Post by Katie on Aug 23, 2019 12:11:13 GMT -5
When creating your backstory you may want to consider how your character was affected by the Black Plague. Perhaps they had ill family members, or they were working to combat the disease. Was you character alive for the Black Plague? Were they already embraced? How did this affect their feeding?
The plague profoundly affected the living. Imagine how much it would have affected the undead.
Tintoretto, St. Roch in the Hospital
What did people think caused the plague? There were lots of different beliefs about the plague; people were so scared because they weren’t sure what caused it. Some believed it was a punishment from God, some believed that foreigners or those who followed a different religion had poisoned the wells, some thought that bad air was responsible, some thought the position of the planets had caused the plague. All these different beliefs led to some strange attempts at escaping the plague and some even stranger cures.
“Some shut themselves away and waited for death, others rioted from tavern to tavern. The sickness fell upon all classes without distinction. The rich passed out of this world without a single person to comfort them. The poor fell sick by the thousand and most of them died. The terror was such that brother even fled from broth, wife from husband, yea the mother from her own child.” - Boccaccio
The efforts of Venice were stunning and I think of all the states and societies that were affected by the Black Death, Venice did not only handle it pretty well, but basically made all the necessary steps to combat an unknown and (seemingly) incurable disease.
Before we look at Venice, we should try to comprehend what a massive event the outbreak beginning in 1347 was, a chronicler (who would later also die by the plague) wrote down: "Now I will tell you how mankind almost died out." (Mattheo Villani)
Though we didn't go close to extinction, you have to imagine the horror of seeing family members, friends and loved ones die and do not just think about impersonal numbers, but about disrupted families and communities: "If the plague came to a house, it was often so, that not a single person inside survived and I, Agnolo di Tura, called "the heavy one", buried my five children with my own hands in a pit."
A third of the European population simply vanished and in densely populated areas like Florence the death rate could go up to two thirds of the population (in fact, Tuscany only regained its pre-plague population during the Industrial Revolution). Once an area got affected by the plague, social order simply broke down: The first ones to die where the poor, the sick and the elderly, but soon the disease spread to affect the whole of society, without any hope for a cure. Doctors and priests died the most, as they had the most contact with the infected and soon people began to despair and barricade themselves into their homes and killing anyone who sought entrance.
"Countless people died without anyone taking notice and a great number of people starved. When somebody was thrown onto the sick-bed the frightened housemates said that they were going to look for a doctor, and then they locked the door, went on the street and never returned." (Marchionne di Coppo Stefani)
Even in the highly developed cities of Italy, the medieval state barely functioned in times of prosperity, now that people were dying like flies, it simply stopped functioning: Councilmembers and noblemen, prelates and preachers either died or fled their cities and hoped for shelter on the country side, Boccacio wrote about Milano: "Our city was in such a terrible and dire constitution, that the venerable laws of God and men lost their esteem and were destroyed, because their enforcers were either sick or dead and so everyone could do as they pleased."
In the five months a plague outbreak usually lasted no city was able to combat it, the only solution the mighty state of Florence had, was to banish the ringing of the bells when people died, as the uninterrupted ringing drove people insane.
And then there was Venice: La Serinissima should have been doomed, it was a highly urban society, there was no safe escape route, as the only way to leave the city was via ship and it was also one of the first cities to be affected by the Black Death.
Instead of giving into despair, the city council stayed functional and after the initial shock started to combat the plague, in April 1348 the city council decreed: Though [the plague] has been brought upon us by God, we have to take appropriate counter measures and hope for his [God's] help. We have issued that the areas known as San Leonardo Fossamala and San Marco Bocamala will be used to depose all bodies of the perished and of those who are dying in the hospitals as well as those people who are too poor to pay their own burial."
It certainly was a cold move to lock the poor and the sick together to die, but it shows how determined the council members were to rid their city of the plague and how functional the administration still was to not only decree but also act. Soon another decree followed in June: "As sick people from outside arrive who spread the pestilence, we issue that no one shall enter the harbour and that we will imprison or fine those who do and that we will burn the affected ships."
The Venetians put their city under quarantine and effectively reduced the minimum of new outbreaks, 25 years later the city would issue a law that made it mandatory for foreigners to spend a month on the plague island Lazzaretto Vecchio, what reduced the possibility of a new outbreak to a minimum.
