COPYRIGHT FURTHER READING SOURCES CREDITS ABOUT THE PROJECT END AND AFTERMATH OF THE PLAGUE PLAGUE AND RELIGION FORTY DAYS WHERE DID IT COME FROM? WHAT DID IT DO? WHAT WAS IT? PATHOGEN PROFILE EFFECTS ON SOCIETY SOURCE ANALYSIS MEDICAL TOOLS & KNOWLEDGE FORTY DAYS KEY PEOPLE OF THE AGE TIMELINE OF MAIN EVENTS EUROPE IN 14TH CENTURY FORTY DAYS
COPYRIGHT FURTHER READING SOURCES CREDITS ABOUT THE BOOK END AND AFTERMATH OF THE PLAGUE PLAGUE AND RELIGION FORTY DAYS WHERE DID IT COME FROM? WHAT DID IT DO? WHAT WAS IT? PATHOGEN PROFILE EFFECTS ON SOCIETY SOURCE ANALYSIS MEDICAL TOOLS & KNOWLEDGE FORTY DAYS KEY PEOPLE OF THE AGE TIMELINE OF MAIN EVENTS EUROPE IN 14TH CENTURY FORTY DAYS

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Black Death Interactive / Europe in the 14th century
Key people of the age
DANTE AND PETRARCH

Prior to Giovanni Bocaccio, literary culture in fourteenth century Italy was dominated by two other titans: Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. Although both are famous as writers, to label them as such is to misrepresent the enormous impact of their works – not just in Italy but across Europe. Together, the two helped shape the course of European culture.

Born in Florence in around 1265, Dante is widely recognised as the author of the most important work of literature in the Italian language, The Divine Comedy. Divided into three parts, this epic poem tells the story of a man (often identified as Dante himself), as he journeys into Hell (Inferno), then to Purgatory, and finally to Paradise (i.e. Heaven), accompanied by the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, and later by the love of his life, Beatrice Portinari. His other most famous work, La Vita Nuova, celebrates his love for Beatrice, whom he met as a young boy but never married.

Perhaps the most important of Dante’s decisions was to write The Divine Comedy in Tuscan (the precursor to modern Italian). By using the vernacular language, as opposed to Latin, Dante contributed significantly to the creation of an Italian language, and it also made his work significantly more accessible. Later writers, including both Petrarch and Boccaccio, would follow his example.

Although he loved his native Florence, Dante ended his life as a political exile. Caught between the interests of the two political parties in the Republic, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. As a member of the Guelphs, Dante recognised the authority of the pope as head of the Catholic Church, but not of secular affairs. Charged by his opponents from a faction within his own party, he was exiled in 1302. He lived out the remainder of his days in various cities across northern Italy, dying in Ravenna on 13th September 1321. Although Florence had repeatedly tried to get him to return, he refused. His importance was quickly recognised over the course of the fourteenth century, and he was recognised as the divino poeta (the "divine poet"). Giovanni Boccaccio even wrote a life of the poet and delivered lectures on the The Divine Comedy in 1373!‍

"There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy" – Dante Alighieri, Inferno.

Francesco Petrarca, otherwise more commonly known as Petrarch, was born on 20th July 1304 in Arezzo in Tuscany. As well as a poet, he is renowned especially as a scholar and a humanist. He is a key figure in the emergence in fourteenth and fifteenth century Italy of the Renaissance and the revived interest in the arts and ideals of Classical antiquity that followed.

Abandoning his legal studies, he followed his true passions for literature. Moving to Avignon, the temporary home of the papacy in the fourteenth century, Petrarch would meet Laura. She would become the idealised subject of his celebrated lyric poetry, many of which are presented in his Canzoniere (1360).

Petrarch travelled widely, and especially sought out manuscripts of Classical authors. Some of his most famous discoveries included speeches of Cicero, discovered in the Belgian city of Liege. He argued strongly for a continuity between Classical culture and the Christian message (a belief enhanced by his study of St Augustine’s Confessions). Later in his life, he would work on a text – in Latin – called de viris illustribus. It aimed to present biographies of the great men of Roman history but was expanded to included famous men from all of history, beginning with Adam. His appreciation of, and engagement with, the Classical past as a source of inspiration and philosophical meaning would be hugely important in Renaissance culture in the centuries that followed.

"I observe about me dying throngs of both young and old, and nowhere is there a refuge. No haven beckons in any part of the globe, nor can any hope of longed for salvation be seen. Wherever I turn my frightened eyes, their gaze is troubled by continual funerals: the churches groan encumbered with biers, and, without last respects, the corpses of the noble and the commoner lie in confusion alongside each other." Petrarch, Ad seipsum ("To Himself"), ca. 1348 describes the horrors of the Black Death.

