escaped lightly in the roll
of the dead. With something of the Visconti temperament, a
manorial autocrat of Leicestershire burned and razed the
village of Noseley when the plague appeared there, to prevent its spread to the manor house. He evidently succeeded,
for his direct descendants still inhabit Noseley Hall.
St. Roch, credited with special healing powers, who had
died in 1327, was the particular saint associated with the
plague. Inheriting wealth as a young man, as had St. Francis, he had distributed it to the poor and to hospitals, and
while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome had encountered
an epidemic and stayed to help the sick. Catching the malady himself, he retreated to die alone in the woods, where a
dog brought him bread each day. “In these sad times,” says
his legend, “when reality was so somber and men so hard,
people ascribed pity to animals.” St. Roch recovered and, on
appearing in rags as a beggar, was thought to be a spy and
thrown into jail, where he died, filling the cell with a strange
light. As his story spread and sainthood was conferred, it
was believed that God would cure of the plague anyone who
invoked his name. When this failed to occur, it enhanced the
belief that, men having grown too wicked, God indeed intended their end. As Langland wrote,
God is deaf now-a-days and deigneth not hear us,
And prayers have no power the Plague to stay. [109]
In terrible reversal, St. Roch and other saints now came to
be considered a source of the plague, as instruments of
God’s wrath. “In the time of that great mortality in the year
of our Lord 1348,” wrote a professor of law named Bartolus
of Sassoferrato, “the hostility of God was stronger than the
hostility of man.” But he was wrong.
The hostility of man proved itself against the Jews. On
charges that they were poisoning the wells with intent “to
kill and destroy the whole of Christendom and have lordship
over all the world,” the lynchings began in the spring of
1348 on the heels of the first plague deaths. The first attacks
occurred in Narbonne and Carcassonne, where Jews were
dragged from their houses and thrown into bonfires. While
Divine punishment was accepted as the plague’s source,
people in their misery still looked for a human agent upon
whom to vent the hostility that could not be vented on God.
The Jew, as the eternal stranger, was the most obvious target. He was the outsider who had separated himself by
choice from the Chistian world, whom Christians for centuries had been taught to hate, who was regarded as imbued
with unsleeping malevolence against all Christians. Living
in a distinct group of his own kind in a particular street or
quarter, he was also the most feasible target, with property
to 1oot as a further inducement.
The accusation of well-poisoning was as old as the
plague of Athens, when it had been applied to the Spartans,
and as recent as the epidemics of 1320-21, when it had been
applied to lepers. At that time the lepers were believed to
have acted at the instigation of the Jews and the Moslem
King of Granada, in a great conspiracy of outcasts to destroy
Christians. Hundreds were rounded up and burned throughout France in 1322 and the Jews heavily punished by an
official fine and unofficial attacks. When the plague came,
the charge was instantly revived against the Jews:
… rivers and fountains
That were clear and clean
They poisoned in many places …
wrote the French court poet Guillaume de Machaut.
The antagonism had ancient roots. The Jew had become
the object of popular animosity because the early Church, as
an offshoot of Judaism striving to replace the parent, had to
make him so. His rejection of Christ as Saviour and his
dogged refusal to accept the new law of the Gospel in place
of the Mosaic law made the Jew a perpetual insult to the
newly established Church, a danger who must be kept distinct and apart from the Christian community. This was the
purpose of the [110] edicts depriving Jews of their civil
rights issued by the early Church Councils in the 4th century
as soon as Christianity, became the state religion. Separation
was a two-way street, since, to the Jews, Christianity was at
first a dissident sect, then an apostasy with which they
wanted no contact.
The theory, emotions, and justifications of anti-Semitism
were laid at that time — in the canon law codified by the
Councils; in the tirades of St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of
Antioch, who denounced the Jews as Christ-killers; in the
judgment of St. Augustine, who declared the Jews to be
“outcasts” for failing to accept redemption by Christ. The
Jews dispersion was regarded as their punishment for unbelief.
The period of active assault began with the age of the
crusades, when all Europe’s intramural antagonisms were
gathered into one bolt aimed at the Infidel. On the theory
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 10 of 17
that the “infidel at home” should likewise be exterminated,
massacres of Jewish communities marked the crusaders’
march to Palestine. The capture of the Holy Sepulcher by
the Moslems was blamed on “the wickedness of the Jews,”
and the cry “HEP! HEP!” Hierosolyma est Perdita (Jerusalem is lost) became the call for murder. What man victimizes he fears; thus, the Jews were pictured as fiends filled
with hatred of the human race, which they secretly intended
to destroy.
