Life after black death
While scientists are preparing a vaccine from coronavirus, people are waiting for the end of a pandemic and return to normal life. Whether it will be normal, that is, to which we are accustomed – an open question. Diseases are able to change the way of life beyond recognition – the vivid example of this is Europe before and after black death.
A brief excursion in history: the epidemic of the bubonic plague, called black death because of that of exactly the color of the corns – bubons – in armpits, groin and on the neck of the patient, began in Europe at the end of 1347. Flemish Monk-Benedictive Watering Halegen wrote that the infection arrived on three merchant ships, which brought a terrible disease from the east. From 1347 to 1350, approximately 20 million Europeans were killed – 30-50% of the total population of the continent. Those who survived, found that the world is changing – and not only for the worse.
Excess of the dead, lack of living
After the plague everywhere required working hands. The fields turned out to be plowing, animals – no one mouth, so the prices for land and cattle collapsed, and on wheat rose. Serfs, which feudalists provided protection and part of the crop, began to redeem or run away from the lords to work on those who were ready to pay for their work with money. Some peasants left the villages and moved to empty houses in the cities. They had no one to catch – the authorities did not have enough guards, tax collectors, those who would have done the graves and cared for surviving orphans and widows, writes Medievist Dorsey Armstrong.
Researchers note a sharp increase in the number of working women: By 1450, the Ward of Beer and Ale, for example, became mainly a female profession.
David Tenirs Jr. Twelfth night king booze
The work took a lot of time and strength, and, as a result, women began to have less children. Some generally refused to give birth and devote themselves to work, which slowed down the growth of the population – such a small protofeminism.
Nobles received money, traders – prestige
Those who are lucky to survive were able to quickly improve their financial position. Rates for hired labor grew, and competition decreased. In many, the inheritance fell from dead relatives. Under these conditions, Armstrong tells, the trading class has become more and more and numerous. People have free money for luxury from the Middle East and from India. Traders laid new routes in distant countries – not only land, but also marine.
Felix de Vin. Fair in medieval gent
The only thing that the merchants lacked is the titles, the medievalist writes. To their joy, feudal motion, on the contrary, was poor because of the growing labor costs. To correct the situation, they had to conclude marriages with a trading rate. So nobles received money, traders – prestige. There was nothing like that before: to black death in a medieval society, a person was born in his class and in him and died. After the plague, an enterprising or just hardworking European could, if desired, to be among the nobility or to get into the clergy.
God’s punishment
The crisis of personnel did not go around the church: monasteries and cathedrals lost about 40% of the clearing – someone died, someone escaped. First, the deficit tried to fill out due to young people. The monastic vow was allowed to bring in 15 years, and not at 20, as before, in priests, they were handicked at 20 years old, and not 25, writes historian Norman Kantor. The church was filled with young and often insufficiently educated clerics. But they lacked them. The clergy began to record, roughly speaking, everyone. These wishing often did not possess the strong faith and deep knowledge of the Scriptures, but just wanted a comfortable life that the church offered.
Monastic vow was allowed to bring 15 years.
Meanwhile, people have ever been waiting for the servants of the Lord to help: salvation from the plague and relief of suffering. Priests, especially inexperienced and not completed training, could not give it. In the village of Church, he took the plague as heavenly kara for human sins, so the people offered indulgences to reduce the flour after death. Church of the rich: She was valuable and donated money. But the authority of the priesthood weaker. The Divine Punishment of the Chumay could push people to the idea that the clergy does not cope with their duties, Armstrong believes.
Among Europeans at this time, the popularity of the beggar orders (for example, Franciscans). Monks without a monastery, they traveled from the city to the city, where they prayed, preached and helped poor. Kantor marks a growing trend towards private Christianity. People began to look for ways to talk with God without the mediation of the Church: Mystical trends attracted more and more supporters, to know and rich artisans and merchants were erected for themselves private chapels and chapels.
Memento Mori
Europeans’s life lined up around the reality of close death – it also affected the art. However, it is impossible to just say that everyone suddenly began to write poems and paintings about death. Motive Memento Mori (Lat. "Remember the death"), designed to remind a person about the inevitable end, existed in art before the epidemic, but the disease brought him to the fore. Cantor even expresses a bold reverse thought: Europe is because he experienced black death so hard that her culture already was gloomy. After the wreck of hope for the church in the fight against the plane, artists and poets of the Renaissance moved away from religious plots and focused on man, his earthly suffering, joy and experiences.
However, the influence of black death on medieval art is difficult to summarize short. Yes, the plague gave Europe "Canterbury stories" Jeffrey Chosera, "Decameron" Giovanni Bokachco, "Dance of Death" – an extensive plot of painting and literature, where death, the great equalizer, fonds in the dance of kings, peasants and monks. On the other hand, many projects turned out due to a pandemic – for example, the Siena Cathedral, the pearl of Italian architecture, they wanted to expand, but could not. Many workshops, technician, whole directions were lost. Because of this, art in separate regions could give the opposite. For example, the historian Millard Miss noticed, that North-Malian painting after the plague moved from the humanistic line of Jotto back, to the strict religious tradition of the XII century. Cantor believes that this turn can be explained by no reflection on death, but the death of those progressive masters who worked in the direction of Jotto.
Middle Ages on Mortal Odra
By the beginning of the Epidemic of the Treasury War of England and France for about ten years. The population of France is three times exceeded English, but the latter had a powerful tax system, an army of free peasants, and not from the nobility with their ambitions, plus Super Build – English Long Onions. It is possible that the Plantagenets dynasty would have won France entirely if it were not for the plague. England was heavier than all postponed the epidemic – return to the population of 6 million (indicator to the outbreak) Country could only by 1500, that is, after 150 years. King Edward III remained without an army and without taxpayers. His daughter John was supposed to go beyond the Pedro Castile, but died on the road during the outbreak of the disease in Bordeaux – the Dynastic Union of England and Spain broke down. France lured wounds, and then – the story of Joan D’Ark begins here – he threw the British from the continent. The end of the Century War in 1453 is called one of the minutes of the end of the Middle Ages.
King Edward III remained without an army and without taxpayers. His daughter John had to go beyond the Pedro Castilsky, but died on the road during the outbreak of the disease in Bordeaux
The bubonic plague itself did not become the end of the era. But her bacillos penetrated the body of the most medieval, and soon signs of the disease appeared outside. The three-part structure of society (those that pray, those who are fighting, and those workers) mocked, the Great Roman Catholic Church weakened, Blue Blood lost to gold coins. But who survived the pandemic were able to arrange their world anew. Some left the old light and on Karavelch moved to the West, and there for them and the whole world began.
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