The Shattered Prayer

Che correctly pointed out that I have been reading about the Bubonic Plague. Just a little light reading about a happy topic to whittle the hours away on the train as I go to and from work. But the thing is, I’ve moved on from the plague and am now some 300 years earlier in time, reading about the Bayeaux Tapestry which depicts the 1066 invasion of England by William the Bastard. More light reading for those long train rides. But I’m sure people would rather hear about the Plague than the Tapestry, so if you’d like to hear more, why please pray continue.

The book on the Bubonic Plague, or the Great Mortality, as it was known at the time was very interesting. It was written by John Kelly and called The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. It has a picture of a naked woman being kissed by a corpse on its cover — something I did not think about as I carried the book around. A coworker asked me what I was reading with a severe look of disapproval on her face. But, in all fairness, she always has a severe look of disapproval on her face. The book could have been the Bible (her favorite book) and she would have still had that look.

For me, two things make the book so eminently readable. 1. He tracks the plague as it moves, starting in the plains of Asia and moving along the trade routes to the Middle East, Italy, and ultimately all of Europe (with particular attention on Europe). 2. He has an ability to drop you right into the middle of 14th century Europe, sometimes using contemporary quotations to draw you into the very lives of those that the plague touched and destroyed.

On the con side, Kelly does have a tendency to get a bit repetitive, but as he said in the book, after a while, the deaths, though still tragic, became expected. People knew that when the Plague arrived, lots of people were going to die. Lots and lots and lots. Additionally, Some people have gotten practically incensed over on Amazon about his personification of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the Plague (known as Y. pestis to its friends, it was named after 19th century physician Alexandre Yersin). But I read this as a simple literary device keeping with the thinking of the people during the Middle Ages. They personified it, so he did too. It also makes it more interesting to read about the Plague settling in for an extended stay at a bed and breakfast than it is to read about morphology and disease vectors. That wasn’t really a problem for me.

There is also a section on those that he called the “Plague Deniers” which I first read as if it were pronounced “Plague Deneers”, you know, as if it sounded like the latter day adherents of Charles I, the Cavaliers. But then I realized he meant “Those Who Deny The Plague.” Didn’t seem such an interesting label then. The role of the plague during the plague is controversial, surprisingly. Some historians and biologists do not think that the Black Death was caused by the plague. It moved too quickly (two pigs sniffed a plague blanket and died instantly) and had very strange symptoms (foul body odor — but how could you tell? It was the Middle Ages!). Kelly is firmly a Plague Supporter (not that he supports an outbreak — you know what I mean). He says it was simply two types, slow moving bubonic plague and quick moving pneumonic plague.

It was gripping to read about the varied reactions to the death. Almost everyone thought the Plague was caused by that perpetually smiteful man upstairs getting upset again. And when Jehovah gets upset, thousands die. In all fairness, you couldn’t blame the Christians for thinking this; he has a history of killing everyone around him, according to that Bible which is so beloved by my coworker. In order to please this angry god, Christians started burning Jews almost as soon as the outbreaks started to occur. Really, any excuse to burn Jewish people would do for the Christians of the Middle Ages. They went so far as to claim vast incontrovertible evidence that Jews, led by one particular Spanish Jewish man, were poisoning the wells of Europe. Entire Jewish communities were exterminated. When Pope Clement VI (the popes were in Avignon at this time) pointed out that Jews were also dying of the Plague, he was completely ignored. Although regarded as a weak pope, he issued two papal bulls defending the Jews and ordered priests to offer them shelter. Few priests obeyed him. Weak as he may have been, he offered more protection to the Jews during the plague than Pius XII did during World War II (a fact noted by Kelly in the book). I have to say it was refreshing to read about a pope doing something for the good of an oppressed people for a change!

(An interesting side note: Clement VI was instructed by his physicians to keep fire burning around him at all times to keep the Plague away — if it were really Y pestis causing the Plague, this may have saved his life — by keeping the rats away from him).

Lepers were also persecuted and burned. Christians have a long history of suspecting lepers of moral decay.

It was also interesting to read about the flagellants who added a little sex to the death going on around everyone. Although flagellants existed before the Plague, they became a cause célèbre during the Plague. With their spiffy white robes and letters delivered straight from an angel they seemed exotic and heavenly to the ordinary folk of Europe, who were dying off in droves. When the flagellants came to town during their 33.5 day tours (each day representing a day in the life of Jesus), people would gather for the show. The flagellants would start off by reading their angelic letter (to show that even God loved a good flagellating), then they’d whip off their shirts and beat the shit out of themselves. People would wail and sing and collapse in orgiastic excess And then, to top it off, the flagellents would grab the nearest Jews and burn them (the flagellants were virulently anti-Semitic). At first the Church allowed the spectacle to go on, but then the Flagellants made their fatal mistake. They claimed that you didn’t need the sacraments — or the church for that matter. They even said that they themselves could perform miracles. The Church was having none of that. Weak old Clement VI issued a bull against them, Gregory XI then proclaimed them heretics, and Boniface IX burned their leader at the stake. The movement quickly fell apart once they themselves were being burned.

A side note about bathing in the Middle Ages: Although there were public baths in the Middle Ages, they were used recreationally, and many Christians did not bathe at all — it was considered ungodly by some — and most people didn’t even change clothes for months at a time. Public nudity was also frowned on, even though people were often stripped right before or after they were executed. Therefore, half naked, still living men beating themselves silly drove people wild! Because people are complicated, they did sleep naked during the middle ages. Additionally, some people claim that people during the Middle Ages were very clean and the Plague itself convinced them to stop bathing. Needed a good layer of grime to fight off infections!

The Great Mortality changed Europe and the world forever. Some villages would not regain their pre-plague populations for another 400 years. But it also virtually ended serfdom in Europe — people who worked fields could do radical new things, like take a day off, and get paid a living wage. Richard II would have never faced a Peasant’s Revolt if it were not for the Plague. And it began the disillusionment with the Catholic Church that eventually led to the Reformation. After all, even though Clement VI did not die from the Plague, plenty of the clergy did — they were no more immune to its effects than the laity — in fact, sometimes the clergy experienced higher death rates due their being cloisted together, unwashed, in those very expensive monasteries and churches. And many who did not die themselves took off for the hills and left their flocks to die. Many people never forgot that the clergy reacted in such a way.

I’ll leave it at that. I’m sure no one wants to hear about the Bayeux Tapestry, interesting as it is (not so much a tapestry, really, as a very long table runner). It does have naked people on it, though. And not one of them is bathing.

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