The question whether Jews had certain human rights under the general proposition that God created the world for
all men including infidels, was given different answers by
different thinkers. Officially the Church conceded some
rights: that Jews should not be condemned without trial,
their synagogues and cemeteries should not be profaned,
their property not be robbed with impunity. In practice this
meant little because, as non-citizens of the universal Christian state, Jews were not allowed to bring charges against
Christians, nor was Jewish testimony allowed to prevail
over that of Christians. Their legal status was that of serfs of
the king, though without reciprocal obligations on the part
of the overlord. The doctrine that Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude as Christ-killers was announced by Pope
Innocent III in 1205 and led Thomas Aquinas to conclude
with relentless logic that “since Jews are the slaves of the
Church, she can dispose of their possessions.” Legally, politically, and physically, they were totally vulnerable.
They maintained a place in society because as moneylenders they performed a role essential to the kings’ continuous need of money. Excluded by the guilds from crafts
and trades, they had been pushed into petty commerce and
moneylending although theoretically barred from dealing
with Chnstians. Theory, however, bends to convenience,
[111] and Jews provided Christians with a way around their
self-imposed ban on using money to make money.
Since they were damned anyway, they were permitted to
lend at interest rates of 20 percent and more,’ of which the
royal ‘treasury took the major share. The increment to the
crown was in fact a form of indirect taxation; as its instruments, the Jews absorbed an added measure of popular hate.
They lived entirely dependent upon the king’s protection,
subject to confiscations and expulsions and the hazards of
royal favor. Nobles and prelates followed the royal example,
entrusting money to the Jews for lending and taking most of
the profits, while deflecting popular resentment upon the
agent. To the common man the Jews were not only Christkillers but rapacious, merciless monsters, symbols of the
new force of money that was changing old ways and dissolving old ties.
As commerce swelled in the 12th and 13th centuries, increasing the flow of money, the Jews’ position deteriorated
in proportion as they were less needed. They could not deal
in the great sums that Christian banking houses like the
Bardi of Florence could command. Kings and princes requiring ever larger amounts now turned to the Lombards
and wealthy merchants for loans and relaxed their protection
of the Jews or, when in need of hard cash, decreed their expulsion while confiscating their property and the debts owed
to them. At the same time, with the advent of the Inquisition
in the 13th century, religious intolerance waxed, leading to
the charge of ritual murder against the Jews and the enforced wearing of a distinctive badge.
The belief that Jews performed ritual murder of Christian
victims, supposedly from a compulsion to re-enact the Crucifixion, began in the 12th century and developed into the
belief that they held secret rites to desecrate the host. Promoted by popular preachers, a mythology of blood grew in a
mirror image of the Christian ritual of drinking the blood of
the Saviour. Jews were believed to kidnap and torture Christian children, whose blood they drank for a variety of sinister purposes ranging from sadism and sorcery to the need, as
unnatural beings, for Christian blood to give them a human
appearance. Though bitterly refuted by the rabbis and condemned by emperor and pope, the blood libel took possession of the popular mind most rabidly in Germany, where
the well-poisoning charge too had originated in the 12th
century. The blood libel formed the subject of Chaucer’s
tale of a child martyr told by the Prioresse and was the
ground on which many Jews were, charged, tried, and
burned at the stake.
Under the zeal of St. Louis, whose life’s object was the
greater glory and fulfillment of Christian doctrine, Jewish
life in France was [112] narrowed and harassed by mounting
restrictions. The famous trial of the Talmud for heresy and
blasphemy took place in Paris in 1240 during his reign, ending in foreordained conviction and burning of 24 cartloads
of Talmudic works. One of the disputants in the case was
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, intellectual leader of the
northern Jewish community in the time of Enguerrand III.
Throughout the century the Church multiplied decrees
designed to isolate Jews from Christian society, on the theory that contact with them brought the Christian faith into
disrepute. Jews were forbidden to employ Christians as servants, to serve as doctors to Christians, to intermarry, to sell
flour, bread, wine, oil, shoes, or any article of clothing to
Christians, to deliver or receive goods, to build new synagogues, to hold or claim land for non-payment of mortgage.
The occupations from which guild rules barred them included weaving, metalworking, mining, tailoring, shoemak-
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 11 of 17
ing, goldsmithing, baking, milling, carpentry. To mark their
separation, Innocent III in 1215 decreed the wearing of a
badge, usually in the form of a wheel or circular patch of
yellow felt, said to represent a piece of money. Sometimes
green or red-and-white, it was worn by both sexes beginning
between the ages of seven and fourteen. In its struggle
against all heresy and dissent, the 13th century Church imposed the same badge on Moslems, on convicted heretics,
and, by some quirk in doctrine, on prostitutes. A hat with a
point rather like a horn, said to represent the Devil, was later
added further to distinguish the Jews.
Expulsions and persecutions were marked by one constant factor — seizure of Jewish property. As the chronicler
William of Newburgh wrote of the massacre of York in
1190, the slaughter was less the work of religious zeal than
of bold and covetous men who wrought “the business of
their own greed.” The motive was the same for official expulsion by towns or kings. When the Jews drifted back to
resettle in villages, market towns and particularly in cities,
they continued in moneylending and retail trade, kept pawnshops, found an occupation as gravediggers, and lived close
together in a narrow Jewish quarter for mutual protection. In
Provence, drawing on their contact with the Arabs of Spain
and North Africa, they were scholars and sought-after physicians. But the vigorous inner life of their earlier communities had faded. In an excitable period they lived on the edge
of assault that was always imminent. It was understood that
the Church could “justly ordain war upon them” as enemies
of Christendom.
