Living With The Plague: Italian Responses To The Plague During The 14th-16th Centuries

The Black Death was one of the great plagues of the Middle Ages.The plague is characterized by its high number of casualties,its long duration and its far-reaching impact.As the first stop of the Black Death in Western Europe,Italy,especially Italian cities,were hit hard by the disease,and the death rate was high.Because of this,the Italian people also experienced the transformation from helpless to multi-party response process.From the point of view of the plague response,the whole Italian society is divided into three main bodies: Church,people and city authorities.The church plays a leading role.In the face of the Black Death,a number of priests and monks attached to the church system faithfully performed their duties.At the risk of infection,they listened to the confessions of the dying and offered their last wishes.The bishop led masses and parades in the hope of stopping the plague.In addition,the church also propagandizes the “Theory of Sin”,claiming that the plague is God’s punishment to punish the world;to avoid the disease,people have to pray to God piously.Believers who believe that they have sinned,at first,prayed,but gradually they found that prayer did not prevent the death of those around them,and things did not get better.Especially after the discovery that church members were not immune to the plague,the people’s psychology changed.Some began to advocate separation from the church and launched the Flagellant movement and Bianchi movement;some turned their anger on others and launched Anti-Semitic campaigns suspecting the Jews of poisoning;and some no longer simply prayed to God,and initiated a movement to enlarge the scope of prayer in worship of sacred objects.The revival of these movements was evidence of a change in the mindset of the people of the time,of their suspicion of the church,and of the rise of the humanism.In Italy,the urban authorities are a rather special kind of existence.Because Italy was not a unified country at that time,so the cities were relatively independent.In the face of the plague,different cities’ specific measures were different,but in general,the major cities introduced measures that had something in common.They have either enacted health legislation to clean up the environment and to stop the spread of the plague;or they have declared a 40-day quarantine for outsiders to reduce the invasion of the plague;or they have set up isolated hospitals to stop the spread of the plague in cities;or they have set up health committees,investigate the city,hire a public doctor,etc.These measures are regarded as the forerunners of the modern public health system.The responses of the church,the people,and the city authorities seem to be distinct and interconnected.From the perspective of social and cultural history,we can find out the attitude of the people of the time to the plague and their actions influenced by their religious belief;the same can also be seen in the concept of man of the time to the heritage of traditional theory.This will help us to better understand the impact of the Black Death on medieval Italians and people’s multidimensional response,and then understand the medieval socities’ epidemic response mechanism behind it.