Background Reading

In October 1347, Italian ships on the Black Sea en route to and from China dock in Messina, Sicily -- their crews are dead or dying. Whatever is killing them quickly spreads ashore. Within a month, it passes through Sicily and moves back out over water. By January 1348, it has penetrated France via Marseille and North Africa via Tunis, and by July 1348, it spreads through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Eastern Hungary, and Southern England. This is all the more amazing given that at this time it took a person one to three months to travel from London to Rome. The plague died out in the winters and was resurrected in the springs. At the end of 1349, it had spread throughout the British Isles and Scandinavia and continued to move east.

The death toll was massive -- the "official" figure is one-third of Europe dead between 1348 and 1351, when it temporarily abated, but keep in mind that in some towns the death toll was 90 percent -- in others 10 percent. Further, the poor and anyone else living in close quarters (monks, for instance) died at a higher rate. Many monasteries were completely wiped out, but the death rates among the nobility and the nobility of the church were very low. Understandably, people wanted to know why this was happening to them. Here are the four prominent hypotheses of the day:

The claim of academics and physicians: The plague was the result of a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on March 20, 1345.

The Roman Catholic Church's claim: God's wrath -- it was a punishment for the people's sins.

The claim of the mayors and town-controlling nobles: Poor sanitation. Dumping waste in the streets leads to sickness (a revolutionary claim at the time -- no one actually knew this to be true).

The claim of the masses (i.e., everyone else): The Jews are poisoning the wells.

Here is the "evidence" used by each group, respectively, to support its claim:

Medicine at the time was based on astrology and astronomy. Most physical sickness was attributed to poor alignment of the stars. The conjunction had happened, and it was a rare celestial event. Other events had been tied to celestial causes. Many were waiting to see what the triple conjunction would cause, and when the Black Plague occurred, they felt that they had found out.

The Church said, "Look around." Plunder, looting, rape, prostitution, war, and drinking were everywhere. God's wrath had shown itself in destructive ways before -- the people of Noah's time were hit with a flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

The sanitation workers were among the first to die, and other diseases were suspected to be related to poor sanitation.

Christians tortured "confessions" out of Jews. The Jews were believed to be "jealous" of the Christians (because, it was thought, the Jews knew "in their hearts" that they were damned). The lepers had been blamed for poisoning the wells and causing the typhus outbreak in 1320 (after the Black Plague, it was believed that the Jews set them up to it).

Here are some problems people at the time saw with the evidence:

Nobody but the academics and physicians believed their explanation!

If God's wrath already has descended, there's no reason to change one's behavior. The attitude was roughly, "If we're already doomed, why alter our behavior?"

Later sanitation workers appeared to be immune (unknown to the people, they'd been exposed and had developed a resistance). If it really was poor sanitation, why weren't they still dying? In fact, this immunity among sanitation workers caused many people to think the sanitation workers had magical powers. People followed them on their street-cleaning routes, trying to absorb some of the immunity. Others, more desperate, actually applied waste to themselves, thinking that it would keep the disease away.

So many Jews died too (Why would any community poison itself?). The other problem is that the plague was present in areas where no Jews lived.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

God’s Wrath

The Roman Catholic Church’s claim is the best explanation of this massive death issues in 1347-1351. The church made a statement that it was a punishment for the people’s sins which is very true. In order to support this claim I choose two logical explanations from my view point. First, just think about a minute why we are in the world? How we came here and after the death where are we going? What is the purpose of living in the world? While I was reading the background of the story these questions came to my mind. I simply figure out from the religious view point is that the God creates the world and the human bean for some specific reasons such as we should pray for the God, live a discipline life and so on. But we the human bean forget all about the purpose of the creation of the God and do whatever we like. Many times people don’t have any control of their behavior as a result the crimes increase. It is not necessarily true that individual’s behavior can’t change the God’s wrath. The problem is if everyone thinks them as an individual to commit the crimes then it will increase day by day. The people at that time were much illiterate, so they only saw that the alter individuals behavior is not a solution of this problem and some what they were determine not to change their horrific behavior. For an example, instated of doing my assignment of this class if I go to a bar with my friends can’t help me to get an A in this class. On the other hand, if I spend time in a library to complete my assignment will definitely help me to get a good grade. Secondly, the nature has ability to keep a balance in the earth. If the crimes increase so much that it is not preventable then the nature takes actions automatically. To make it simple I could say it is similar with the ECO SYSTEM. For an example, if deer increase in a forest then there is a possibility to increase the tighter in the same area. As a result, in few days the deer of this forest will decrees because the tighter will kill more deer. Long after, the tigers will be dying for not to having enough deer. This rotation will keep continue until it makes a balance. As the church says, “Look around, plunder, looting, rape, prostitution, war and drinking were everywhere” the statement and after the massive death from 1347-1351 makes a clear significant of the Eco System. If the disaster doesn’t happen then the society can’t keep balance between bad and good. The church was just trying to send a message about the deserter and be aware people about their own behavior. I personally agree with the church.
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 22, 2009 at 1:19 PM

    I have to respectfully disagree with your statement. I think that the church was looking for answers when answers when there were no logical explanations for the massive deaths. I do not agree with the church, but beyond that point how do you explain the deaths of not just humans that were affected, but pets, cattle and animals died as well. Was God punishing them as well? Not to mention that many monks died during this time as well. They dedicated their lives to God and the church. Why were they being punished?

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  2. BekoeFebruary 22, 2009 at 1:56 PM

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  3. BekoeFebruary 22, 2009 at 1:59 PM

    I understand your point however as long as you believe in God any action that takes place on Earth you can reasonably blame him for. For example if I kill someone tomorrow i can say this was an evil person and I was doing God's work. However there is no way for me to verify for sure that I was doing God’s work. The Roman Catholics had no way of verifying that God was indeed behind this Black Plaque, they didn't know and since they were holy people they blamed the only logical person, God. During this time period, people of the Church were supposed to have all of the answers but in reality they were just as clueless as everyone else and they had no way of proving God was punishing the world for all of it’s sins.

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