In the torment of the plague it was easy to credit Jewish
malevolence with poisoning the wells. In 1348 Clement VI
issued a Bull prohibiting the killing, looting, or forcible
conversion of Jews without [113] trial, which halted the attacks in Avignon and the Papal States but was ignored as
the rage swept northward. Authorities in most places tried at
first to protect the Jews, but succumbed to popular pressure,
not without an eye to potential forfeit of Jewish property.
In Savoy, where the first formal trials were held in September 1348, the Jews’ property was confiscated while they
remained in prison pending investigation of charges. Composed from confessions extracted by torture according to the
usual medieval method, the charges drew a picture of an
international Jewish conspiracy emanating from Spain, with
messengers from Toledo carrying poison in little packets or
in a “narrow stitched leather bag.” The messengers allegedly
brought rabbinical instructions for sprinkling the poison in
wells and springs, and consulted with their co-religionists in
secret meetings. Duly found guilty, the accused were condemned to death. Eleven Jews were burned alive and the
rest subjected to a tax of 160 florins every month over the
next six years for permission to remain in Savoy.
The confessions obtained in Savoy, distributed by letter
from town to town, formed the basis for a wave of accusations and attacks throughout Alsace, Switzerland, and Germany. At a meeting of representatives of Alsatian towns, the
oligarchy of Strasbourg attempted to refute the charges but
were overwhelmed by the majority demanding reprisal and
expulsion. The persecutions of the Black Death were not all
spontaneous outbursts but action seriously discussed beforehand. Again Pope Clement attempted to check the hysteria in a Bull of September 1348 in which he said that
Christians who imputed the pestilence to the Jews had been
“seduced by that liar, the Devil,” and that the charge of
well-poisoning and ensuing massacres were a “horrible
thing.” He pointed out that “by a mysterious decree of God”
the plague was afflicting all peoples, including Jews; that it
raged in places where no Jews lived, and that elsewhere they
were victims like everyone else; therefore the charge that
they caused it was “without plausibility.” He urged the
clergy to take Jews under their protection as he himself offered to do in Avignon, but his voice was hardly heard
against local animus.
In Basle on January 9, 1349, the whole community of
several hundred Jews was burned in a wooden house especially constructed for the purpose on an island in the Rhine,
and a decree was passed that no Jew should be allowed to
settle in Basle for 200 years. In Strasbourg the Town Council, which opposed persecution, was deposed by vote of the
guilds and another was elected, prepared to comply with the
popular will. In February 1349, before the plague had yet
reached the city, the Jews of Strasbourg, numbering 2,000,
were taken to the [114] burial ground, where all except those
who accepted conversion were burned at rows of stakes
erected to receive them.
By now another voice was fomenting attack upon the
Jews. The flagellants had appeared. In desperate supplication for God’s mercy, their movement erupted in a sudden
frenzy that sped across Europe with the same fiery contagion as the plague. Self-flagellation was intended to express
remorse and expiate the sins of all. As’ a form of penance to
induce God to forgive sin, it long antedated the plague
years. The flagellants saw themselves as redeemers who, by
re-enacting the scourging of Christ upon their own bodies
and making the blood flow, would atone for human wickedness and earn another chance for mankind.
Organized groups of 200 to 300 and sometimes more
(the chroniclers mention up to 1,000) marched from city to
city, stripped to the waist, scourging themselves with leather
whips tipped with iron spikes until they bled. While they
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 12 of 17
cried aloud to Christ and the Virgin for pity, and called upon
God to “Spare us!”, the watching townspeople sobbed and
groaned in sympathy. These bands put on regular performances three times a day, twice in public in the church
square and a third in privacy. Organized under a lay Master
for a stated period, usually 33 1/2 days to represent Christ’s
years on earth, the participants were required to pledge selfsupport at 4 pence a day or other fixed rate and to swear
obedience to the Master. They were forbidden to bathe,
shave, change their clothes, sleep in beds, talk or have intercourse with women without the Master’s permission. Evidently this was not withheld, since the flagellants were later
charged with orgies in which whipping combined with sex.
Women accompanied the groups in a separate section,
bringing up the rear. If a woman or priest entered the circle
of the ceremony, the act of penance was considered void
and had to be begun over again. The movement was essentially anti-clerical, for in challenge to the priesthood, the
flagellants were taking. upon themselves the role of interceders with God for all humanity.
Breaking out now in the German states, the new eruption
advanced through the Low Countries to Flanders and
Picardy as far as Reims. Hundreds of bands roamed the
land, entering new towns every week, exciting already
overwrought emotions, reciting hymns of woe and claims
that but for them “all Christendom would meet perdition.”