DANTE AND PETRARCH
Black Death Interactive / Europe in the 14th century
Key people of the age
GUY DE CHAULIAC

Born in Chaulhac in southern France in around 1300, Guy de Chauliac provides clear evidence of the depth of medical knowledge in medieval Europe in the fourteenth century. Although the poet Petrarch may have characterised the period as the ‘Dark Ages’, this was a misnomer. As the life and work of de Chauliac makes clear, there were people working towards illuminating human understanding during his difficult century.

de Chauliac’s medical training began in Toulouse and Montpellier. The latter was recognised as a centre of medical knowledge in the fourteenth century, particularly during France. He also visited Paris, and Bologna in Italy upon completing his training. It was in the Italian city that he began to study anatomy under the tutelage of Nicola Bertuccio. It is through that Bertuccio introduced de Chauliac to surgical techniques.

His reputation in southern Europe was on the rise, and soon de Chauliac was invited to take up a position as the personal physician of Pope Clement VI in Avignon in France. The position of papal physician was one that de Chauliac would hold for a number of years, and he cared for the two successors of Clement VI: Innocent VI (1352-1362) and Urban V (1362-1370).

Notably, de Chauliac showed a remarkable degree of courage and decided to remain in Avignon when the Black Death arrived in 1348. While others fled from the lethal disease, the Pope’s physician remained. He began treating patients and recording their various symptoms with meticulous care. He even claimed to have contracted the disease himself! Fortunately, de Chauliac survived.

His observations from the front line of the plague allowed him to distinguish between two forms of the disease: the Bubonic plague and the Pneumonic Plague. Although what spread the plague remained a mystery, de Chauliac nevertheless recognised it as contagious. He recommended that the air be kept purified to ward off miasmas, as well as bleeding (also called ‘venesection’) and a healthy diet. His rational approach to the disease was exemplified by his resistance to the antisemitic response it provoked in parts of Europe.

The most important of Guy de Chauliac’s medical works was the Chirugia magna. Finished in 1363 in Avigonon, it covered topics as diverse as anatomy, bloodletting, cauterisation, drugs and medicines, wounds and fractures, and diseases. The work owed a great deal to the medical knowledge of his predecessors. The Roman physician Galen was a clear influence, especially on the importance de Chauliac’s work attributed to anatomy. He was also indebted to the work and ideas of Islamic physicians, especially Avicenna. de Chauliac’s work would become a staple of medical learning across Europe over the following centuries, used by those who would drive medical and surgical knowledge on even further, such as Ambroise Paré.

GUY DE CHAULIAC
Black Death Interactive / Europe in the 14th century
Key people of the age
JOANNA I OF NAPLES

Although the Black Death typically dominates narratives of fourteenth century history, it is important to recognise that the spread of the horrific pestilence was one thread of a rich tapestry of events. Amongst these there was the changing role of women in European society. It is clear from contemporary evidence that women in the Middle Ages were largely expected to be subordinate to their husbands or other male family members, and that their roles were – ideally – domestic in nature, including the management of households and the raising of children. Despite this, some women fulfilled important roles in society, including as artisans, and in medical and religious roles. For peasant women, life was especially difficult, characterised by restrictions.

For those more fortunate to be born into the upper classes, life remained challenging, but there was room to be more independent. There are few women who dominated the political landscape of fourteenth century Europe in such a way as Joanna I of Naples. Her turbulent life illustrates the great political power that could be wielded by noble women in medieval Europe, as well as the complex web of familial and dynastic intrigues that underpinned the political and religious upheaval that bedevilled a continent already reeling from the catastrophic impact of the Black Death.

Born in 1326, Joanna was the eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Calabria, who was himself the son of Robert the Wise, King of Naples. When Charles died before his father in 1328, Robert appointed Joanna as his heir. He reiterated her role as his sole successor on his death bed in 1343. Prior to this, Joanna had been married to her cousin, Andrew, who was the brother of Louis I of Hungary. The betrothal was designed to reconcile two parties with claims to the Neapolitan throne, the Hungarians and the Angevins. However, tensions escalated, and resulted in the murder of Andrew on 18th September 1345. Confronted by a gang of noble conspirators, Andrew was overpowered by his assailants, who then strangled him and hurled him from a window. Joanna was accused of having been privy to the conspiracy.

Her plans to remarry Louis of Taranto in 1347 provoked the outrage of the Hungarians, not least upon discovering that she had not chosen Andrew’s younger brother, Stephen, as her next husband. They began to openly accuse Joanna of Andrew’s murder. Joanna fled to Avignon in France when Louis the Great, Andrew’s brother, invaded the Kingdom of Naples in 1348. There, Pope Clement VI, purchased Avignon for 80,000 florins, while also offering Joanna the dispensation she desired for her marriage to Louis of Taranto and to exonerate her for the murder of Andrew. Louis the Great abandoned Naples in 1348, not keen on the idea of holding the city in the face of an outbreak of the Black Death. This prompted Joanna’s return.

