Western Civilization - History Of European Society

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

216 Chapter 12


The data presented in this table show the dramatic
effects of the Black Death as well as the substantial in-
creases in the European population between 1150
and 1250 and between 1400 and 1450. The indices
are based on the figures for 100 (that is 1000100).
These figures are estimates only and have proved
controversial.

Indices per period of fifty years
PeriodIndexPeriodIndex
1000–50109.51500–50113.0
1050–1100104.31550–1600114.1
1100–50104.21600–50112.4
1150–1200122.01650–1700115.0
1200–50113.11700–50121.7
1250–1300105.81750–1800134.3
1300–5069.91800–50141.5
1350–140088.21850–1900150.8
1400–50133.31900–50136.7
1450–1500115.0
Source: B. H. Slicher van Bath, The Agrarian History of Western Europe,
A.D. 500–1800,trans. Olive Ordish (London: Edward Arnold, 1963),
p. 79.

TABLE 12.1

Indices of Population Increase in Europe,
1000–1950

160

0
1000110012001300140015001600170018001900

140
120
100
80
60
40
20

DOCUMENT 12.2

The Symptoms of the Plague

A description of the Black Death survives from one of the
greatest of the late medieval writers. In 1348–53 Giovanni
Boccaccio, who would later become a founder of Renaissance
humanism (see chapter 13), wrote the Decameron,a series
of stories told in a villa outside Florence where a group of
fashionable young people take refuge from the plague. The
book begins with a description of the epidemic.

In the year of our Lord 1348, there happened at
Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most terrible
plague; which, whether owing to the influence of
the planets, or that it was sent from God as a just
punishment for our sins, had broken out some
years before in the Levant, and after passing from
place to place, and making incredible havoc all the
way, had now reached the west. There, in spite of
all the means that art and human foresight could
suggest, such as keeping the city free from filth,
the exclusion of all suspected persons, and the
publication of copious instructions for the preser-
vation of health; and not withstanding manifold
humble supplications offered to God in proces-
sions and otherwise; it began to show itself in the
aforesaid year, and in a sad and wonderful manner.
Unlike what had been seen in the east, where
bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here
there appeared certain tumors in the groin or under
the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as
an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of
the body; in some cases large and but few in num-
ber, in others smaller and more numerous—both
sorts the usual messengers of death. To the cure of
this malady, neither medical knowledge nor the
power of drugs was of any effect; whether because
the disease was in its own nature mortal, or that the
physicians (the number of whom, taking quacks
and women pretenders into the account, was
grown very great) could form no just idea of the
cause, nor consequently devise a true method of
cure; whichever was the reason, few escaped; but
nearly all died the third day from the first appear-
ance of the symptoms, some sooner, some later,
without any fever or accessory symptoms.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. “The Decameron.” In Stories of Boccac-
cio,p. 1, trans. John Payne. London: The Bibliophilist Society,
1903.
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