Pope Gregory IX

Ugolino di Conti's birth year is suggested as somewhere between 1145 and 1170, but there are suggestions that he was in his 90s at his death in 1241, so if that is true the 1145 date looks more likely. Only 14 of those years were as pope, which is probably just as well. His legacy is largely negative because of his establishing the Papal Inquisition (not the original Inquisition), his formalizing of anti-semitism in church doctrine (that lasted into the 20th century), and (although this is a result of speculative hindsight and is likely erroneous thinking) the Bubonic plague.

He was first elevated to Cardinal-Deacon in December 1198 by his cousin, Pope Innocent III. In 1206 he was made Cardinal Bishop, and named Dean of the College of Cardinals in 1218. At the request of Francis of Assisi, Pope Honorius III made him Cardinal Protector of the Franciscans. (He had been a friend of Francis already, as well as of Clare of Assisi and St. Dominic.)

Honorius died on 18 March 1227 after trying to establish the Fifth Crusade that had been called by Innocent III. Innocent intended for this one to be led by the papacy, in order to avoid the disaster of the Fourth Crusade. Cardinal Ugolino was elected pope one day after the death of Honorius, taking the name "Gregory" because he was at the monastery of St. Gregory when he accepted the position.

One of his first acts was to expand the powers of an inquisition taking place in Germany. He also established a Papal Inquisition (mostly managed by Dominicans and Franciscans) to formalize what had already been begun and was being handled differently across Christendom. His aim was to introduce due process and objectivity, because too often executions were done by unruly mobs on the innocent in the name of defeating heresy.

He also called for Crusades in places other than the Holy Land, to bring Eastern Europe into alignment with the papacy. These Northern or Baltic Crusades were against the pagan Baltic, Finnic, and West Slavic peoples.

Some modern writers blame Gregory for the Black Death because of a bull he wrote that demonized cats. The widespread killing of cats (the thinking goes) removed a deterrent to the rats that spread the plague. What the proponents of this theory leave out, however, is that papal decree does not run to India and China where the plague was just as widespread as in Europe. Also, one would have to assume the killing of cats was consistent for over a century, since the plague arrived in Europe about 120 years after Gregory's bull.

We will not condemn every act of Gregory: In 1229, when the University of Paris had a strike, he wrote a bull that helped resolve the differences between Town and Gown.

One of his lasting achievements, however, was to institutionalize anti-semitism in the Church. For that, we will wait another day. See you tomorrow.

The Pope and the Plague

One of the major events during the reign of Pope Clement VI (1291 – 6 December 1352) was not of his making. He had been pope for four years when plague landed on his shores in 1347, spreading throughout Europe and killing one-third to one-half of the population within a few years.

Clement believed the Plague was the result of God's wrath, but that did not mean he was willing to stand idly by and let the results speak for themselves. He consulted with astrologers for the physical cause and looked for ways to mitigate the effects. One of the team that proposed a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in 1341 as its origin was Johannes de Muris, who had been brought to Avignon by Clement in 1344 to aid in calendar reform. Another of Clement's advisors was his personal physician Guy de Chauliac, seen here bandaging the pope's leg (in a painting from 20th century artist Ernest Board).

The advice of his physicians was to surround himself with fire to fight off the plague-inducing vapors in the air; stories tell that he had two raging fireplaces on either side of him while he worked. He did not, however, just sit in his palace: he involved himself in supervising care of the dying and burials. There was so much death that cemeteries ran out of space. Clement consecrated the Rhône River—the entire 500-miles—so that bodies could be thrown in and it would be considered proper burial along its length in France and Switzerland.

Because there was condemnation of Jews for the Plague in some areas, he released two papal bulls on the subject, on 6 July and 26 September, condemning the violence against the Jews. The second stated that those blaming the Jews were seduced by the Devil, because:

It cannot be true that the Jews, by such a heinous crime, are the cause or occasion of the plague, because through many parts of the world the same plague, by the hidden judgment of God, has afflicted and afflicts the Jews themselves and many other races who have never lived alongside them.

