The Black Death and the Transformation of the West

Silvia Espinosa's Response

1 Bubonic Plague: Historical Epidemiology and the
Medical Problems

The chapter gives an adequate
introduction to the medical, economic, and social issues surrounding the
academic discourse around the Black Death.
However, I have some serious misgivings with the Malthusian and Marxist
approaches.

According to Herlihy, the
Black Plague, “Europe’s greatest known ecological disaster” and the population
collapse that ensued brought forth a social response that shielded Europe from
comparable disasters until today. According
to the author the loss of so many lives, in places up to 80% of the population,
necessitated new ways to further social and economic development as a result of
the food and labor shortages that followed the disaster. The culprit
has been identified as the microbe bacilli.
Bacilli caused three types of plague in the 14th century –
bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Symptoms
included glandular inflammations, high fevers, bloody coughs, and severe skin
rashes or lesions. However, Herlihy
raises many epidemiological and etiological questions as to the source and type
of disease it really was for in many reports there appear to be inconsistencies
and contradictions. The origin and
nature of contagion is also questioned: was
it caused by rat-flea bites or by mere contact with an infected person, room,
water, hence an airborne disease. And why
did it diffuse so quickly among so many nations?

Various accounts and descriptions
of the disease and its symptoms have led some medical scholars to propose other
alternative diseases as the cause: anthrax, typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis,
Yersinia pseudo-tuberculosis or enterocolita, among others. It is thus clear that the present
understanding of the medical nature of the plaque is incomplete or inadequate.

The author raises another question
as to why medieval Europe was so vulnerable to a disease of this kind. Dissatisfied
with the medical explanations, many scholars have turned to social
factors. The social factors proposed as explanations
for such a catastrophe are rooted in Malthusian and Marxist principles.

I have a few objections to
these theories. Malthusian theory places the cause of the problem in what it
perceived to be an “over population” and diminished food supply; in this view,
natural disasters including epidemics provided the “positive check” in
violently reducing the numbers of persons in a community. Yet, I question whether calling them “positive”
is appropriate. This apparent “corrective”
implied a balancing of demand and available food supplies. Many historians see the 14th
century as experiencing a “Malthusian crisis”- or overpopulation problem - right
before the start of the plague. They ask
as how a medieval town could possibly sustain so large a population with its supposed
“poorly productive economy and stagnant technology.” Yet, I would argue instead, that the so
called “overpopulation” – what I would call natural growth - would instead force communities into creative problems
solving and come up with new solutions to meet the growing needs of a
population increase. In fact, a growing
population is often a sign of a growing economy and standard of living. The mere presence of more people might have brought
on earlier rather than sooner a production or industrial revolution. Perhaps capitalism, market economies and incentives, in addition
to international trade would have appeared earlier in European history had the
plague not reduced so much of its population. The sheer need would have necessitated the
development of technology to meet the increased demand for resources and food. Education would have been the natural
balancing check, as history shows that the better educated a population is, the
greater the tendency to have lower and manageable birthrates, without having to
go to the often violent and immoral extremes
proposed and even perpetrated by supporters of Malthusian theories. On the contrary, the decline of population after
the plague ushered in a period of stagnation and slower development. Perhaps the “Renaissance,” capitalism and
technology would have developed sooner, had it not been for the devastating
plague. The shortage of labor and human resources,
including creative individuals, would have caused an imbalance in labor wages…
affecting management, increasing product and supply prices and also slowing consumption
and thus slowing rather then developing an economy. For these and other reasons, I reject the
Malthusian explanation of “overpopulation” as inadequate and simplistic… and
anti-human.

The Marxist approach roots the
problem in the balance of classes and class struggle as the agent of historical
change - exploitation and not overpopulation is seen as the crisis of a society
and economy. Hence for a Marxist, “insurrection,
and not contraception, is the right response.” Yet, like the author states, the fact that the
plague affected and killed people from all states in life, classes, and gender
and in disparate economies and countries makes a Marxist explanation untenable.