The inhabitants greeted them with reverence and ringing of
church bells, lodged them in their houses, brought children
to be healed and, in at least one case, to be resurrected. They
dipped cloths in the flagellants’ blood, which they pressed
to their eyes and preserved as relics. Many, including
knights and ladies, clerics, nuns, and children, joined the
[115] bands. Soon the flagellants were marching behind
magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold embroidered
for them by women enthusiasts.
Growing in arrogance, they became overt in antagonism
to the Church. The Masters assumed the right to hear confession and grant absolution or impose penance, which not
only denied the priests their fee for these services but challenged ecclesiastical authority at its core. Priests who intervened against them were stoned and the populace was incited to join in the stoning. Opponents were denounced as
scorpions and Anti-Christs. Organized in some cases by
apostate priests or fanatic dissidents, the flagellants took
possession of churches, disrupted services, ridiculed the
Eucharist, looted altars, and claimed the power to cast out
evil spirits and raise the dead. The movement that began as
an attempt through self-inflicted pain to save the world from
destruction, caught the infection of power hunger and aimed
at taking over the Church.
They began to be feared as a source of revolutionary
ferment and a threat to the propertied class, lay as well as
ecclesiastical. The Emperor Charles IV petitioned the Pope
to suppress the flagellants, and his appeal was augmented by
the no less imperial voice of the University of Paris. At such
a time, when the world seemed to be on the brink of doom,
to take action against the flagellants who claimed to be under Divine inspiration was not an easy decision. Several of
the cardinals at Avignon opposed repressive measures.
The self-torturers meanwhile had found a better victim.
In every town they entered, the flagellants rushed for the
Jewish quarter, trailed by citizens howling for revenge upon
the “poisoners of the wells.” In Freiburg, Augsburg, Nürnberg, Munich, Königsberg, Regensburg, and other centers,
the Jews were slaughtered with a thoroughness that seemed
to seek the final solution. At Worms in March 1349 the Jewish community of 400, like that of York, turned to an old
tradition and burned themselves to death inside their own
houses rather than be killed by their enemies. The larger
community of Frankfurt-am-Main took the same way in
July, setting fire to part of the city by their flames. In Cologne the Town Council repeated the Pope’s argument that
Jews were dying of the plague like everyone else, but the
flagellants collected a great proletarian crowd of “those who
had nothing to lose,” and paid no attention. In Mainz, which
had the largest Jewish community in Europe, its members
turned at last to self-defense. With arms collected in advance they killed 200 of the mob, an act which only served
to bring down upon them a furious onslaught by the townspeople in revenge for the death of Christians. The Jews
fought until overpowered; then retreating to their homes,
they too set their [116] own fires. Six thousand were said to
have perished at Mainz on August 24, 1349. Of 3,000 Jews
at Erfurt, none was reported to have survived.
Completeness is rare in history, and Jewish chroniclers
may have shared the medieval addiction to sweeping numbers. Usually a number saved themselves by conversion,
and groups of refugees were given shelter by Rupert of the
Palatinate and other princes. Duke Albert II of Austria,
grand-uncle of Enguerrand VII, was one of the few who
took measures effective enough to protect the Jews from
assault in his territories. The last pogroms took place in
Antwerp and in Brussels where in December 1349 the entire
Jewish community was exterminated. By the time the
plague had passed, few Jews were left in Germany or the
Low Countries.
By this time Church and state were ready to take the risk
of suppressing the flagellants. Magistrates ordered town
gates closed against them; Clement VI in a Bull of October
1349 called for their dispersal and arrest; the University of
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 13 of 17
Paris denied their claim of Divine inspiration. Philip VI
promptly forbade public flagellation on pain of death; local
rulers pursued the “masters of error,” seizing, hanging, and
beheading. The flagellants disbanded and fled, “vanishing as
suddenly as they had come,” wrote Henry of Hereford, “like
night phantoms or mocking ghosts.” Here and there the
bands lingered, not entirely suppressed until 1357.
Homeless ghosts, the Jews filtered back from eastern
Europe, where the expelled had gone. Two Jews reappeared
in Erfurt as visitors in 1354 and, joined by others, started a
resettlement three years later. By 1365 the community numbered 86 taxable hearths and an additional number of poor
households below the tax-paying level. Here and elsewhere
they returned to live in weakened and fearful communities
on worse terms and in greater segregation than before. Wellpoisoning and its massacres had fixed the malevolent image
of the Jew into a stereotype. Because Jews were useful,
towns which had enacted statutes of banishment invited or
allowed their re-entry, but imposed new disabilities. Former
contacts of scholars, physicians, and financial “court Jews”
with the Gentile community faded. The period of the Jews’
medieval flourishing was over. The walls of the ghetto,
though not yet physical, had risen.