Six cardinals died in 1348. One of Clement's solutions was to make his nephew a cardinal, even though his nephew was only 18 years old! (Twenty-two years later he would become Pope Gregory XI.) Clement's favoritism was one of the ways he was distinctly different from his predecessor, Benedict. I want to talk about Clement's more "worldly" tendencies next time.

The Plague Continues

The Bubonic Plague, also called the "Black Death," first hit the European Middle Ages primarily in 1348-1351, but that wasn't the end. To be fair, it was revving up to the east long before 1348. It was responsible for deaths in the 1200s in China. In the 1340s it was killing people living around the Black Sea. In fact, we know that it existed among rodent populations high up in the Alps.

How do we know this?

The spread of the plague has been better understood in recent decades thanks to modern science and the sequencing of genomes. The bacterium Yersinia pestis has been sequenced, and modern science can detect it from bones of the long-dead. In many cases, those bones are easier to identify because the plague killed so many so fast that the corpses were thrown into mass graves quickly. In fact, the approach of the plague did prompt preparation: the mass graves in London were dug before the plague actually arrived. (The illustration shows a mass grave of plague victims in France.)

Therefore, by examining skeletons from different eras, we can track the spread and durability of the plague, which was endemic in Europe after the mid-14th century appearance. Plague returned approximately every decade or so for centuries. Whatever the cause (see the link in the first paragraph), folk realized they should try to stay away from those who were infected. This led to quarantining when news of a plague resurgence came to a community. You could either barricade yourself in your house or escape the town. In 1377, the town of Ragusa on the Adriatic initiated the first wide-spread, mandatory quarantine. In the second half of the 1400s, quarantines were common around the Mediterranean, whose warm weather and coastal ports allowed plague to thrive and spread.

Ragusa actually had a reputation for doctors. If you search for Ragusa on a map today, it will show you a city in southern Sicily, not on the coast of the Adriatic. That's because it's got a different name now: Dubrovnik. Let's talk about its medieval history tomorrow.

Causes of the Bubonic Plague

The Bubonic Plague's first appearance in medieval Europe from 1348-1351, and it was terrifying. At least one-quarter to one-third of the population died in those few years; entire villages were depopulated, and no country was untouched.

King Philip VI of France asked the University of Paris to determine the cause. Forty-nine members of the medical staff studied the matter and wrote the Paris Concilium.

They produced more than one theory of why humans were suffering from it, while maintaining that the plague was too mysterious for human beings to ever truly understand the origin. They drew from the available authorities: Avicenna's work on pestilential fever, Aristotle's Meteorology on weather phenomena and putrefaction, Hippocrates' Epidemics on astrology in medicine.

Their theories:

—The Concilium followed Aristotle's idea that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was disastrous. Albertus Magnus believed a conjunction of Jupiter and Mars would bring plague. A conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars took place in 1345 right after solar and lunar eclipses, under the sign of Aquarius, compounding the disastrous effects of the planets. Jupiter was sanguine, hot and wet—the worst combination that would lead to putrefaction.

—Another possible cause was poisonous gases released during earthquakes. Disadvantageous conjunctions of constellations produced winds that distributed gases rising from rotting carcasses in swamps. The poisonous vapors would be inhaled and go straight to the heart (they thought the heart was the organ of respiration), and then cause the body's vital organs to rot from the inside.

—There was also the possibility of God's punishment for man's wickedness.

Of course, there was no reason to believe that these causes were mutually exclusive.

The plague was devastating, and also didn't end in 1351. It remained endemic to Europe, as I'll discuss next time.

A Few Medical Firsts

Gentile da Foligno was a physician who learned his art at Padua and Bologna and then became a teacher—quite a wealthy one, as it happens. At the University of Perugia in Siena he made 60 gold florins per year (1322 - 1324). He then went back to his origin at the request of the Lord of Padua, Ubertino I da Carrara.

