History through the Eyes of . . . Jean de Venette: Paris and the Black Death, 14th Century, #2

Randall Stephens

Jean de Venette (ca. 1308-ca. 1369), a Carmelite friar in Paris, wrote about the horrifying devastation brought on by the Black Death. Venette came from peasant stock and sympathized with the lower orders. No hauler of water was he, though. He was master of theology at the University of Paris. His historically valuable Chronicle dealt with the years 1340-1368. His commentary, say historians, is fairly unique. Reflecting on the plague, Venette offered a personal portrait. He speculates on the causes of the pandemic, which wrecked so much havoc on Europe, and records the results with stunning detail.

Little in recorded history did as much to change society as the plague did. England's population in 1400 may have been half of what it was a century before. It is possible that one-third of Europe's population died from the Black Death. (Click on map from Bedford's Mapcentral.)

Jean de Venette, Chronicle (1340-1368).

In 1348 C.E., the people of France and of almost the whole world were struck by a blow other than war. For in addition to the famine which I described in the beginning and to the wars which I described in the course of this narrative, pestilence and its attendant tribulations appeared again in various parts of the world. In the month of August,1348, after Vespers when the sun was beginning to set, a big and very bright star appeared above Paris, toward the west. It did not seem, as stars usually do, to be very high above our hemisphere but rather very near. As the sun set and night came on, this star did not seem to me or to many other friars who were watching it to move from one place. At length, when night had come, this big star, to the amazement of all of us who were watching, broke into many different rays and, as it shed these rays over Paris toward the east, totally disappeared and was completely annihilated. Whether it was a comet or not, whether it was composed of airy exhalations and was finally resolved into vapor, I leave to the decision of astronomers. It is, however, possible that it was a presage of the amazing pestilence to come, which, in fact, followed very shortly in Paris and throughout France and elsewhere, as I shall tell. All this year and the next, the mortality of men and women, of the young even more than of the old, in Paris and in the kingdom of France, and also, it is said, in other parts of the world, was so great that it was almost impossible to bury the dead. People lay ill little more than two or three days and died suddenly .... He who was well one day was dead the next and being carried to his grave. Swellings appeared suddenly in the armpit or in the groin-in many cases both-and they were infallible signs of death. This sickness or pestilence was called an epidemic by the doctors. Nothing like the great numbers who died in the years 1348 and 1349 had been heard of or seen or read of in times past. This plague and disease came from . . . association and contagion, for if a well man visited the sick he only rarely evaded the risk of death. Wherefore in many towns timid priests withdrew, leaving the exercise of their ministry to such of the religious as were more daring. In many places not two out of twenty remained alive. So high was the mortality at the Hotel-Dieu in Paris that for a long time, more than five hundred dead were carried daily with great devotion in carts to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris for burial. A very great number of the saintly sisters of the Hotel-Dieu who, not fearing to die, nursed the sick in all sweetness and humility, rest in peace with Christ, as we may piously believe.

This plague, it is said, began among the unbelievers, came to Italy, and then crossing the Alps reached Avignon, where it attacked several cardinals and took from them their whole household. Then it spread, unforeseen, to France, through Gascony and Spain, little by little, from town to town, from village to village, from house to house, and finally from person to person. It even crossed over to Germany, though it was not so bad there as with us. During the epidemic, God of His accustomed goodness deigned to grant this grace, that however suddenly men died, almost all awaited death joyfully. Nor was there anyone who died without confessing his sins and receiving the holy viaticum. To the even greater benefit of the dying, Pope Clement VI through their confessors mercifully gave and granted absolution from penalty to the dying in many cities and fortified towns. Men died the more willingly for this and left many inheritances and temporal goods to churches and monastic orders, for in many cases they had seen their close heirs and children die before them.

Some said that this pestilence was caused by infection of the air and waters, since there was at this time no famine nor lack of food supplies, but on the contrary great abundance. As a result of this theory of infected water and air as the source of the plague, the Jews were suddenly and violently charged with infecting wells and water and corrupting the air. The whole world rose up against them cruelly on this account. In Germany and other parts of the world where Jews lived, they were massacred and slaughtered by Christians, and many thousands were burned everywhere, indiscriminately. The unshaken . . . constancy of the men and their wives was remarkable. For mothers hurled their children first into the fire that they might not be baptized and then leaped in after them to burn with their husbands and children. It is said that many bad Christians were found who in a like manner put poison into wells. But in truth, such poisonings, granted that they actually were perpetrated, could not have caused so great a plague nor have infected so many people. There were other causes; for example, the will of God and the corrupt humors and evil inherent in air and earth. Perhaps the poisonings, if they actually took place in some localities, re-enforced these causes. The plague lasted in France for the greater part of the years 1348 and 1349 and then ceased. Many country villages and many houses in good towns remained empty and deserted. Many houses, including some splendid dwellings, very soon fell into ruins. Even in Paris several houses were thus ruined, though fewer here than elsewhere.