On the other hand, it does seems
plausible to me that the plague and its effects created new opportunities for
invention and approaches to solving the economic, social and legal problems
left by so many vacancies. Peasants and otherwise marginalized people,
like women, for instance, would have been obliged out of necessity to get more
involved in the work force and even attain skills that might have been denied
to them before. With new skills gained,
higher income follows, and hence standard of living rises.

What is Medieval history? By John H. Arnold

Silvia Espinosa's Response
Chapter 4: Debating the Middle Ages

I find Arnold’s chapter,
Debating the Middle Ages, interesting and useful as survey of issues and problems
facing students and scholars of medieval culture. It certainly brought many to my attention.

In the chapter, Arnold
declares from the beginning that “History is a collaborative enterprise” and an
“ongoing argument” (respectfully of course) based on “differences in evidence,
view point, perspective and insight.” These
points are succinctly summarized in his survey of essential issues and themes
debated by medievalists. The themes
examined indicate ways in which they could form a common ground to work with
across the interdisciplinary spectrum of Medieval Studies. Naturally, the author does not pretend to
cover all of these in this brief essay, but highlights a few of the shifting
weight of issues that flash back and forth in the discourse on the Middle
Ages. Some of these include: the role, value and place of ritual within
medieval society and politics; the meaning of “feudalism” and its role in
constructing “Social structures”; the place and boundaries of cultural
divisions in defining “cultural Identities” such as the sacred as opposed to the
low (or popular) culture, the folk vs the official, oral vs literary culture
and so forth; and finally the role of royal power and other figures of
authorities (localized or centralized) across the medieval period. Before surveying these themes, the author
begins by stressing a few points for the medieval historian to consider: the
importance of understanding the wider historiographical contexts within
specific arguments; the question of how historians use sources and how these
sources construct rather than reflect the historical realities; and how different
methodologies and ideologies influence how historians propose and form
arguments.

The theme that was of most interest
to me was that of “ritual” as experienced in a myriad of settings and thus imbued
with diverse meanings. As the chapter
shows, rituals play important roles in the politics of conquest and submission
and in defining and confirming status and hierarchy. Rituals are also experienced as a language of
gestures with political and social implications and objectives. Whether formal and “scripted” or unstructured,
rituals as symbolically meaningful action permeated medieval society. Arnold gives several examples of civic,
social and political rituals. Some
affirmed courtly status and obligations which included gift giving and
receiving; these relied on communication through bodily movements as in gestures
of the body, head, and hands or even as found in the kiss of peace. Arnold also discusses rituals manifested in a
public forms: ritual punishments, religious and civic processions centered around
daily life or the Church calendar. More mundane
and common ones were mentioned too as in folk rituals of courting, birth and
death, marriage and harvest. Arnold also
considered rituals that employed a legalistic language and diplomacy. Of course, in the context of religion, the
Liturgy was paramount, having a written code from the earliest times. Other public
manifestations were equally central to medieval life such as private and public
blessings, processions and the sacraments, to name a few examples.

Questions open to debate are
those concerning the importance of ritual in society in general and more
specifically in the areas of politics, social relations, and in the Christian
faith. Civic
rituals raise the question of how it represents or reflects a town or city and
whether these were occasions for unity or tension? Author
points to another problem facing historians: the heavy reliance on text – chronicles for instance. It is important to consider how much it
reflects the interest of the individual chronicler/author or those of the wider
community and participants. Hence, ritual
becomes something to be “decode” and its meanings drawn out of varying contexts
and individuals. Yet textual sources are fewer as one delves into earlier
periods and there is always the problem of any text being deliberately
misconstrued for political purposes or other interests. Arnold reminds us of some of the difficulties
in constructing meaning out of rituals from past periods so different from our
own.

Another area disputed by
medievalists is that of “Social Structures,” commonly associated with “Feudalism”
– a term whose meaning has been much contested, but which now encompasses a
wider spectrum of issues of civil life, family, gender, status and
socioeconomic conditions and stratification.
Historians attempt to approach related questions “objectively” but the lack of sources and shifting terminology present
problems of interpretation. Arnold goes on to highlight the challenges
involved in interpreting and constructing what the Middle Ages is in the areas
of “Power” and “Cultural Identities” preparing the student of medieval studies
with a basic framework to build from.