It was the death of Louis of Taranto on 25th May 1362 that allowed Joanna to take back control of the Kingdom that she had always believed was rightfully hers. She remarried once more, but her union with James IV, King of Majorca, was beset by problems. He was mentally unwell, having been imprisoned in an iron cage by his uncle, King Peter IV of Aragon, for almost fourteen years. He died in in 1375 of illness or poison after a series of unsuccessful military adventures. At one point, he had even been captured, compelling Joanna to ransom his freedom!

Joanna’s next marriage – to Otto, the Duke of Brunswick in 1376 – was to be her last. At this time, the Western Schism developed as a result of the election of two popes: Pope Urban VI in Rome, and Clement VII in Avignon. Although she initially hesitated, Joanna supported Clement VII. In retaliation, Urban VI declared the Queen a heretic and nullified her claims to her Kingdom. To attempt to curry support elsewhere, Joanna adopted Louis I of Anjou, brother of Charles V the King of France, as her heir. The supporters of Urban VI marched on Naples, and Charles of Durazzo defeated the defences, led by Otto of Brunswick, in 1381. Joanna was imprisoned by the conquerors. Although Louis I of Anjou attempted to lead a rescue, he was too late. Fearing the revenge mission of Louis, Charles of Durazzo had already had Jonna murdered on 27th July 1382. Accounts of the clandestine murder vary and describe Joanna either being strangled with a silken cord while she prayed, or that she was smothered between two feather mattresses. She was fifty-six years old.

Joanna’s body was brought back to Naples from the Castle of Muro Lucano. Her excommunication by the pope ensured that her body could not be buried on consecrated ground. Instead, Joanna’s body was ignominiously tossed into a deep well on the grounds of Santa Chiara Church. The Kingdom of Naples would spend the following decades riven by internecine wars of succession.

‍"Joanna, queen of Sicily and Jerusalem, is more renowned than other women of her time for lineage, power, and character" Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris.

Despite her turbulent reign, Joanna appears to have enjoyed a high degree of support and celebrity in her contemporary Italy. She even features in the work of Giovanni Boccaccio. In his De mulieribus claris (‘On Famous Women’), Boccaccio spends a portion of his biography arguing for Joanna’s legitimacy as the ruler of Naples.

JOANNA I OF NAPLES
Black Death Interactive / Europe in the 14th century
Key people of the age
JANI BEG

The Golden Horde was founded after the death of Batu Khan (one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan) in 1255. The Golden Horde was a Turkic khanate (effectively an empire), that at its height in the fourteenth century extended from Danube and the edge of Europe in the west, across Siberia and into Central Asia in the east. It eventually began to break apart, a victim of internal political strife and of the invasions of Timur (aka Tamerlane), and his foundation of the Timurid Empire based in Uzbekistan. It survived in a diminished state all the way until 1783 and 1847, when the Romanov Tsar’s in Russia oversaw the annexation of the Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde.

In 1313, control of the Khanate had passed to Öz Beg Khan, who adopted Islam as the state religion. He was succeeded by his son Jani Beg in 1342. To come to power, Jani Beg had already had to eliminate his older brother, Tini Beg, who was Khan, as well as another sibling rival, Khidr Beg. The reign of Jani Beg is notable for the Khan’s involvement in broader European politics during the mid-fourteenth century. This included supporting Russian campaigns in Poland. A Mongol-Russian army was responsible for ravaging territory around the city of Lubin. Eventually, in 1357, Casimir III the Great, the King of Poland, submitted to the Horde and promised to pay tribute to appease the Khan and avoid further conflict.

Most infamously, Jani Beg has been identified as a prime cause for the spread of the Black Death to Europe. In 1343, he commanded an enormous force in an assault against the Crimean port city of Kaffa (modern Feodosiya). At the time, this was occupied by the Republic of Genoa (who had purchased it from the Golden Horde previously). The prosperous port controlled a significant amount of the trading in the Black Sea. Although the siege was temporarily relieved, Jani Beg returned in 1345. This time his assault was unsuccessful because his forces were beginning to suffer the effects of an outbreak of the Black Death. According to the account of Gabriel de Mussis, a notary from Piacenza, Jani beg reputedly decided to catapult the corpses of plague victims over the walls of Kaffa. This is described in de Mussis’ Istoria de Morbo sive Mortalitate quae fuit Anno Dni MCCCXLVIII, or History of the Disease. With the corpses flung across the walls of the city, de Mussis describes how the pestilence quickly spread to the besieged inhabitants. From Kaffa, merchants and other ships carried the pestilence westwards across the Mediterranean, arriving in Sicily in 1347 and spreading quickly.