What was the human condition after the plague? Exhausted by deaths and sorrows and the morbid excesses of
fear and hate, it ought to have shown some profound effects,
but no radical change was immediately visible. The persistence of the normal is strong. While dying [117] of the
plague, the tenants of Bruton Priory in England continued to
pay the heriot owed to the lord at death with such obedient
regularity that fifty oxen and cattle were received by the
priory within a few months. Social change was to come invisibly with time; immediate effects were· many but not
uniform. Simon de Covino believed the plague had a baneful effect upon morals, “lowering virtue throughout the
world.” Gilles li Muisis, on the other hand, thought there
had been an improvement in public morals because many
people formerly living in concubinage had now married (as
a result of town ordinances), and swearing and gambling
had so diminished that manufacturers of dice were turning
their product into beads for telling paternosters.
The marriage rate undoubtedly rose, though not for love.
So many adventurers took advantage of orphans to obtain
rich dowries that the oligarchy of Siena forbade the marriage of female orphans without their kinsmen’s consent. In
England, Piers Plowman deplored the many pairs “since the
pestilence” who had married “for greed of goods and against
natural feeling,” with result, according to him, in “guilt and
grief … jealousy, joylessness and jangling in private” — and
no children. It suited Piers as a moralist that such marriages
should be barren. Jean de Venette, on the other hand, says of
the marriages that followed the plague that many twins,
sometimes triplets, were born and that few women were
barren. Perhaps he in turn reflected a desperate need to believe that nature would make up the loss, and in fact men
and women married immediately afterward in unusual numbers.
Unlike the dice transformed into prayer beads, people
did not improve, although it had been expected, according to
Matteo Villani, that the experience of God’s wrath would
have left them “better men, humble, virtuous and Catholic.”
Instead, “They forgot the past as though it had never been
and gave themselves up to a more disordered and shameful
life than they had led before.” With a glut of merchandise
on the shelves for too few customers, prices at first plunged
and survivors indulged in a wild orgy of spending. The poor
moved into empty houses, slept on beds, and ate off silver.
Peasants acquired unclaimed tools and livestock, even a
wine press, forge, or mill left without owners, and other
possessions they never had before. Commerce was depressed, but the amount of currency was in greater supply
because there were fewer people to share it.
Behavior grew more reckless and callous, as it often
does after a period of violence and suffering. It was blamed
on parvenus and the newly rich who pushed up from below.
Siena renewed its sumptuary laws in 1349 because many
persons were pretending to higher position than belonged to
them by birth or occupation. But, on the whole, local [118]
studies of tax rolls indicate that while the population may
have been halved, its social proportions remained about the
same.
Because of intestate deaths, property without heirs, and
disputed title to land and houses, a fury of litigation arose,
made chaotic by the shortage of notaries. Sometimes squatters, sometimes the Church, took over emptied property.
Fraud and extortion practiced upon orphans by their appointed guardians became a scandal. In Orvieto brawls kept
breaking out; bands of homeless and starving brigands
roamed the countryside and pillaged up to the very gates of
the city. People were arrested for carrying arms and for acts
of vandalism, especially on vineyards. The commune had to
enact new regulations against certain rascals, sons of iniquity” who robbed and burned the premises of shopkeepers
and craftsmen, and also against increased prostitution. On
March 12, 1350, the commune reminded citizens of the severe penalty in store for sexual relations between Christian
and Jew: the woman involved would be beheaded or burned
alive.
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 14 of 17
Education suffered from losses among the clergy. In
France, according to Jean de Venette, “few were found in
houses, villas and castles who were able and willing to instruct boys in grammar” — a situation that could have
touched the life of Enguerrand VII. To fill vacant benefices
the Church ordained priests in batches, many of them men
who had lost their wives or families in the plague and
flocked to holy orders as a refuge. Many were barely literate, “as it were mere lay folk” who might read a little but
without understanding. Priests who survived the plague,
declared the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1350, had become
“infected by insatiable avarice,” charging excessive fees and
neglecting souls.
By a contrary trend, education was stimulated by concern for the survival of learning, which led to a spurt in the
founding of universities. Notably the Emperor Charles IV,
an intellectual, felt keenly the cause of “precious knowledge
which the mad rage of pestilential death has stifled throughout the wide realms of the world.” He founded the University of Prague in the plague year of 1348 and issued Imperial accreditation to five other universities — Orange, Perugia, Siena, Pavia, and Lucca — in the next five years. In the
same five years three new colleges were founded at Cambridge — Trinity, Corpus Christi, and Clare — although
love of learning, like love in marriage, was not always the
motive. Corpus Christi was founded in 1352 because fees
for celebrating masses for the dead were so inflated after the
plague that two guilds of Cambridge decided to establish a
college whose scholars, as clerics, would be required to pray
for their deceased members.