Besides teaching, he produced several medical treatises. One was a massive and widely copied commentary covering the Canon of Medicine by Avicenna. The Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 referred to him as Subtilissimus rimator verborum Avicenne, "that most subtle investigator of Avicenna's teachings"; the illustration above shows Gentile learning "at the feet of Avicenna."

He is said to have performed the first medical dissection in centuries. Even the Romans, for all their search for knowledge, did not approve of cutting open the deceased. Examining the insides of the human body was necessary for starting to learn how organs work; for example, how liquids flow through the body.

Foligno wrote a commentary on urine and suggested that the blood passes through "porous tubules" (per poros euritides) in the kidneys, which strain it and pass the urine to the bladder. He was also the first to suggest that a fast pulse rate led to higher urine output (as a faster metabolism would). He also believed there was a correlation between the heart and the color of urine. A Journal of Nephrology article says he may have been the first cardionephrologist in history.

He also wrote a popular treatise on the Black Death, and recommended theriac for its treatment. Unfortunately, theriac preparation was complex and time-consuming, so there may not have been enough of it to go around. Not that it would have helped: presumably Foligno would have had access to some; however, he died of the plague at its start, on 18 June 1348.

To cure the plague, you would probably want to know what caused it, and that was a puzzle. Tomorrow I'll tell you of the Paris Consilium, who believed they had the answer.

The Colosseum

The Roman Colosseum was begun under Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE and finished in 80 by his son, Emperor Titus. Stories of its use as a gladiatorial arena and a site for races, animal spectacles, and even nautical battles are well-known. 

When the Visigoths attacked Rome, the siege prevented the deceased from being buried in the cemeteries outside the walls, and so the area around the Colosseum became a large burial site. After the Fall of Rome and the sacking by the Visigoths, attempts were made to repair and utilize it, but the budget and management no longer existed for "bread and circuses." 

A series of earthquakes and restoration attempts took place over the next few centuries. Eventually its management fell to the most influential institution in Rome: the papacy. Between the 9th and 14th centuries, this extensive structure had many new uses, managed by the priests of Santa Maria Nova. Its underground tunnels and compartments, where staff and fighters and animals were once housed and fed and trained, became apartments and shops. The open arena was left as a sort of common area for people working and living in the building. "Row houses" were built against the north side.

(There was even a moment in 1200 when it became the home to a single wealthy family, the Frangipani.)

The illustration here is a 16th century woodcut showing the round design, but an earthquake in 1349 (as if they weren't dealing with enough tragedy with the Bubonic Plague) caused part to collapse, and its use as a rental property faded away. Also, the move of the papacy to Avignon caused Rome's population to dwindle, and the need for housing in the Colosseum (and therefore the need and income to maintain it) also dwindled.

After the return of the popes to Rome, the building (what was left) became the home of a religious order. Over the centuries, other purposes were found. One pope wanted to make it a wool factory to provide alternate jobs for the city's prostitutes. A cardinal in 1671 wanted to use it for bullfights. Both plans failed to materialize.

The Colosseum became a source of building material. The lead piping that carried water was taken and melted for other uses. The iron clamps that held stone blocks together were pried out and re-forged. The stone itself—marble and travertine—was taken and used for other buildings.

Some of the marble was burned to make quicklime. What was quicklime, and what was its use in the Middle Ages? I'll tell you tomorrow.

Protecting the Jews

The Plague, also called the Black Death, spread across Sicily shortly after the arrival of a fleet of a dozen Genoese galleys bringing goods from the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. This was in October of 1346. A few months later, in January 1348, galleys from Kaffa (in Crimea) reached Genoa and Venice, where outbreaks also began.

The rest of Europe might have been spared—crossing the Alps would be difficult for the Plague carriers—but one of the galleys was driven away from Italy and found shelter in the port of Marseilles on the southern coast of France. That was the real introduction to continental Europe, after which there was no stopping it.

There is plenty of information about the Black Death to be found online—including in the blog—so there is no need to go into details here. There is, however, a specific event related to the Plague that took place on today's date.

