A.D. 1446, the sea broke down the dykes at Dort, in Holland, on the 17th of April, and drowned 100,000 persons.
A.D. 1448. “Owing to the heavy rains of the previous year, 1447,” says Martinez de Leiva, “a severe pestilence prevailed, which was attributed to the excess of moisture, conjoined with the unprecedented heat:” it was rife in various parts of Spain. On the 11th of October, public prayers were offered up at Barcelona on account of this pestilence and of other calamities, such as earthquakes, &c. During this year great mortality occurred in the army of King Alonso V., encamped in the neighbourhood of Pomblein.
A.D. 1450, in the month of June, a pestilence broke out in the city of Saragossa. Zurita, who in his Annals of Aragon gives an account of this pestilence, specifies but little, although it is known to have raged for some time, and to have extended to Barcelona, where it continued for two years after (1452). On the Sabbath, the 22nd of April, the authorities of this city, Barcelona, despatched a state-messenger to the monasteries of Saint Gerónimo de la Murta, of the district of Ebro, de Monte Alegre, de Poblet, de Santa Cruce, and de Escala Dei, to solicit the brethren to implore the Almighty to relieve them from the sore pestilence with which the city was visited. On the 13th of June of this year, the Queen Donna Maria retired, with her Court, from the city, for fear of the pestilence.
A.D. 1456. There were two comets observed this year: three years after, 1459, the Baltic was so frozen over, that people travelled on the ice from Denmark to Lubeck, Wismar, Rostock, and Stralsund.
A.D. 1465, pestilence again visited Italy. On the 6th of December of this year, the brothers Miguel Capelier and Leonardo Crestia, of the order of St. Francis of the Convent of Jesus, were deputed by the corporation of the city of Barcelona to implore the interposition of the Almighty to free the city from pestilence. The year following, Cadiz was nearly depopulated by a plague. Other parts of Spain suffered also from epidemic pestilence; so much so, that on the 7th of January, 1466, the Council of Ciento voted that the Feast of St. Sebastian should not be observed, on account of the epidemic which was raging at Barcelona. Further, on Thursday, the 13th, the Council of Thirty-two determined that an image of the guardian angel should be erected; and on the 17th of November following there was a solemn procession ordered.
A.D. 1468, epidemic pestilence raged at Parma.
A.D. 1471, Pope Sextus erected a brothel at Rome, and the Roman prostitutes paid him a weekly tax, which amounted to 20,000 ducats a year.
A.D. 1472, a comet was seen. The year following, 1473, excessive heat and drought prevailed, which persisted for three years. About this period, 1474, the city of Valencia suffered from a severe epidemic. Luis Alcanyis, a famous Valencian physician, published a treatise in the Limosin language (that of the Troubadours), without giving either the place of printing or the year of publication; but it seems that he flourished about this period (1474), and that his treatise was written in consequence of the epidemic under notice: it was entitled, ‘Regiment preservatiu é curatiu de la Pestilencia, compost per Mestre Luis Alcanyis, Mestre en Medicina.’
A.D. 1475–76, the Danube was fordable in Hungary, and swarms of locusts destroyed all vegetation there and in Poland. The second pestilence, which devastated the island of Mallorca, according to the authority of Don Vincente Mut, occurred. A Board of Health was formed by the governor of Mallorca, Don Berengario Blanels, in order to prescribe rules for government and remedial measures. This ‘Morbeira,’ or Board of Health, was composed of a magistrate, a knight, a physician, a surgeon, a tradesman, and a merchant. Quarantine for forty days was established. In this year there was published a work entitled ‘De Epidemiâ et Peste, Magistri Vallestii Tarentini, Artium Medicinæque Doctoris eximii,’ which was translated by Dr. Juan Villar into the Castilian language. In the latter year (1476), the Council of One Hundred ordered an imprecatory chapel to be consecrated at St. Roque, in consequence of the prevalence of a terrible plague at Barcelona, which lasted from the 27th of March until the 13th of November. On the 13th of July in the same year, a solemn procession took place, in which were exhibited the bodies of St. Severus and St. Innocent.
A.D. 1477, in the reign of their Catholic majesties Don Fernando de Aragon and Doña Isabel de Castilla, there broke out a wretched pestilence of leprosy, which may be said to have prevailed epidemically, so numerous were the cases. The duty of examining those affected, and of expelling them from the cities and villages, was a task exclusively imposed on the priests, in accordance with divine authority, as laid down in Leviticus chap. xiii. Epidemic pestilence, attended with bubo, prevailed in Italy, and raged without interruption until 1485. Swarms of locusts committed great ravages in various parts of the South of Europe, from the year 1478 until 1482. Within this period, say in the years 1480 and 1481, malignant epidemics appeared in the train of drought and famine in Switzerland and Germany; while putrid fever, accompanied by phrenitis, prevailed in Westphalia, Hesse, and Friesland. There never had been, in the memory of the inhabitants of these places, so many ignes fatui as during this period. The harvests also failed, rendering it necessary to obtain supplies of provisions from Thuringia.