Under the circumstances, education did not everywhere
flourish. [119] Dwindling attendance at Oxford was deplored
in sermons by the masters. At the University of Bologna,
mourned Petrarch twenty years later (in a series of letters
called “Of Senile Things”), where once there was “nothing
more joyous, nothing more free in the world,” hardly one of
all the former great lecturers was left, and in the place of so
many great geniuses, “a universal ignorance has seized the
city.” But pestilence was not alone responsible; wars and
other troubles had added their scars.
The obvious and immediate result of the Black Death
was, of course, a shrunken population, which, owing to
wars, brigandage, and recurrence of the plague, declined
even further by the end of the 14th century. The plague laid
a curse on the century in the form of its own bacillus.
Lodged in the vectors, it was to break out again six times
over the next six decades in various localities at varying
intervals of ten to fifteen years. After killing off most of
those susceptible, with increasing mortality of children in
the later phases, it eventually receded, leaving Europe with a
population reduced by about 40 percent in 1380 and by
nearly 50 percent at the end of the century. The city of
Béziers in southern France, which had 14,000 inhabitants in
1304, numbered 4,000 a century later, The fishing port of
Jonquières near Marseille, which once had 354 taxable
hearths, was reduced to 135. The flourishing cities of Carcassonne and Montpellier shrank to shadows of their former
prosperity, as did Rouen, Arras, Laon, and Reims in the
north. The vanishing of taxable material caused rulers to
raise rates of taxation, arousing resentment that was to explode in repeated outbreaks in coming decades.
As between landowner and peasant, the balance of impoverishment and enrichment caused by the plague on the
whole favored the peasant, although what was true in one
place often had an equal and opposite reaction somewhere
else. The relative values of land and labor were turned upside down. Peasants found their rents reduced and even relinquished for one or more years by landowners desperate to
keep their fields in cultivation. Better no revenue at all than
that cleared land should be retaken by the wilderness. But
with fewer hands to work, cultivated land necessarily
shrank. The archives of the Abbey of Ramsay in England
show that thirty years after the plague the acreage sowed in
grain was less than half what it had been before. Five plows
owned by the abbey in 1307 were reduced to one a century
later, and twenty-eight oxen to five.
Hill farms and sections of poor soil were let go or turned
to pasture for sheep, which required less labor. Villages
weakened by depopulation and unable to resist the enclosure
of land for sheep were deserted in increasing numbers.
Property boundaries vanished when fields [120] reverted to
wasteland. If claimed by someone who was able to cultivate
them, former owners or their heirs could not collect rent.
Landowners impoverished by these factors sank out of sight
or let castles and manors decay while they entered the military brigandage that was to be the curse of the following
decades.
When death slowed production, goods became scarce
and prices soared. In France the price of wheat increased
fourfold by 1350. At the same time the shortage of labor
brought the plague’s greatest social disruption — a concerted demand for higher wages. Peasants as well as artisans, craftsmen, clerks, and priests discovered the lever of
their own scarcity. Within a year after the plague had passed
through northern France, the textile workers of St. Omer
near Amiens had gained three successive wage increases. In
many guilds artisans struck for higher pay and shorter hours.
In an age when social conditions were regarded as fixed,
such action was revolutionary.
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 15 of 17
The response of rulers was instant repression. In the effort to hold wages at pre-plague levels, the English issued an
ordinance in 1349 requiring everyone to work for the same
pay as in 1347. Penalties were established for refusal to
work, for leaving a place of employment to seek higher pay,
and for the offer of higher pay by employers. Proclaimed
when Parliament was not sitting, the ordinance was reissued
in 1351 as the Statute of Laborers. It denounced not only
laborers who demanded higher wages but particularly those
who chose “rather to beg in idleness than to earn their bread
in labor.” Idleness of the worker was a crime against society, for the medieval system rested on his obligation to
work. The Statute of Laborers was not simply a reactionary
dream but an effort to maintain the system. It provided that
every able-bodied person under sixty with no means of subsistence must work for whoever required him, that no alms
could be given to able-bodied beggars, that a vagrant serf
could be forced to work for anyone who claimed him. Down
to the 20th century this statute was to serve as the basis for
“conspiracy” laws against labor in the long struggle to prevent unionization.
A more realistic French statute or 1351, applying only to
the region of Paris, allowed a rise in wages not to exceed
one third of the former level. Prices were fixed and profits
of middlemen were regulated. To increase production,
guilds were required to loosen their restrictions on the number of apprentices and shorten the period before they could
become masters.
In both countries, as shown by repeated renewals or the
laws with rising penalties, the statutes were unenforceable.
Violations cited by the English Parliament in 1352 show
workers demanding and [121] employers paying wages at
double and treble the pre-plague rate. Stocks were ordered
set up in every town for punishment of offenders. In 1360
imprisonment replaced fines as the penalty and fugitive laborers were declared outlaws. If caught, they were to be
branded on the forehead with F for “fugitive” (or possibly
for “falsity”). New laws were enacted twice more in the
1360s, breeding the resistance that was to come to a head in
the great outbreak of 1381.