History, Imagination, and The Black Plague

I think John Hatcher makes an interesting compromise between history and imagination in his book The Black Death: A Personal History. Rather than relying on historical documents alone, Hatcher decides to incorporate facts into a fictional piece. He chooses the town of Walsham for his setting, and uses the known government and religious procedures of the time to frame a story about a town's experience with the Black Plague. Hatcher is quick to emphasize the necessity of the general, for Medieval historians are missing the particulars needed to complete the whole picture.

It is easy to see, from the preface and introduction, that Hatcher is a historian at heart. He's almost apologetic at having to create fictional characters in order to fill the gaps history has left behind. He is more comfortable describing the real life history of Walsham than he is describing Master John, who Hatcher freely admits is a Chaucer inspired invention. I almost get the sense that Hatcher is resentful of the fiction writing process, that he must turn to fiction in order to personalize the devastation of the Black Plague. I for one think he is a bit hard on himself; while the human imagination cannot present  facts the way a document can, documents cannot always capture human thoughts, fears, hopes, and expectations. Many of these feelings are universal and timeless. If fiction can help contemporary readers understand the gravity of the situation, then the book has served a noble purpose. Also, if the book inspires readers to learn more about the Black Plague, which was Hatcher's intention, than it IS effective in advancing the cause of history. The relationship between facts and imagination can be a beneficial one, provided people understand that imagination is a way of interpreting history, not a way of replacing it.

Response to Kelly's “Oh Ye of Little Faith”

In general Kelly's book is a very thorough and informative account of the Black Death. The author treats both the social and cultural effects of the plague, relates the first-hand responses of the afflicted, as well as discusses the scientific accounts of its possible origin.

In chapter 11 Kelly focuses on plague-ravaged Germany which gave rise to two phenomena. One, already known from other parts of Europe (such as France and England), was the rise of antisemitism that took particularly cruel form in the German-speaking countries. The other, the formation of groups of so called flagellants was particularly unique to that region. Besides numerous valid and interesting points that Kelly makes in this chapter I was rather disappointed that he does not really get into the discussion of the possible causes of such particularly strong response to the plague. The author briefly mentions the particularities of the Teutonic soul, so different in character from other nations. In general, throughout Kelly's book we can witness that he tends to see different nations in very stereotypical ways and use these “innate” characteristic as means to explain certain historical facts (for example he also sees English as generally phlegmatic). Why did the flagellant movement caught on in Germany and no other countries? Instead of seeing it as character of Teutonic soul, couldn't we just explain it as part of politics? For example, the French king explicitly banned the flagellants to enter his domain, preventing the populace from being mesmerized by these highly visual spectacles. The other important question is where the movement originated in the first place? Even though the first groups were seen in Italy over hundred years before the plague was the German movement the same? What particular economic, social, and cultural factors provoked the German-speaking populace to turn to such drastic measures?

Another aspect of Kelly's book that bothered me is his frequent reference to modern history that strike me as rather anachronistic. Quite often when discussing cases of antisemitism, Kelly weaves in the poems or accounts of victims of World Ward II German concentration camps. These constant references made me rather uncomfortable as the circumstances of persecution were very different – the Black Death violence seems rather to be a spontaneous action of mad folk rather than elaborate ruthless plan carefully organized by the government. The origins of that hatred also seem to be quite different, even though some of the twentieth-century ethnic hatred had its roots in the medieval thought. It is also interesting to ask why is Kelly using these comparisons? Is to bring us closer to experience of the medieval Jew? in other words, does it serve as an apparatus of better understanding of the history, or is it to evoke a purely emotional response from the reader (as these accounts are frequently highly personal). It just seems to me that too often Kelly is trying to access the medieval individual with all the thought and emotions. That move, however, turns his book into a fictional narrative loosely tied to historical facts, rather than a documentary study of the epidemic.

