Catastrophe and Creativity (1350-1500) - Crises and Consolidations - The Second Plague Pandemic (13th-18th centuries)

14 important questions on Catastrophe and Creativity (1350-1500) - Crises and Consolidations - The Second Plague Pandemic (13th-18th centuries)

Why did the Yersinia pestis have such an impact? Who were their first victims?

  • The Mongol Empire increased the interconnectedness of the Afro-Eurasian world. As a result, the second pandemic of Yersinia pestis had a broad geographical reach.
  • The plague's earliest victims were initially the Mongols themselves and then the inhabitants of China. Thereafter the disease followed the paths of the Mongol conquests.
  • In the mid-1340s, it crossed the Black Sea (probably in contaminated grain shipments) and arrived in Constantinople, Alexandria, Sicily, and Genoa. Shortly thereafter, it spread throughout much of Europe.

On which factors did the divergences depend on?

The divergences depended on numerous factors: local climatic conditions, the health of the population, housing and sanitary conditions, and (of course) luck.

Where did the Black Death arrive after its seaborne passage?

  • After its largely seaborne passage, the Black Death arrived in Florence in early 1348; two months later it hit Dorset in England.
  • Dormant during the winter, it revived the next spring to infect French ports and countryside, moving on swiftly to Germany.
  • By 1351 it reached Moscow, where it stopped for a time, only to recur in ten- to twelve-year cycles throughout the fourteenth century.
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What sanitation measures did urban governments institute?

  • Many urban governments instituted new sanitation measures.
  • At Pistoia, for example, legislation passed in 1348 prohibited travel in or out of the city, regulated funerals and mourning rituals to avoid crows, and mandated various laws to circumvent contaminated meat and clothing.
  • In the next century, as the theory of "bad air" gave way to a theory of human transmission, quarantines were sometimes ordered.

How much did the plague wipe out?

  • On average, it wiped out 50 per cent of the population. In eastern Normandy, perhaps 70 to 80 per cent succumbed.
  • At Bologna, 35 per cent of even the most robust men - those able to bear arms - were felled in the course of 1348.

What did king Edward III do?

In 1351, King Edward III of England (r.1327-1377) issued the Statute of Laborers, forbidding workers to take pay higher than pre-plague wages and fining employers who offered more.

What problems were there in the countryside? What did they do?

  • In the countryside, landlords needed to keep their profits up even as their workforce was decimated.
  • They were obliged to strake bargains with enterprising peasants, furnishing them, for example, with oxen and seed; or they turned their land to new uses, such as pasturage.

What did the guilds do in the cities?

In the cities, the guilds and other professions recruited new men, survivors of the plague. Able to marry and set up households at younger ages, these nouveaux riches helped replenish the population.

What happened to widows because of the plague?

Although many widows were now potentially the heads of households, deep-rooted customs tended to push them either into new marriages (in northern Europe) or (in southern Europe) into the homes of male relatives, whether brother, son, or son-in-law.

How did the plague affect desires?

The plague affected both desires and sentiments. Upward mobility in town and country meant changes in consumption patterns, as formerly impoverished groups found new wealth. They chose silk clothing over weel, beer over water.

How did the plague affect people in Italy?

  • In Italy, where communal governments liked to maintain a veneer of equality among all citizens, cities passed newly toughened laws to restrict finely and restrain envy.
  • In Florence in 1349, for example, a year after the plague first struck there, the town crier roamed the city shouting out new or renewed prohibitions.

What prohibitions were made by the town crier in Florence?

  • Clothes could not be adorned with gold or silver;
  • Capes could not be lined with fur;
  • The wicks of funeral candles had to made of cotton;
  • Women could wear no more than two rings, only one of which could be set with a precious stone.

What new interest arose because of the Black Death?

Death became an obsession, and newly intense interest in the macabre led to original artistic themes.

How was the new artistic genre, risen from the Black Death, called? What did they do?

  • In the artistic and literary genre known as the Dance of Death, men and women from every class were escorted to the grave by ghastly skeletons.
  • Blaming their own sins for the plague, penitent pilgrims, occasionally bearing whips to flagellate themselves, crowded the roads.

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