The Plague Island of Lazaretto Vecchio
The plague started to fade in the month of July 1348, yet the council still worked on the cities’ future, it permitted foreigners to resettle in Venice and offered them payments of their debts and lucrative loans if they chose to come to the city.
The last relevant decree dates to the 12th of July: "Many members of our great council have perished and only a few are still following our invitations and the 40 (entitled to vote) do not exist anymore or are too sick to come. We therefore decree ourselves to be unable to act on behalf of the country and that we will have to take a break."
The council of Venice had literally worked itself to exhaustion and only stopped working once the majority of the council members were dead. In a dire situation without any cure or even knowledge how the disease spread, their efforts were truly remarkable and show a degree of administration that other states would only reach centuries later.
________________________________________________________________________
Measures People Took to Avoid the Plague:
1. Avoid breathing in the same air as a plague victim.
2. Sit next to a blazing hot fire, (it worked for the Pope in the summer of 1348).
3. Live in a house sheltered from the wind and keep the window closed.
4. Attack foreigners and people of a different religion. (Twenty thousand Jews were burned to death in Strasbourg in 1348).
5. Letter from King Edward III to the Lord Mayor of London in 1349:
“You are to make sure that all the human excrement and other filth lying in the street of the city is removed. You are to cause the city to be cleaned from all bad smells so that no more people will die from such smells.”
6. You could walk around carrying flowers, herbs or spices, which you would often raise to your nose.
7. Live a separate life, only eating and drinking in moderation and seeing no one.
8. Run away to the country, leave everyone behind.
9. Go to church and ask for forgiveness.
10. Go on a pilgrimage. Punish yourself in public by joining the flagellants.
11. “No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. ...It is injurious to sleep during the daytime... Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious... and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly... Bathing is dangerous.”
12. “In the first place no man should think on death.... Nothing should distress him, but all his thoughts should be directed to pleasing, agreeable and delicious things... Beautiful landscapes, fine gardens should be visited, particularly when aromatic plants are flowering.... Listening to beautiful, melodious songs is wholesome.. The contemplating of gold and silver and other precious stones is comforting to the heart.”
________________________________________________________________________
“The swelling should be softened with figs and cooked onions mixed with yeast and butter. When they are open they should be treated with the cure for ulcers. Towards the end of the plague I developed a fever with a swelling in the groin. I was ill near on six weeks. When the swelling had ripened and had been treated in the way I prescribed, I escaped, by God’s good grace.”
If you were an ordinary doctor what could you do??
You could wear your special protective suit. The nose of this frightening looking costume was supposed to act as a
filter, as it was filled with perfumes and what were thought of as cleaning vapours. The lenses were glass and protected the eyes from bad air (miasma).
You were protected with gloves and a long robe as well as boots. You could make sure your patient had
sweet smelling perfumes and herbs around to get rid of bad smells, you could try bleeding them.
________________________________________________________________________
How Does the Plague Affect Vampires and other beings in the World of Darkness?
World of Darkness: 1348
-1348-1350. The Black Plague kills a third of Europe's population. Many Hermetic magi survive, but the plague devastates their support structure and sours Sleeper attitudes to mages.
-The Shattering reaches its peak. As the Black Plague hits England, the sidhe retreat to Arcadia and seal the trods behind them.
The Black Death killed a number of vampires in several different times -- particularly those who had no choice but to feed off those infected/dying from it -- and was one of the rare instances where the customary immunity to disease that most vampires enjoy failed them. (Game-mechanic and meta-narrative-wise, it was explained that the overall sweeping of "death" led to those more "thin-blooded" vampires being affected by the disease -- not for strictly physical reasons, but more so metaphysical ones; also, the "thin-blooded" in this context were those of 9th+ generation, with those of at least 8th or stronger being resistant, or at least capable of surviving it, though no doubt Disciplines like Fortitude helped where appropriate.)
The plague affects the numbers from which the vampire is able to feed, risking contact and spreading the plague to important colleagues -- retainers, contacts etc.
Measures during this time are being taken to eradicate the disease. Religious groups are banding together to save the human race, their strong, radical presence is a problem for all of Caine's childer.
