1. Christ, the suffering Redeemer, on the cross.
2. Intercession by the Virgin Mary or by Christ.
3. Memorials of the martyrdom of special plague saints, such as St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and St. Antony.
And closely allied to this last,
4. Intercession by these special plague saints, or by other saints whose association with plague was more fortuitous and less widely recognized: such were St. Quirinus, St. Adrian, and St. Valentine.
Many of these forms have attached to them some appropriate prayer or invocation. Sometimes the religious element is supplemented by an exposition of hygienic precautions or of remedial measures. Thus a devotional cut comes to be blended with injunctions, usually in verse, as to how to stave off pestilence by isolation, fumigation, washing, or dietary; or how to cure it by such measures as bleeding, or plasters to hasten maturation of the buboes.
In addition to these types, a non-pictorial type is met with, nearly akin to the English Broadside, in which the religious purpose has almost or wholly disappeared, and which sets out in uncompromising prose directions of prophylactic or therapeutic character.
Pestblätter originated in more ways than one. In times of pestilence pilgrimages were often made to the shrines of special saints, and rough representations of these saints were provided, as memorials of their pilgrimage to the devout. Sometimes the object of homage was some sacred picture, which would then be roughly reproduced as a memento. At other times they seem to have been issued by religious communities for purely devotional purposes. Those of secular character were either printed by order of the municipalities, or were the product of private medical enterprise. Original Pestblätter are to be seen in the leading museums of most European countries. A selection of these has been admirably reproduced in a portfolio[164] by Heitz and Mündel of Strasbourg.
[Plate XVII (1)] is a woodcut, probably printed at Nuremberg at the commencement of the fifteenth century. The Almighty is depicted with the drawn sword of pestilence in His hand, within what would seem from its colouring in the original to be a representation of the rose-wreath, emblematic of the Virgin Mary. In the centre are St. Sebastian with his symbolic arrow, and an angel tending the plague sore of St. Roch. Below is a prayer to these two saints.
[Plate XVII (2)] shows the Almighty above, with the shafts of pestilence in His hands. The crowned Madonna shelters beneath her robe her suppliants, among whom are dignitaries of the Church. Below a group of saints are interceding with the Virgin and Child and St. Anna. The whole is encircled by the Virgin’s girdle wrought into a rose-wreath.