Pandemics Are Nothing to Sneeze At

For some people it's probably a big joke. 'Swine Flu', it just has a funny name, right? For others it's probably a case of wondering what all the fuss is about, since we are talking about a few dozen cases in the United States, and all of those are down around the border with Mexico, which has the real problem. So what's the big deal? Why all the headline stories in the newspaper and on television? And what's with all those empty stadiums this past weekend for all the big soccer matches down there south of the border? Well glad that you asked, because the topic of handling a pandemic, at least from a law enforcement perspective, is being addressed this year in one of the courses that I am teaching. The course, titled 'Crisis & Emergency Management', is a scenario-based course in which the police officers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are presented with four unusual situations, asked to place themselves in the scenario, and are guided as to how they should be expected to have to respond. They are also given information on some of the resources that would be coming to help in the situation from the government and other entities. One of the scenarios, in fact the final one that they are being presented, is a pandemic flu outbreak. How timely, huh? I can't tell you how many times that I have gotten that look in class. You know the one, the "You gotta be kidding me, this will never happen" look. Well as today's headlines are beginning to relate, pandemic outbreaks are not only things that happened in the distant past or the subjects of science fiction, but they are very real threats to our society and our world, and we need to be prepared and informed. A 'pandemic' is a breakout of an infectious disease that spreads through populations of humans or animals or both from person-to-person (animal to person, animal to animal) across large geographic regions, continents, and even around the world. There have been a number of pandemics to hit the world in recorded history. Many have heard of the 'Black Death' of 'bubonic plague' pandemic that struck in the 14th century and killed 20-30 million Europeans in just six years. In the 19th century, another plague outbreak began in China and spread all around the world, killing 10 million people in India. There were numerous outbreaks of 'cholera' in the 19th century, including an 1866 outbreak in our own country that killed some 50,000 Americans. Also here in the U.S., the 'Spanish flu' pandemic struck in 1918-1919, eventually spreading to all corners of the world and infecting up to 5% of the human population, with 20% of people feeling some effects. In six months, some estimates had the number of dead worldwide as 50 million, but others placed it at twice that number. As recently as 1957-58, the 'Asian flu' caused upwards of 70,000 deaths here in the U.S., and in 1968-69 the 'Hong Kong flu' killed 34,000 Americans. During the 1700's, at the time of the 'Thirty Years War', approximately 8 million Germans were wiped out by an outbreak of plague and typhus. Just as recently as 2003 the world reeled at the possibility of another pandemic called 'SARS', a highly contagious pneumonia type, but quick action around the world stopped its spread before it could become a pandemic. That illness was not eradicated, however, and could reemerge at any time. The bottom line is that there is nothing at all cute about 'Swine flu' despite its comical sounding name. It is an illness that draws that name because it is prevalent in swine or pig populations. This is a killer illness that at the very least can make a lot of people very ill. You need to pay close attention to the news on this pandemic, and take every precaution that public health authorities release as seriously as possible. In a worst case scenario here in America, we could see scenes such as played out in those Mexican football/soccer games this past weekend. What are known as 'social distancing methods' could well be put into effect, where large groups of people are kept apart from one another by methods such as closing schools, bars, restaurants, and other public gathering places and events such as pro sports games would perhaps be played, but in front of empty ballparks and arenas. We will see individuals placed into 'isolation', where they have been diagnosed with the illness and are kept away from others during their period of infectiousness. We would also likely see individuals, and possibly families, work places, or entire communities put into 'quarantine' where these have been in contact with individuals who are diagnosed as positive with the illness, until those folks in contact can be deemed illness-free. And if things ever get really bad due to a pandemic disease outbreak, you need to not only pay strict attention and follow along with strict adherence to public health and law enforcement authorities directions, but it couldn't hurt to toss in a prayer or two while you're at it, because hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are likely to end up dead.