Gafney response to Herlihy, "The New Economic and Demographic System"

Response to Herlihy, “The New Economic and Demographic System”

In this lecture, Herlihy uses various types of evidence to suggest that the Black Death of 1348 contributed to a demographic shift in Western Europe that planted the seeds of modern technological and consumer-driven society, as well as contributing to a shift in the demographic structure of the population. As his last paragraph reads:

The great population debacle of the late Middle Ages did not, in sum, introduce an entirely new demographic system. But it did redistribute the population between the two tiers of the traditional system. Depopulation gave access to farms and remunerative jobs to a larger percentage of the population. High wages and low rents also raised the standard of living for substantial numbers. They became acquainted with a style of life that they or their children would not want easily to abandon. For a significantly larger part of society, the care of property and the defense of living standards were tightly joined with decisions to marry and to reproduce… Out of the havoc of plague, Europe adopted what can well be called the modern Western mode of demographic behavior. (57).

Much of Herlihy’s argument makes intuitive sense. A population-stressed Europe would, after recovering from the shock of loosing one third to one half of its population, of course seem to revive in such a way that those remaining would have a better quality of life than they had had before. More land would be available for few people, meaning that more animals could be raised and various types of crops pioneered. Also, significantly, the smaller population size and resultant wage hike would certainly encourage technological advances that would save labor. Labor became, in essence, a commodity, and was treated as such, both in the payment of high wages for services that once cost very little, and also in the imagining that human labor could be replaced by labor done by a machine, or done by human beings in conjunction with machines.

Herlihy’s arguments also seem to make sense in the context of plague and post-plague literature in Europe. Boccaccio describes plague-infested Florence as a kind of apocalyptic city; his young protagonists in their verdant retreat, with their self-made courtly way of structuring their time, seem like the remnants of a previous condemned civilization who will create a new way of life for themselves in the idyllic countryside. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales may also be read as a description of post-plague England; the social shiftings and meldings of estates that nearly all of the pilgrims display could by attributed to demographic upsets of the plague.

I do feel, however, that Herlihy focuses on the “positive” effects of the plague, while only hinting at some of the more devastating and unfortunate effects of the population loss, which might not have been recovered from so quickly. For example, Herlihy describes the loss of skilled practitioners that most professions suffered as a result of the population devastations of the plague: “Short years of service before death intervened, rapid turnover in members, wide recruitment of new persons, affected the quality of the product or service the professions provided” (45). Herlihy notes these changes as impetus new developments in technology. He does not, I think, give sufficient importance to these observations, preferring to give a more optimistic account of post-plague Europe. It may indeed have been the case that workers could charge more and could therefore enjoy different kinds of clothes and food, as well as access to education and other forms of improvement. But, if necessary tasks such as city organization and construction, doctoring the sick, and religious work were done poorly, the general quality of life in Europe may have declined in other significant ways, and may not have been able to “bounce back” as quickly as Herlihy would have us believe. Even such essentials as food and clothing, if not well raised and well made, would contribute little to the general wellbeing of a worker who survived the epidemic. And, with fewer checks and balances, less training, and higher demand, doctors, priests, and teachers could have taken advantage of a ravaged social system to influence people and make money without providing the services their professions require. The gross abuses of power by Catholic officials, such as the selling of false relics and absolution for sins, may well have been made possible by just such a demographic imbalance that Herlihy here describes in mostly positive terms.

Gafney Response to Arnold, “Reading the Middle Ages”

Response to Arnold, “Reading the Middle Ages”

In this third chapter of his What is Medieval History? Arnold explores several other fields that impact the work of medieval historians: anthropology, numbers and statistics (economics), archeology, and literary texts/literary theory. I’ll focus on this last area.

In each case, Arnold examines the valuable additions that each external field has made to the study of medieval history, particularly highlighting the productive and often revelatory work that can be done when work is done across disciplines. For the most part, I find his analyses clear and well reasoned. The weakest section of the chapter is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the one that examines the relationship between medieval history and medieval literary texts. Arnold implies that the study of medieval history and that of medieval literature (if I may be allowed the use of this term) is reciprocal in nature. History may be pressed into the service of the interpretation of literature, and literary texts may be thought of as something akin to historical artifacts, to be mined for further insights into the period. Arnold mentions that these relationships must be carefully moderated; in terms of the latter, for instance, he writes: “Thus whilst a literary text may not often provide a fact, it can tell us about ways of talking and writing and hence thinking” (81). Medieval texts may not be viewed as purely historical documents; their tropes, their heavy symbolic investment, and their uses of irony, hyperbole, fantasy, and the like preclude their functioning as truthful accounts of the world during a particular period in time. For Arnold, however, literary texts are useful tools for historians because they “give insight in to the shape of [medieval people’s] thought and feelings” (80).

