“The Black Death in Iberia and France - The Great Courses Daily News” plus 1 more

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The Black Death in Iberia and France - The Great Courses Daily News Posted: 16 Mar 2021 07:14 AM PDT By Dorsey Armstrong, Ph.D., Purdue University Apart from Italy, which was seeing the ravages of the Black Death, the Iberian peninsula and the French countryside were witnessing a wave of Black Death. The deaths affected everyone, but evidence for these can be gathered from religious records. In fact, the spread of the plague also indicates the effect of the religious beliefs of the time. The Black Death spread quickly into the mainland of Europe, causing deaths in great numbers. (Image: Anonymous/Public domain) The Plague in Mallorca The Iberian Peninsula had long been a very diverse region—home to Muslim communities, Christian kingdoms, and long-standing Jewish settlements. So, it was sort of carved up into a variety of self-governing entities. Mallorca, like Sicily, was an important trading hub due to its position in the Mediterranean, and it had a thriving population of around 55,000 people. The plague made it there in December of 1347, probably coming from Marseille. Its initial progress may have been slowed by cooler weather, but by March 1348, it was confirmed that the Great Mortality was ravaging the countryside of Mallorca. The plague raged on Mallorca until about May 1348, when it began to die down a bit. As was the case with Sicily and the Italian Peninsula, this also marked the moment when the disease leapt across the water barrier and made its way on to the mainland of the Iberian Peninsula. Again, it was trading ships that seem to have carried the disease with them, bringing the Great Mortality to the mainland via Perpignan, in what is today part of France. And then the Black Death attacked Barcelona. This is a transcript from the video series The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus. The Offices of the Church Not only can we determine the extent of the plague's progress and its virulence by examining documents like chronicles which record the incidences of infection, but we can also look at the number of religious and political offices that suddenly became vacant. The Church was the biggest land-holder in the medieval world, and it would grant benefices—usually this meant control of property or land—to individuals who would then carry out the work of the Church and be supported by the income from these lands and properties. It was a variation on the secular feudal system. Whenever the holder of a benefice passed away, the Church would grant the benefice to a member of the religious community who was both deserving of some kind of recognition or reward and/or was believed to be someone who would work toward the salvation of the congregation or community attached to the benefice. Learn more about the Black Death's points of entry into Europe. Vacant Benefices in Europe So in Barcelona, in April of 1348, there was one vacant benefice. In May, there were nine vacant benefices. But in June 1348, there were 25 vacancies and then in July, the full scale of the disaster is brought home by the fact that there were 104 vacant benefices. Not only were those who held the benefices obviously dying of plague, but so were those who would have been logical replacements. Like statistics surrounding the occupation of benefices, tracking the number of wills that were being written also helps us understand the scale and virulence of the plague. In Valencia, for example, we find about two wills per year that have been preserved for the period spanning 1340–1347. What this means is that there weren't that many people worried about imminent death, nor were there all that many people with sufficient property, that needed to have a will actually drawn up. But in May 1348, we have surviving two wills for just that month; and then in June, that number jumps up to 21 wills—more than in the previous 8 years combined. The Rise in Pilgrimages People's reactions, as you might imagine, were mostly informed by panic and, in many instances, a turn to religiosity. It's clear that one way that the plague managed to move across the Iberian Peninsula so quickly was due to people flocking to holy sites on pilgrimage to ask God for forgiveness for whatever it was they had done to incur his wrath in this way, and to pray for deliverance. Pilgrims traveling to holy places such as the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, carried the plague quickly across the country. (Image: Jenaro Pérez Villaamil/Public domain) Thus, the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, was subject to infection remarkably quickly after Barcelona and cities in that area had experienced an outbreak. If you trace the plague on a map, it looks as if it does a hopscotch move over most of the peninsula to suddenly show up in this holy pilgrimage site. By the end of 1348, the plague had made its presence felt in about 35 percent of the peninsula. Worse things were still to come, and in 1349, those communities that had avoided infection so far became subject to the ravages of the Great Mortality. Learn more about the Great Plague. From Marseille to Avignon The story is much the same in France. After an initial infection occurring in the port city of Marseille in 1347, the plague began to move inland, with particularly devastating effects in Avignon. Now this is significant because Avignon was, at this time, the seat of the papacy of the Church. While Rome had long been the seat of the Christian Church in the West and Constantinople had been the seat of the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in 1309, the headquarters of the Western church left the Italian Peninsula and moved to France, to the town of Avignon. This was because the pope elected in 1305, Clement V, was a Frenchman, and he felt more secure in his native France than he did in Rome. The fact that the papal court had relocated to Avignon is why, when Italy was being devastated by plague in 1348 and 1349, Rome got by relatively unscathed compared to other city-states like Florence, or Siena, or Venice, or Pisa, or Genoa. With the papacy gone, Rome had sort of regressed into being a more rural, less cosmopolitan community than it had been when the popes were in residence. There was less commerce in and out of the city, and thus fewer streams of potential infection. By 1348 standards, Rome was an oasis in a desert of illness and death. Common Questions about the Black Death in Iberia and France Q: When did the Black Death arrive in the Iberian Peninsula? The plague arrived in Mallorca in December of 1347, probably coming from Marseille. By March 1348, it was confirmed that the Black Death was ravaging the countryside of Mallorca. The plague raged on Mallorca until about May 1348, when it jumped to the main Iberian Peninsula. Q: What was the situation of benefices in Barcelona in 1348? In Barcelona, in April 1348, there was one vacant benefice. In May, there were nine vacant benefices. But in June 1348, there were 25 vacancies and then in July, there were 104 vacant benefices. Q: Why was Santiago de Compostela very quickly affected by the plague after Barcelona? The plague managed to move quickly across the Iberian Peninsula due to people flocking to holy sites on pilgrimage to pray for deliverance. Thus, the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, was subject to infection quickly after Barcelona. Keep Reading The Great Spanish Conquistadors High Middle Ages: Election of Popes in Germany Frederick II's Problems with the Papacy and its Consequences

