John Villani, the chronicler of Florence, who died of the plague in 1348, thus relates his visit to Rome at the Jubilee of 1300: “For the consolation of the Christian pilgrims every Friday and solemn festival, there was shown in St. Peter’s the sudarium of Christ; on which account a great portion of the Christians then living made this pilgrimage, women as well as men, from different and distant countries, from afar off as from near places. And it was the most astonishing thing that ever was seen, how continually throughout the whole year they had in Rome, beside the Roman people, 200,000 pilgrims, besides those who were on the road going and coming; and all were furnished and satisfied with food in just measure, men and horses, with great patience and without noise or contentions, and I can bear witness to it, for I was present and saw it. And from the offerings made by the pilgrims the Church gained great treasure, and the Romans from supplying them all grew rich. And I, finding myself in that blessed pilgrimage in the holy city of Rome, seeing her great and ancient remains, and reading the histories and great deeds of the Romans, as written by Virgil, Sallust, Lucan, Livy, Valerius, Paulus, Orosius, and other masters of history, who wrote the exploits and deeds, both great and small, of the Romans, and also of strangers in the whole world, to leave a record and example to those who are to come, so I took style and form from them, though as a disciple I was not worthy to do so great a work, and I began to compile a book in honour of God and of the Blessed John, and in praise of our city of Florence.”
A PIOUS ARAB KING’S PRAYER FOR RAIN (A.D. 1343).
In 1343 Juzef Ben Ismail, King of Granada, made a truce of ten years with King Alphonso of Castile, and was noted for his pious laws and ordinances. Among other reforms he forbade people to go through the streets praying for rain, as he said those who made that offering should go forth to the fields with much devotion and humility, and utter the following prayer: “O Lord Allah, Thou, the ever merciful, who hast created us out of nothing, and knowest our faults, by Thy clemency, O Lord, Thou, who dost not desire to destroy us, regard not our shortcomings, but rather consider Thy mercy and longsuffering. Thou who hast no need of us or our services, O Lord, have pity upon Thy innocent creatures, the unconscious animals and birds of the air, who find not wherewithal to sustain their lives. Look upon the earth which Thou hast created, and upon the plants thereof, which perish and are wasted for lack of the waters that should be their nourishment. O Lord Allah, open to us Thy heavens, turn upon us the blessing of Thy waters, let us again be refreshed with Thy life-giving airs, and send upon us that mercy that shall revive and refresh the dying earth, giving succour and support to Thy creatures, that the infidel may no longer say Thou hast ceased to hear the prayer of Thy true believers. O Lord, we implore Thee by Thy great mercy, for Thou lookest with pity on all Thy creatures. O Lord Allah, in Thee it is we believe, Thee we adore, from Thee we hope for pardon for our errors, and at Thy hands we seek for succour in our need.”
THE TERROR OF THE BLACK DEATH IN 1348.
The black death, which was said to have carried off one-fourth of the population in four years, and in England carried off half the population, was a disease which puzzled the scientific men of the period. Carbuncles, tumours, spots on arms and thighs, became fatal in about three days, and the disease spread like fire among dry fuel. The effect on society was enormous. Merchants of unbounded wealth began to carry their treasures to monasteries and churches, and to lay them at the foot of the altar; but the monks in their turn shuddered at the gift, as in their view it only brought death, and they threw it over the convent walls. People were driven by despair to take up pious works as a last defence. In Avignon the Pope found it necessary to consecrate the Rhone, so that bodies might be thrown into the river as the speediest mode of burial. The morals of the people suffered by the hopeless and ghastly spectacles around, for churches were deserted by priests, and the people without shepherds gave way to covetousness as well as licentiousness. When the alarm was over, there was a notable increase of lawyers, who, like locusts, devoured the property left without owners. The plague raged from 1347 to 1350; and owing to the Pope Clement VI. appointing a jubilee in 1350, and a vast concourse of pilgrims to Rome, it was said that scarcely one in a hundred escaped alive. The Brotherhood of the Cross or of the Flagellants reappeared at this time, which betokened the end of the world to many, and, taking on themselves the sins of the people, went about scourging themselves in churches and markets, as a mode of averting the wrath of Heaven. This imposing sacrificial ceremony had been invented about a century before by Dominic, and was kept up from time to time in various countries. The panic of the black death was in some places ascribed to the infidel practices of Jews, who were accordingly hunted to death and burnt in their synagogues, or put to the sword without compunction. The physicians of the period were all at their wits’ end how to administer remedies to those requiring a remedy. Among those carried off by this scourge was John Villani, the historian, and Laura, the beloved of Petrarch. Though the black death was so fatal in England, it was noted that Ireland escaped.