The sense of sin induced by the plague found surcease in
the plenary indulgence offered by the Jubilee Year of 1350
to all who in that year made the pilgrimage to Rome. Originally established by Boniface VIII in 1300, the Jubilee was
intended to make an indulgence available to all repentant
and confessed sinners free of charge — that is, if they could
afford the journey to Rome. Boniface intended the Jubilee
Year as a centennial event, but the first one had been such
an enormous success, attracting a reported two million visitors to Rome in the course of the year, that the city, impoverished by the loss of the papacy to Avignon, petitioned
Clement VI to shorten the interval to fifty years. The Pope
of the joyous murals operated on the amiable principle that
“a pontiff should make his subjects happy.” He complied
with Rome’s request in a Bull of 1343.
Momentously for the Church, Clement formulated in the
same Bull the theory of indulgences, and fixed its fatal
equation with money. The sacrifice of Christ’s blood, he
stated, together with the merit added by the Virgin and
saints, had established an inexhaustible treasury for the use
of pardons. By contributing sums to the Church, anyone
could buy a share in the Treasury of Merit. What the Church
gained in revenue by this arrangement was matched in the
end by loss in respect.
In 1350 pilgrims thronged the roads to Rome, camping
around fires at night. Five thousand people were said to enter or leave the city every day, enriching the householders,
who gave them lodging despite shortages of food and forage
and the dismal state of the city’s resources. Without its pontiff the Eternal City was destitute, the three chief basilicas in
ruins, San Paolo toppled by the earthquake, the Lateran halfcollapsed. Rubble and ruin filled the streets, the seven hills
were silent and deserted, goats nibbled in the weed-grown
cloisters of deserted convents. The sight of roofless
churches exposed to wind and rain, lamented Petrarch,
“would excite pity in a heart of stone.” Nevertheless, famous saints’ relics raked in lavish offerings, and Cardinal
Anibaldo Ceccano, Legate for the Jubilee, administered an
immense program of absolutions and indulgences to the
crowds craving [122] remission of sin. During Lent, according to Villani, who took a special interest in figures, as
many as a million were in Rome at one time. The inpouring
suggests either extraordinary recklessness and vigor so soon
after the plague or a great need for salvation — or possibly
that conditions did not seem as bad to participants as they
seem in report.
The Church emerged from the plague richer if not more
unpopular. When sudden death threatened everyone with the
prospect of being carried off in a state of sin, the result was
a flood of bequests to religious institutions. St. Germain
l’Auxerrois in Paris received 49 legacies in nine months,
compared to 78 in the previous eight years. As early as October 1348 the Council of Siena suspended its annual appropriations for religious charities for two years because
these were so “immensely enriched and indeed fattened” by
bequests. In Florence the Company of Or San Michele received 350,000 florins intended as alms for the poor, although in this case the directors of the company were ac-
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 16 of 17
cused of using the money for their own purposes on the
grounds that the very poor and needy were dead.
While the Church garnered money, personal attacks on
the clergy increased, stimulated partly by the flagellants,
and partly by the failure of priests during the plague to live
up to their responsibilities. That they died like other men
was doubtless forgiven, but that they let Christians die without the sacraments or charged more for their services in the
crisis, as many did, was violently resented. Even during the
Jubilee the Roman populace, moved by some mysterious
tremor of local hostility, jeered and harassed the CardinalLegate. On one occasion, as he was riding in a procession,
he was shot at by a sniper and returned pale and trembling
with an arrow through his red hat. Venturing out thereafter
only with a helmet under his hat and a coat of mail under his
gown, he departed for Naples as soon as he could, and died
on the way — poisoned, it was said, by wine.
In England, where anti-clericalism was endemic, citizens
of Worcester in 1349 broke down the gates of the Priory of
St. Mary attached to the cathedral, attacked the monks,
“chased the Prior with bows and arrows and other offensive
weapons,” and tried to set fire to the buildings. At Yeovil in
the same year, when the Bishop of Bath and Wells held a
thanksgiving service to mark the passing of the plague, it
was interrupted by “certain sons of perdition” who kept the
Bishop and congregation besieged in the church all night
until rescue came.
Enriched by legacies, the friars’ orders too reaped animus on top of that already felt for them. When Knighton
reported the total demise of 150 Franciscans at Marseille, he
added: “bene quidem” (a good thing), and of the seven friars
who survived out of 160 at Maguelonne,’ [123] he wrote:
“and that was enough.” The mendicant orders could not be
forgiven for embracing Mammon and “seeking after earthly
and carnal things.”
