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.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Triple Conjunction

I chose the argument on the triple conjunction because it seems to be the road less taken and I figured I would change things up a little. Reading that the cause of a deadly plague, which was responsible for wiping out 1/3 of Europe, was an astronomical event seems a bit comical to someone living in a time of advanced medicine and technology. During the 14th century however, astrology was used to explain medical issues. Similar to how some people used to believe paying money to wipe away sins would grant them their spot in heaven, some people believed the stars were responsible for more than illuminating the night sky.
This "theory" of the triple conjunction, only believed by just the physicians and academics, contains many logical fallacies that render it unacceptable as truth. The biggest logical fallacy that sticks out to me is the number of triple conjunctions that have occurred which were not followed by any plagues or other natural disasters responsible for eradicating a significant number of the population. According to nationmaster.com, which is an online encyclopedia, there have and will be a total of 79 triple conjunctions between 1800-2100. In fact two triple conjunctions are due to occur this year alone. Maybe with the combined power of two triple conjunctions the economic recession will come to an end. Doubt it. If a triple conjunction was responsible for the Black Plague, the world would have been hit with at least 56 more disasters in the last 100 years alone. This theory just doesn't hold water when considering the history of triple conjunctions.
The second biggest logical fallacy I found is the fact that some towns showed a death toll of 90% while others had a death toll of 10% and the fact that people living in close quarters died at a much higher rate than the nobility and the nobility of the church. If an astronomical event were to cause the Black Plague it wouldn't discriminate from town to town or between the rich and the poor. An astronomical event should be distributed evenly over an area, the way both the rich and poor can see the little dipper and the way someone from the Bronx and someone from Long Island can both see an eclipse. There should be no discrimination.
Academics and physicians, then and now, always seek an explanation for out of the ordinary events. Explanations beyond those of the religious sector and popular belief. The main tool on the belt of physicians and astronomers in the 14th century was astronomy. A triple conjunction is an event that certainly doesn't happen every year. In fact, according to nationmaster.com, their average occurrence is generally once every ten years. While ten years is a relatively short time when it comes to current science standards, ten years was considered a much longer time 600 years ago. When the Black Plague broke out, academics and physicians scrambled for an explanation and all astronomy granted them was a rare occurrence that happened two years before the first outbreak. The academics and physicians offered up their explanation and rightly, no one believed it. 


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7 comments:

  1. Don RussoFebruary 21, 2009 at 12:18 PM

    Hey Frank,

    Because of easily accesable technology like the internet, you were able to illustrate the fact that over 100 triple conjuctions have taken place of the course of history. This discredits that answer to the plague now but was certainly not know during the 14th. century. Each town and country was very isolated from combining ideas on education, medicine, science with other like-minded individuals. The one thing that did link them was the Catholic Church which was pointing the so-called finger and the jewish population.
    This called for a widely held belief of the unethical practices of the jews. Over the years Science through the use of technology has leveled the "playing field" between itself and Religion. i enjoyed your post because you did take the road less traveled and clearly identified the problems with Science

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  2. Chris NeuFebruary 21, 2009 at 10:55 PM

    I agree with this post because looking back on the black plague it does not seem right to blame a large scale disease outbreak on a triple conjunction between saturn, jupiter, and mars. However, at the same time, in a way you can understand the thinking of the academics and physicians due to the lack of technology during these times.

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  3. E_MelnikFebruary 22, 2009 at 9:14 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. E_MelnikFebruary 22, 2009 at 9:16 AM

    Your argument is the most plausible among those I have read so far. By explaining the false theory offered by the physicians of that time, you managed to kill two birds by one stone. If the triple conjunction had been the cause of the plague, then our planet would have been completely wiped out during few previous centuries because of 79 other conjunctions, if this was a case of course. It was a very nice argument made by you about the current economy state. By the way, the next triple conjunction is expected to take place somewhere in the end of 2009. I really doubt it will help.

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  5. Juan_AdornoFebruary 22, 2009 at 4:34 PM

    Although your critique of the scientific accuracy published by the academics and scientist of the time is a valid argument,there is one flaw id like to point out.A logical fallacy is used to describe a claim that is absurd.Who is to say that With respect to the time period, these theories are not logically sound. I do not think it is fare to judge the academics by modern expectations. With respect to their time period, these academics are deemed as the experts and hence highly probable to make some kind of logical sense.

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  6. MaggieFebruary 23, 2009 at 9:03 PM

    I agree it was not at all right or fair to put some much blame on the Jewish people. I feel like the nobility had alot to do with the spreading of that rumor and people believed it was true and excepted it as truth because it was confirmed by them.

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  7. DMilsteinFebruary 26, 2009 at 9:55 PM

    I found your post comical and educational - perhaps a double negative will lead to a positive for us this year...but if anything goes wrong in my life I'll know what to blame!

    We do not want to forget that some scientists today do rely upon astrology or star patterns to design theories. Interestingly, many scientists also devise their "logical" theories via mystical experience. Einstein, for example, came up with his famous E=mc2 by imagining himself riding a bike along a sunbeam.

    I do not think we should be dismissive of astral orientations - many cultures continue to put faith in them (i.e. the Chinese agrarian calendar, the Tibetan life cycles) as influencing our lives.

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