Jani Beg’s decision to launch the corpses of plague victims over the walls of Kaffa has often been cited as one of the earliest examples of biological warfare, and a primary factor in the spread of the Black Death to Europe. However, to pin the blame solely on Jani Beg’s shoulders is to ignore the complexity of the situation and the links between east and west that existed at this time. It also means we give probably too much credence to de Mussis; he wrote his account in the 1340’s from Piacenza, and he was not an eyewitness to events in Kaffa. There is, as a result, more than likely a high degree of xenophobia underpinning the identification of Jani Beg as a principal scapegoat for the spread of the disease. After all, this wouldn’t be the only instance of a particular group of people being identified as a cause of the plague spreading…

Recently, historians have identified different routes for the Black Death to enter Europe at this time, which better reflect the connections between the east and west. It remains highly likely that the plague spread westwards through other Crimean ports, not just Kaffa, for instance. One particular theory attributes the spread to Venetian trade through the Sea of Azov, for instance. Likewise, we must remember that trade was carried westward overland by the caravan routes along the silk roads, which connected Asia to Europe.

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JANI BEG
Black Death Interactive / Europe in the 14th century
Key people of the age
GIOTTO DI BONDONE

"And it was truly an extraordinary miracle that such an ignorant and incompetent age could have inspired Giotto to work so skilfully that drawing, of which men during those times had little or now knowledge, came fully back to life through his efforts." Giorgio Vasari, The Life of Giotto, Florentine Painter, Sculptor, and Architect.

‍Born in Tuscany, perhaps in Vespignano (near Florence) in 1266, the arrival of Giotto is something of a watershed moment in European Art History. He is routinely recognised as the founding figure in European painting, and the first of the great Italian painters, in whose footsteps figures such as Michelangelo and Raphael would later follow during the high years of the Renaissance. He is significant for the naturalism of his paintings, and the more realistic sense of three-dimension form and space he created in his works.

Giotto’s talent was discovered by Cimabue, a great Florentine painter in his own right, who took the young man on as an apprentice. Stories claim that Cimabue came across the young Giotto when he was working as a shepherd. Drawing his sheep on a rock, Cimabue was shocked by the realism of Giotto’s style, and asked if he would like to be his apprentice. The story has been reimagined by other artists over the centuries.

Cimabue was commissioned to paint a number of large frescos to decorate the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, and it is possible that Giotto accompanied his tutor to Assisi. The extent of Giotto’s involvement in the works here remains one of the great controversies in Art History.

Much of Giotto’s life remains speculative, and we rely heavily on the biography presented by Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, written in the 16th century. The source presents wonderful vignettes of life in Renaissance Italy, but as historical evidence it is problematised by the frequent carelessness of the author. Vasari is recognised as often careless in recording specific dates and a bias toward Florentine artists (to the almost total exclusion of Venetians, for example). He also makes ample use of anecdotes that, although entertaining, are often clearly inventions for the reader’s enjoyment. This includes the aside that describes how Cimabue repeatedly tried to brush away a fly from one of his canvases, only to discover that the pesky insect had been painted on by Giotto himself! For Vasari’s reader’s who were well versed in the Classics (and one imagines that Renaissance readers would like to have imagined themselves as such), then the story has obvious parallels with Pliny the Elder’s description of the lifelike paintings of Zeuxis, the renowned painter from Classical Greece.

Giotto’s talent meant that he became one of the first attested artistic celebrities since the ancient world, and he travelled widely across Europe to produce work. He was commission by the Florentines to design the city’s new campanile (bell tower) in 1334. As well as many of the other powerful cities of Northern Italy, Vasari even records Giotto being summoned to Avignon by Pope Clement V to undertake work for the papal court.

Giotto’s masterpiece were the decorative friezes he completed for the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, completed in around 1305. Instantly recognisable for the glorious depth of the deep blue of the skies in the background, Giotto’s frescos depict the Life of the Virgin Mary and the Life of Christ, and they are recognised as a masterpiece of the Early Renaissance. The figures created by Giotto lack the excessively stylized form – especially the elongation – of earlier Byzantine styles which were more common prior to this.

Later in his life, Giotto became friends with Boccaccio, and features in some of the writer’s stories. He even appeared in Dante’s works. Still alive when the Florentine author was completing his Divine Comedy, Giotto’s talents were celebrated as surpassing those of Cimabue in the Purgatorio (Canto 9, lines 94-96).

GIOTTO DI BONDONE