THE DANCING MANIA AND SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY AND HOLLAND.
Scarcely had the panic of the black death subsided when a delusion arose in Germany, a demoniacal epidemic, called the dance of St. John or St. Vitus, which seized upon people, convulsing body and soul, and leading them to perform a wild dance, screaming and foaming with fury. Assemblages of these fanatics became prominent in 1374, and continued more or less to exhibit the same fascination for about two centuries. They first broke out at Aix-la-Chapelle among crowds who were said to come from Germany, who formed circles hand in hand, whirling about for hours together in wild delirium, shrieking, and insensible to the wonder, horror, and jeers of the bystanders. After the fit they fell down and groaned, as if in the agonies of death, when their companions swathed them in cloths tightly drawn round the wrists, and then thumped or trampled on the parts affected. Some after this frenzy pretended to see the heavens open, and the Saviour and the Virgin Mary enthroned and beckoning to them. The clergy were gradually led to believe that these people were possessed of devils which required to be exorcised. The people affected were mostly of the class of poor, and little removed from vagabondism. Another visitation of a kindred nature was the sweating sickness, which was a violent inflammatory fever, that after a short rigor prostrated the powers as with a blow, and amid painful oppression of the stomach, headache, and lethargic stupor suffused the body with a fetid perspiration. In England it prevailed in 1485, and some chroniclers estimated that scarcely one in a hundred escaped when once seized; and it was said to be locally confined to England, and did not extend either to Scotland or Ireland or Calais. The disease was said to be traced to a season of heavy torrents of rain and inundations of rivers.
THE MONK FLAGELLANTS.
The austerities of monks for ages had created an admiration for the practice of flagellation, and this grew till a new sect arose, which believed in this as a supreme rule of life. Sovereign princes, as Raymond of Toulouse, kings, as Henry II. of England, had yielded their backs to the scourge. And St. Louis of France used it as if it were a daily luxury. Peter Damiani had taught it by precept and example. Dominic, called the Cuirassier, had invented or popularised by his fame the usage of singing psalms to the accompaniment of self-scourging. At last, about 1259, all ranks, both sexes, all ages, were possessed with this madness; nobles, wealthy merchants, modest and delicate women, even children of five years old, admired it. They stripped themselves naked to the waist, covered their faces that they might not be known, and went two and two in solemn slow procession with a cross and a banner before them, scourging themselves till the blood tracked their steps, and shrieking out their doleful psalms. They travelled from city to city. Whenever they entered a city, the contagion seized the onlookers. They marched by night as well as by day. The busy mart and the crowded streets were visited by processions; in the dead midnight the sound of the scourge and the screaming chant were accompanied with tapers and torches. Thirty-three days and a half, the number of the years of our Lord’s sojourn on earth, was the usual period of this penance. In the burning heat of summer, and when the wintry roads were deep with snow, the crowds moved on. At length the madness wore itself out. Some princes and magistrates, finding it was not sanctioned by the Roman See or by the authority of any great saint, began to interpose, and after being for a time an object of respectful wonder the practice sank into general contempt. A contemporary tells us that in the height of the mania for flagellation the fields and mountains echoed with the voices of the sinners calling to God. Usurers and robbers restored their ill-gotten gains, criminals confessed their sins and renounced their vices, the prison doors were thrown open, and the captives walked forth; homicides offered themselves on their knees with drawn swords to the kindred of their victims, and were embraced with tears; old enemies were forgiven, and exiles were permitted to return to their homes. The movement spread to the Rhine lands, and throughout Germany and Bohemia. But the excitement disappeared as rapidly as it came, and was even denounced as a heresy. Ulberto Pallavicino was resolved to keep the new heretics out of Milan, and erected three hundred gibbets by the roadside, at the sight of which the enthusiasts abruptly retraced their steps, and their enthusiasm left them.