It seems to me that in describing the use of medieval literature thus, Arnold allows medieval historians the liberties that few literature scholars would take. An author’s intention, and a text’s reception are, of course, inherent aspects of the study of literature. It is not to be imagined, however, that scholars of literature feel these aspects of study to be the most important, the most fruitful, or even the most responsible. Many, if not most, literary scholars today avoid commenting on the ways that a particular literary text helps them imagine the ways that medieval people spoke or thought. It is possible to discuss the ways that characters speak, feel, and think, and it is also possible to discuss the ways in which various aspects of a text function to produce a reaction in us, its readers. But to ascribe a character’s emotions and expressions to a living person in the Middle Ages, or to equate our response to a medieval text to the response of a person who was hearing or reading that text at the time it was penned, may not be casually done, if it is to be done at all. As Arnold himself writes at the end of the chapter, “I do not wish to state dogmatically that medieval people were essentially different from modern people, any more than I would want to assume the reverse. The question of sameness of difference- identification or alterity- is an important and continuing debate” (85). It is strange to me, then, that Arnold would say that medieval literary texts may be used to gauge the shape of medieval people’s thoughts, since this assertion necessarily equates our perception of characters in medieval texts with living medieval people, and our responses to medieval texts to the responses that medieval people would have had upon res

Response to Social Chaucer

In the third chapter of Social Chaucer, titled "Audience", Paul Strohm identifies likely audiences for Chaucer’s works. While Chaucer’s audience can shift depending on his life circumstances and social position, Strohm also notes other audiences of Chaucer’s that were emerging; the imagined and future audiences.

In earlier periods, when he was writing the works The Book of the Duchess (1366-1374) and Troilus and Criseyde (1374-1385-86, Chaucer was in some way or another part of a social circle. When writing the Canterbury Tales, however, Chaucer found himself more isolated after moving to Kent in 1386. As a result, he was forced to rely more on imagined readers. Strohm writes about his possible motivations for turning to the imagined audience in this quote, “Given Chaucer’s tendency to conceive his work as communication, we may understand his deliberate enhancement of a fictional situation of telling and reception as a way of ‘staging’ his work during a precarious time, in the absence of a stable communicative situation” (65). Simply put, Chaucer needed to speak to and with somebody, even if that meant through imagination.

This is not to say he disregarded or lost contact with his former audience. In fact, Strohm puts forth evidence to prove that was not the case in the later works of Clanvowe and Scogan, who had been in Chaucer’s old circle. These works sometimes included direct lines, or very similar anyway, to lines from the Canterbury Tales. Certainly, members of Chaucer’s former circle had read and were influenced by the Canterbury Tales. And of course, we have to imagine that Chaucer would always write with his circles in mind, whether he was physically separated from them or not.

But while his circle may have enjoyed the characters from the Canterbury Tales, they were not represented by those characters. The social groups of the Pilgrims are too varied, were not in Chaucer’s circle in real life, and there’s a sense that the characters are created to balance each other more than they are meant to accurately represent their respective occupations, or even the tastes of their social class. Strohm points out that a  story such as the Knight’s Tale could be appreciated as “Chivalric”, and that the Fabliaux humor of the Miller’s Tale was often appreciated by the gentry. Still, according to Strohm, the assigning of certain types of tales to certain members of society serves a purpose, “But, even if the social basis of literary judgment is more complex than Chaucer chooses to pretend, his pretense can be embraced as one that (in conjunction with a socially mixed body of tellers and hearers) permits a tale collection of unprecedented internal diversity” (70)  Chaucer was more concerned with the conflict that develops out of differing backgrounds (for example, between the Knight and the Miller) more than he was concerned with the accurate portrayal of particular backgrounds.