________________________________________________________________________
Some food for thought: You are a doctor, what treatments would you use and how effective do you think they would be? Your brother is a priest, what treatments and ways of avoiding the plague does he tell you are best?
The plague profoundly affected the living. Imagine how much it would have affected the undead.
Tintoretto, St. Roch in the Hospital
What did people think caused the plague? There were lots of different beliefs about the plague; people were so scared because they weren’t sure what caused it. Some believed it was a punishment from God, some believed that foreigners or those who followed a different religion had poisoned the wells, some thought that bad air was responsible, some thought the position of the planets had caused the plague. All these different beliefs led to some strange attempts at escaping the plague and some even stranger cures.
“Some shut themselves away and waited for death, others rioted from tavern to tavern. The sickness fell upon all classes without distinction. The rich passed out of this world without a single person to comfort them. The poor fell sick by the thousand and most of them died. The terror was such that brother even fled from broth, wife from husband, yea the mother from her own child.” - Boccaccio
The efforts of Venice were stunning and I think of all the states and societies that were affected by the Black Death, Venice did not only handle it pretty well, but basically made all the necessary steps to combat an unknown and (seemingly) incurable disease.
Before we look at Venice, we should try to comprehend what a massive event the outbreak beginning in 1347 was, a chronicler (who would later also die by the plague) wrote down: "Now I will tell you how mankind almost died out." (Mattheo Villani)
Though we didn't go close to extinction, you have to imagine the horror of seeing family members, friends and loved ones die and do not just think about impersonal numbers, but about disrupted families and communities: "If the plague came to a house, it was often so, that not a single person inside survived and I, Agnolo di Tura, called "the heavy one", buried my five children with my own hands in a pit."
A third of the European population simply vanished and in densely populated areas like Florence the death rate could go up to two thirds of the population (in fact, Tuscany only regained its pre-plague population during the Industrial Revolution). Once an area got affected by the plague, social order simply broke down: The first ones to die where the poor, the sick and the elderly, but soon the disease spread to affect the whole of society, without any hope for a cure. Doctors and priests died the most, as they had the most contact with the infected and soon people began to despair and barricade themselves into their homes and killing anyone who sought entrance.
"Countless people died without anyone taking notice and a great number of people starved. When somebody was thrown onto the sick-bed the frightened housemates said that they were going to look for a doctor, and then they locked the door, went on the street and never returned." (Marchionne di Coppo Stefani)
Even in the highly developed cities of Italy, the medieval state barely functioned in times of prosperity, now that people were dying like flies, it simply stopped functioning: Councilmembers and noblemen, prelates and preachers either died or fled their cities and hoped for shelter on the country side, Boccacio wrote about Milano: "Our city was in such a terrible and dire constitution, that the venerable laws of God and men lost their esteem and were destroyed, because their enforcers were either sick or dead and so everyone could do as they pleased."
In the five months a plague outbreak usually lasted no city was able to combat it, the only solution the mighty state of Florence had, was to banish the ringing of the bells when people died, as the uninterrupted ringing drove people insane.
And then there was Venice: La Serinissima should have been doomed, it was a highly urban society, there was no safe escape route, as the only way to leave the city was via ship and it was also one of the first cities to be affected by the Black Death.
Instead of giving into despair, the city council stayed functional and after the initial shock started to combat the plague, in April 1348 the city council decreed: Though [the plague] has been brought upon us by God, we have to take appropriate counter measures and hope for his [God's] help. We have issued that the areas known as San Leonardo Fossamala and San Marco Bocamala will be used to depose all bodies of the perished and of those who are dying in the hospitals as well as those people who are too poor to pay their own burial."
It certainly was a cold move to lock the poor and the sick together to die, but it shows how determined the council members were to rid their city of the plague and how functional the administration still was to not only decree but also act. Soon another decree followed in June: "As sick people from outside arrive who spread the pestilence, we issue that no one shall enter the harbour and that we will imprison or fine those who do and that we will burn the affected ships."
The Venetians put their city under quarantine and effectively reduced the minimum of new outbreaks, 25 years later the city would issue a law that made it mandatory for foreigners to spend a month on the plague island Lazzaretto Vecchio, what reduced the possibility of a new outbreak to a minimum.