The pandemic that changed the world - Telangana Today Posted: 31 Mar 2021 11:37 AM PDT The present pandemic, declared on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization (WHO) is often termed unprecedented. But history is replete with a number of instances when endemics, epidemics and pandemics occurred at various periods in the past. Pandemics and famines have some similarities. Their outbreak causes immense miseries to individuals, society and governments at large. But unlike famines, pandemics are levellers. Pandemics will bring a billionaire in a mansion and a poor man in a hut on to the same page. Pandemics thus tell us of the sufferings of the people the world over from the very dawn of civilisation. Growing with Humanity Viruses are as old as history itself. Diseases and pandemics have bothered humanity from the earliest days. When man started to have a settled life, after the 'hunting-gathering phase', in communities and with agriculture as the main avocation, viruses must have descended from then on. Therefore, for the past several thousand years, these viruses must be taking on humanity the world over. The scale, speed and the spread of these diseases increased drastically over a period of time. Further, widespread trade created new opportunities for human interactions cutting across the confines of nations. The more civilised humans became with large cities and with international trade routes proliferating, viruses became more frequent, more severe and more widespread. Throughout history, disease outbreaks have ravaged humanity and even changed the course of history. We had, and still have, viruses like malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, smallpox, cowpox, measles, cholera, plague, and in recent years, SARS, MERS, Eloba, AIDS, swine flu, bird flu, etc. The first recorded pandemic in ancient history is that of the Justinian plague that occurred in the 6th century. It was named after the Roman emperor, Justinian, the great lawgiver. He ruled the Roman Empire from 527 to 565 AD. The plague affected the entire Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantium, for which Constantinople was then the capital. Major Pandemic But a major pandemic that erupted in the Middle Ages with far-reaching socioeconomic consequences in Europe was the Black Death (1347-54). It is considered the most devastating of all the known pandemics in human history. Some estimates tell that half of the European population perished during this Black Death. Like many viruses before and after, the Black Death also had its origin in China, moved towards Central Asia through the Silk Route — East Africa to Egypt to the Mediterranean and then to Crimea, and by 1347 AD, it reached Constantinople and ravaged Europe for seven long years. In Constantinople, the Eastern Roman emperor, John VI's 13-year-old son died of it. It is said that the merchants of Genoa in Italy engaged in trade brought the disease through their ships. The Black Death was of bubonic plague and it was caused by fleas on the infected rodents. The disease caused large boils known as buboes from which the word 'bubonic' is derived. The buboes were black and hence the name, Black Death. The Black Death affected Eurasia, West Africa and entire Europe. With so many deaths, labour became scarce and the value of the working class increased. Better wages were offered to those labourers who survived. Better living conditions with better food at cheaper rates were available for the poor. As many landed gentry became victims of the disease, land values went down 30-40%. Serfs and the poor started to own lands. For the poor, it was a real windfall. Surviving landlords and nobles faced severe losses. The once rich and powerful lords now lined up before the serfs for services. The Black Death proved a death knell for feudalism, the socio, economic and political system that dominated the entire Middle Ages. Illustration by Guru G Renaissance was Born Fear of death due to the pandemic made people dwell more on life and death and they became more inwardly. The superrich merchants of Genoa and Venice now became more philanthropic as they never knew what to do with the amassed wealth. These 'merchant–princes', as they were euphemistically called, liberally doled out support and patronised men of letters and artists. As a result, new trends started to emerge in music, painting, sculpture, architecture and in every sphere of art, thought and literature. The merchant-princes played a decisive role in the birth of the Renaissance movement in Italy. Dante, the Italian poet who wrote 'Divine Comedy', with humanism in the backdrop, became an example for English writers and poets like Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Renaissance had an indelible impression on every other country in Europe and thus the movement spread far and wide. The Black Death provided an effective backdrop. Giovanni Boccaccio, a great Renaissance writer, wrote 'Decameron', a story on the Black Death. The people with the uncertainty of the future started living more in the present, resigning to an epicurean philosophy that advocated, 'eat, drink and be happy, for nothing is certain about tomorrow.' Unlike the later French writers like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau and others, who laid a clear map for the future of nations in matters of polity and society, the Renaissance writers under the shadow of the Black Death were afraid of looking at the future but were empathetic to the past. This looking at the past, resulted in the revival of all that was good and secular in the ancient times which, in turn, resulted in the dawn of a new Age, the modern, a blessing in disguise. (The author is a retired Professor of History, University of Hyderabad) Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today on Telegram everyday. Click the link to subscribe. Click to follow Telangana Today Facebook page and Twitter .

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