This focus on the internal, on the interaction between opposing voices, appears to me to be more characteristic of the universal and the timeless. For that reason, Chaucer’s audience had to become more imagined and less constrained by a specific time. The universal and the timeless is comprehended by audiences of all times and backgrounds. What I find interesting is that this shift occurs on the cusp of print culture, when the audience became more widespread and “imagined”. Chaucer, then, could be seen as being ahead of his time.

Lisa Murray Response to What is Medieval History?

First of all, I want to agree with Aneta's point about the lack of Medieval Studies in Eastern Europe. I have not taken too many Medieval courses, but in the ones I have, we studied Western Europe. Perhaps there is not as much material surviving from Eastern Europe? And if there is, why are Professors not as keen on discussing the Medieval era in Eastern European countries? I think this would be a good topic for class.

 In the first chapter of What is Medieval History? titled Framing the Middle Ages, John H. Arnold makes some points that are interesting, but others that seem generic. The interesting part of the chapter was when Arnold touched on European Medievalists' emotional attachment to the Middle ages during the 19th and 20th Centuries. This factor is necessary to note; many of the European Medievalists had self serving reasons for romanticizing the Middle Ages, for it helped to evoke feelings of pride and empowerment in their current times and nations. This can deeply affect the way an era is historized.

However, some of the other points about studying Medieval times, such as appreciating  the Medieval era for its complexity, are common sense, which we can see from this quote, "That is, to put the point more broadly, every element of 'medievalness' is situated within a certain perspective, differing between different times,places, and people, rather than one universal and univocal feature of the period" (8) I think, or at least I hope, most people know by now that the Medieval era was more than just Knights, Castles, and King Arthur's Court and that Medieval England was not exactly like Medieval Germany or Medieval France or Medieval Italy and so on. 

Another aspect of Arnold's book I would like to discuss is who is being studied.When moving on to more recent Medieval studies, Arnold writes, "Overall, the shifts within medieval history in the twentieth century largely followed broader currents in historiography" (15). He then goes on to write about the increased interest in women, jews, lepers, heretics, homosexuals, and slaves of the era. My question is; why does it always take so long for these members of society to be studied, for a historian to realize that their experience is relevant? To be fair, Arnold does point out that there had been some extensive studies done on medieval era women and jews in earlier periods. Still, I always get the impression that these members of society are only studied when studies on the more "important" areas, such as politics, government, economics, etc., are exhausted.

In his introduction to What is Medieval History Arnold, rightfully so, argues against the stereotypical perception of the Middle Ages (emphasizing its complexity). His discussion of politics, practices, communication, and believes, although cursory, is very convincing. He also correctly observes,  that the unfortunate label of the period itself, was in every case (any century) the result of ideological struggle with the given movement trying to differentiate or liken itself to the Middle Ages. The negative differentiation is widely known and we have already discussed it during our first class, but Arnold also points out that the positive associations, such as for example nineteenth-century interest (and its focus on nationalism) may be equally dangerous. Finally, Arnold characterizes four main problems with which Medieval studies need to grapple or at least be aware of: 1. the link with nationalism 2. legacy of  nineteenth-century scholarship: framing middle ages with these attitudes,  interests, and concepts, for example idea of nation (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German) 3. difference in historiography in various countries (also used to achieve different political and other ends). 4. existence of Middle Ages as a period at all.
    I think that these four problems are extremely important, but I do take issue with Arnold's focus (and not only he is at fault – it is a much larger phenomenon) on limited number of regions (currently occupied by five states: England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany) as being the only areas discussed within medieval historiography. Is the study of Medieval Europe truly as study of Medieval Western Europe? If so, why isn't it labelled as such? If not, why is nobody ever mentioning what was happening in Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Balkans, etc? I found it absolutely astounding that almost no scholarly material (in English) ever even mentions these countries (especially granting that union of Poland and Lithuania was one of the largest and militarily strongest entities at that time). If scholars do not include the histories of Medieval Eastern Europe into the Medieval studies, the whole area will continue its historic non-existence, as it will never be embraced by scholars in other areas (e.g. Middle Easter, or Asian). What is the reason for such a gap? Are languages the only barrier?