The plague accelerated discontent with the Church at the
very moment when people felt a greater need of spiritual
reassurance. There had to be some meaning in the terrorizing experience God had inflicted. If the purpose had been to
shake man from his sinful ways, it had failed. Human conduct was found to be “wickeder than before,” more avaricious and grasping, more litigious, more bellicose, and this
was nowhere more apparent than in the Church itself. Clement VI, though hardly a spiritual man, was sufficiently
shaken by the plague to burst out against his prelates in a
tirade of anger and shame when they petitioned him in 1351
to abolish the mendicant orders. And if he did, the Pope
replied, “What can you preach to the people? If on humility,
you yourselves are the proudest of the world, puffed up,
pompous and sumptuous in luxuries. If on poverty, you are
so covetous that all the benefices in the world are not
enough for you. If on chastity — but we will be silent on
this, for God knoweth what each man does and how many
of you satisfy your lusts.” In this sad view of his fellow clerics the head of the Church died a year later.
“When those who have the title of shepherd play the part
of wolves,” said Lothar of Saxony, “heresy grows in the
garden of the Church.” While the majority of people doubtless plodded on as before, dissatisfaction with the Church
gave impetus to heresy and dissent, to all those seeking God
through the mystical sects, to all the movements for reform
which were ultimately to break apart the empire of Catholic
unity.
Survivors of the plague, finding themselves neither destroyed nor improved, could discover no Divine purpose in
the pain they had suffered. God’s purposes were usually
mysterious, but this scourge had been too terrible to be accepted without questioning. If a disaster of such magnitude,
the most lethal ever known, was a mere wanton act of God
or perhaps not God’s work at all, then the absolutes of a
fixed order were loosed from their moorings. Minds that
opened to admit these questions could never again be shut.
Once people envisioned the possibility of change in a fixed
order, the end of an age of submission came in sight; the
turn to individual conscience lay ahead. To that extent the
Black Death may have been the unrecognized beginning of
modern man.
Meantime it left apprehension, tension, and gloom. It accelerated [124] the commutation of labor services on the
land and in so doing unfastened old ties. It deepened antagonism between rich and. poor and raised the level of human hostility. An event of great agony is bearable only in
the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it
does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity in
1914-18, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and
self-disgust. In creating a climate for pessimism, the Black
Death was the equivalent of the First World War, although it
took fifty years for the psychological effects to develop.
These were the fifty-odd years of the youth and adult life of
Enguerrand de Coucy.
A strange personification of Death emerged from the
plague years on the painted walls of the Camposanto in
Pisa. The figure is not the conventional skeleton, but a
black-cloaked old woman with streaming hair and wild
eyes, carrying a broad-bladed murderous scythe. Her feet
end in claws instead of toes. Depicting the Triumph of
Death, the fresco was painted in or about 1350 by Francesco
Traini as part of a series that included scenes of the Last
Judgment and the Tortures of Hell. The same subject,
Tuchman, “The Black Death” 17 of 17
painted at the same time by Traini’s master, Andrea Orcagna, in the church of Santa Croce in Florence, has since
been lost except for a fragment. Together the frescoes
marked the start of a pervasive presence of Death in art, not
yet the cult it was to become by the end of the century, but
its beginning.
Usually Death was personified as a skeleton with hourglass and scythe, in a white shroud or bare-boned, grinning
at the irony of man s fate reflected in his image: that all
men, from beggar to emperor, from harlot to queen, from
ragged clerk to Pope, must come to this. No matter what
their poverty or power in life, all is vanity, equalized by
death. The temporal is nothing; what matters is the after-life
of the soul.
In Traini’s fresco, Death swoops through the air toward a
group of carefree, young, and beautiful noblemen and ladies
who, like. models for Boccaccio’s storytellers, converse and
flirt and entertain each other with books and music in a fragrant grove of orange trees. A scroll warns that “no shield of
wisdom or riches, nobility or prowess” can protect them
from the blows of the Approaching One. “They have taken
more pleasure in the world than in things of God. In a heap
of corpses nearby lie crowned rulers, a Pope in tiara, a
knight, tumbled together with the bodies of the poor, while
angels and devils in the sky contend for the miniature naked
figures that represent their souls. A wretched group of lepers, cripples, and beggars (duplicated in the surviving fragment of Orcagna), one with nose eaten away, others legless
or blind or holding out a cloth-covered stump instead of a
hand, [125] implore Death for deliverance. Above on a
mountain, hermits leading a religious contemplative life
await death peaceably.
Below in a scene of extraordinary verve a hunting party
of princes and elegant ladies on horseback comes with sudden horror upon three open coffins containing corpses in
different stages of decomposition, one still clothed, one
half-rotted, one a skeleton. Vipers crawl over their bones.
The scene illustrates “The Three Living and Three Dead,” a
13th century legend which tells of a meeting between three
young nobles and three decomposing corpses who tell them,
“What you are, we were. What we are, you will be.” In
Traini’s fresco, a horse catching the stench of death stiffens
in fright with outstretched neck and flaring nostrils; his rider
clutches a handkerchief to his nose. The hunting dogs recoil,
growling in repulsion. In their silks and curls and fashionable hats, the party of vital handsome men and women stare
appalled at what they will become