In the reading, Logical Fallacies and the Black Plague four popular opinions were held as hypotheses as to why the Black Plague took place. Two of these opinions could not be true because they are logical fallacies. A Fallacy is an argument that may convince others but is not sound. The two arguments that were put forward that do not have a sound foundations are: God's wrath -- it was a punishment for the people's sins and the Jews are poisoning the wells. These ideas were held with great religiosity to be true. Previous to the Black Plague, the 13th was a time open mindedness to other cultures dealing with trade throughout Europe and the Orient. However this tolerance quickly vanished as the masses became gravely ill and death spread throughout Europe. Any argument became true to the masses, two of the arguments came from the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church was sought as the voice of reason and nobility of the church unquestioningly began to point fingers quickly and manically at the masses. With the tolerance of trade and acceptance people began exploring other areas of enlightenment that were considered mortal sins within the Catholic Church. They compared the events of the day to that of time of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of world had sinned greatly and now God was sending down his Wrath. This idea is a logical fallacy due to several facts. These same exact sins had been going on for centuries so why did God choose this time than any other to destroy the world. Also by using the Catholic Church's own arguments, God will not reign a plight like this on the world. In the time of Noah God said created a covenant with Noah and his people that he would “never again ...would destroy all flesh.” Genesis (9.9) also as the catholic church believed in Jesus and the New Testament. The god of the new Testament offered his “only son for the sins of the world” (John 1:64) If that was true Jesus would have already been sacrificed for such sins and would not send such a plague.
The second fallacy was the Jews were poisoning the water with lepers. Jews lived in a rough time in Europe. Antisemitism became rampant in Europe Africa, and Asia due to the belief of early persecutions against Ishmael and Jesus. Both religions blamed the Jews for atrocities against these religious figures. The masses believed the Jewish were jealous of their salvation. However the Jews were not the cause of the Black Plague. First and foremost the Jewish people were dying just like the rest of the world, this plague would kill them off as well. Secondly people everywhere were dying even areas that had no Jewish communities so they could not possibly travel to remote areas so quickly to spread the Plague. Third the plague was traveling inhumanly fast to different areas. No one had the capabilities to travel so quickly to spread the Plague throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Over all these two ideas were popular but truly they made no sense. However everyone was looking for an explanation with such a chaotic plague which took the lives of millions within a short time. People were looking at all possibilities and making chaotic choices, perhaps seeking salvation before death. My own personal opinion is that rationality began to take hold of Europe in the 13th century, there was a sense of acceptance of diversity and trade with other cultures. When the Black Plague came about in the 14th century the Catholic Church used a Logical Fallacy that the commoners would believe to gain control of the masses like they had in the Dark Ages. Since the people were wanting salvation and help they would believe anything that the Church would tell them. It is a sad part of history but we have learned much from listening to Logical Fallacies and the repercussions of believing such fallacies with out using rationality.
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.
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