The Plague Island of Lazaretto Vecchio
The plague started to fade in the month of July 1348, yet the council still worked on the cities’ future, it permitted foreigners to resettle in Venice and offered them payments of their debts and lucrative loans if they chose to come to the city.
The last relevant decree dates to the 12th of July: "Many members of our great council have perished and only a few are still following our invitations and the 40 (entitled to vote) do not exist anymore or are too sick to come. We therefore decree ourselves to be unable to act on behalf of the country and that we will have to take a break."
The council of Venice had literally worked itself to exhaustion and only stopped working once the majority of the council members were dead. In a dire situation without any cure or even knowledge how the disease spread, their efforts were truly remarkable and show a degree of administration that other states would only reach centuries later.
________________________________________________________________________
Measures People Took to Avoid the Plague:
1. Avoid breathing in the same air as a plague victim.
2. Sit next to a blazing hot fire, (it worked for the Pope in the summer of 1348).
3. Live in a house sheltered from the wind and keep the window closed.
4. Attack foreigners and people of a different religion. (Twenty thousand Jews were burned to death in Strasbourg in 1348).
5. Letter from King Edward III to the Lord Mayor of London in 1349:
“You are to make sure that all the human excrement and other filth lying in the street of the city is removed. You are to cause the city to be cleaned from all bad smells so that no more people will die from such smells.”
6. You could walk around carrying flowers, herbs or spices, which you would often raise to your nose.
7. Live a separate life, only eating and drinking in moderation and seeing no one.
8. Run away to the country, leave everyone behind.
9. Go to church and ask for forgiveness.
10. Go on a pilgrimage. Punish yourself in public by joining the flagellants.
11. “No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. ...It is injurious to sleep during the daytime... Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious... and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly... Bathing is dangerous.”
12. “In the first place no man should think on death.... Nothing should distress him, but all his thoughts should be directed to pleasing, agreeable and delicious things... Beautiful landscapes, fine gardens should be visited, particularly when aromatic plants are flowering.... Listening to beautiful, melodious songs is wholesome.. The contemplating of gold and silver and other precious stones is comforting to the heart.”
________________________________________________________________________
“The swelling should be softened with figs and cooked onions mixed with yeast and butter. When they are open they should be treated with the cure for ulcers. Towards the end of the plague I developed a fever with a swelling in the groin. I was ill near on six weeks. When the swelling had ripened and had been treated in the way I prescribed, I escaped, by God’s good grace.”
If you were an ordinary doctor what could you do??
You could wear your special protective suit. The nose of this frightening looking costume was supposed to act as a
filter, as it was filled with perfumes and what were thought of as cleaning vapours. The lenses were glass and protected the eyes from bad air (miasma).
You were protected with gloves and a long robe as well as boots. You could make sure your patient had
sweet smelling perfumes and herbs around to get rid of bad smells, you could try bleeding them.
________________________________________________________________________
How Does the Plague Affect Vampires and other beings in the World of Darkness?
World of Darkness: 1348
-1348-1350. The Black Plague kills a third of Europe's population. Many Hermetic magi survive, but the plague devastates their support structure and sours Sleeper attitudes to mages.
-The Shattering reaches its peak. As the Black Plague hits England, the sidhe retreat to Arcadia and seal the trods behind them.
The Black Death killed a number of vampires in several different times -- particularly those who had no choice but to feed off those infected/dying from it -- and was one of the rare instances where the customary immunity to disease that most vampires enjoy failed them. (Game-mechanic and meta-narrative-wise, it was explained that the overall sweeping of "death" led to those more "thin-blooded" vampires being affected by the disease -- not for strictly physical reasons, but more so metaphysical ones; also, the "thin-blooded" in this context were those of 9th+ generation, with those of at least 8th or stronger being resistant, or at least capable of surviving it, though no doubt Disciplines like Fortitude helped where appropriate.)
The plague affects the numbers from which the vampire is able to feed, risking contact and spreading the plague to important colleagues -- retainers, contacts etc.
Measures during this time are being taken to eradicate the disease. Religious groups are banding together to save the human race, their strong, radical presence is a problem for all of Caine's childer.
________________________________________________________________________
Some food for thought: You are a doctor, what treatments would you use and how effective do you think they would be? Your brother is a priest, what treatments and ways of avoiding the plague does he tell you are best?