The Black Death in Avignon

Joey T.I.

OverviewOverview

-In 1346, Europe experienced a decline from the period known as “the high middle ages” (a period of enhanced population growth), after which the populations started to decline again, and famines had stimulated the process.-Reports of great banks going under, greatly hindering trade and expansion of countries as there was no funding to build new towns.-Papacy had been successfully moved to Avignon from Rome 30 years before plague struck.-Chroniclers state that around half the population of Europe, estimated by modern historians to be around 2.5 million people, perished.

……In FranceIn France-Two plagues appear in France, at two different times: 1st plague in 1348, affects all of France. The same plague reoccurs in Avignon in 1361, and a few other cities in Europe, but it is the only one recorded in France.

Plague No:1Plague No:1

-Spread through Marseilles after the same infected ships that infected Genoa in Italy land in Marseilles. Ships stop only briefly but the plague still manages to spread.

-Within a month, plague reached Avignon -Chroniclers state that approximately 10000 people were killed -Only the presence of the papacy within Avignon during this epidemic made the

plague in the city stand out, otherwise the plague is believed to have been just the same in Avignon as it was everywhere else in Europe.

-The pope during the time of the plague from 1348-1350 was Clement IV. -Reigned from 1342 until he died in 1352. -as the spiritual leader for an entire religion, he believed in the importance of

his survival of the plague, especially since one third of the cardinals at the time were killed by the disease, and his death would have greatly demoralized the public.

Clement IV: How he survivedClement IV: How he survived -Clement put his physicians to the task of protecting him from the plague, and

they came up with the idea of keeping to huge fires burning on either side of the Pope at all times, even in the middle of summer, in the hopes of “cleansing the air” of the plague.

-This method proved very effective, if not for the intended reasons, as the rats and the fleas didn’t bother with the heat, and the pope had adequate resources to keep the fires going until the plagues subsided. The general public however was not so fortunate, and most of Clement's staff died of the while he remained in his “safe haven”

-His survival did prove to be crucial to the people however, as he mediated much spiritual unrest by decreeing that all victims of the plague would automatically receive remission of their sins and he saw the necessity of consecrating the Rhône river so that corpses could be dumped into it saving space and time lost with burials.

Plague No2 in AvignonPlague No2 in Avignon -Came about in 1361, and lasted from the 28th of March to the 25th of July -In the span of four months it killed 17000 people in Avignon, almost twice as

many people as the last plague, but in one sixth the time. -100 bishops of the pope’s court and nine cardinals died, the cardinal t be buried

in the court yard of “La Chartreuse de Villanueve” -Even after the example of the first plague, people truly did not have the means to

fight such epidemics with their level of knowledge in the field of medicine, and so the effects were just as grave in the first plague as the second.

-many theories as to how one should proceed to fight the plague surfaced in the first plague and were built upon during the second as well. For instance: “One must stay in their homes, with the windows and doors caulked, Use vinegar (in foods) Eat garlic, sorrel, onions, myrrh, Saffron as well as thériaque (The French word for an herb of some sort, I could not find the translation.) Burn incense, camphor and aromatic plants” As is apparent, these remedies did nothing more than fool the mind, but they do show how the people during the time of the Black Death interpreted diseases, and believed quite simply that sources of unusual and strong taste or smell, or that were known to already have powerful effects on the senses could fight diseases such as the black death that were believed to have been spread though the air.