Many populations throughout history, unhappy with their lot, either due to general difficulties or tragedy, have looked for a scapegoat. That scapegoat often takes the form of other people who can be labeled as "outsiders" who are not us and whose presence or actions are hurting us. In the case of the Plague, that scapegoat in many locations was the Jews, who were persecuted and killed, accused of poisoning wells (despite the fact that they drank from the very same sources of water), or of general wickedness that had brought down the wrath of God.

Pope Clement VI was moved to produce a papal bull, Quamvis perfidiam, defending the Jews against the accusations, and urging his fellow Christian prelates to defend them in their territories. It was released on 6 July, 1348. Unfortunately, persecution persisted, and so he re-issued it on 26 September.

The Crimea

The much-disputed Crimean Peninsula

On the north coast of the Black Sea, a peninsula extends from the southern part of Ukraine. If you look at enough of its history, you will find numerous occupants: Turks and Italians, Greeks and Goths, Huns and Scythians and Bulgars. One of the earliest occupants of the peninsula were the Cimmerians, an Indo-European tribe that lived there long before the Common Era, presumably driven south by the Scythians from their homeland north of the Caucasus. For a long time it was called Taurica after the Taures, a Cimmerian group. The best guess regarding the derivation of "Crimea" is that it comes from "Cimmerian."

Invasions took place throughout the Classical and Medieval Eras. A group now referred to as Crimean Tatars (descendants of the Mongols of Genghis Khan fame) thrived there in the Middle Ages. Despite their numbers, the Tatars did not always control the territory. Venice created several settlements on the coast in order to control trade on the Black Sea; these were taken over by Genoa in the 13th century and controlled by them for the next two centuries.

...and here's an interesting tie-in to one of the best-known events of the Middle Ages. The first appearance of the Black Death in medieval Europe came on twelve Genoese ships coming from the east in October 1347 and landing in Sicily. It is entirely possible that Crimean ports were the source of the Plague.

In the era of Tamerlane, the Crimean Tatars finally asserted control over most of the area—except the Genoese towns—establishing the Crimean Khanate in 1441 under the rule of a descendant of Genghis Khan. The Genoese towns were finally captured, but not by the Tatars. The Ottoman Empire conquered the Genoese towns, then took the current Crimean Khan captive. He was released after the Tatars recognized the sovereignty of the Ottomans.

In the late 1700s, a treaty between the warring Russian and Ottoman Empires left the Crimean Peninsula in the hands of Russia, one step closer to the present controversy.

The Plague and Social Change

The climax of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

On the heels of the recent news article about how victims of the Bubonic Plague still exist in significant numbers today, we have this article on how the Plague in the 14th century wrought huge changes on the fabric of society.

The radical shift in the numbers of the workforce and in the population of consumers threw off the balance that a stable society requires. Some goods were in great demand, there being fewer laborers to make things. Some consumer goods were in great supply, there being fewer consumers.

What the article above, from medievalists.net (a website I strongly recommend ), has just covered this week, DailyMedieval looked at back when the Occupy movement was first going strong in the United States.

The first installment briefly explained the philosophy behind the Peasants' Revolt.
The second explained some of the other factors that ruled up the lower classes.
Part three described the prominent characters that spurred on the movement.
Part four described the destruction caused in London by the Revolt.
Part five explains how the Revolt was quelled; the illustration above shows the "death" of the movement when its leader was killed during a parlay.

The Return of the Bubonic Plague

After the first catastrophic outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in 1348-50, Europe continued to suffer about every decade. The Plague returned, although without so devastating effect. Because people were familiar with the symptoms, they knew to avoid those who had it, and isolated the sick or themselves. Also, the Plague had already taken the weakest of the population, and so those remaining had a better chance of resisting.

Reappearances of the Bubonic Plague came in 1361-2, 1369, 1379-83, 1389-93, 1575-77, 2013.

2013? Yes. If you are reading this in December 2013, know that there are 20 confirmed cases of the Plague in Madagascar, as reported by the BBC. This is not a surprise, considering Madagascar had 60 confirmed cases in 2012. In fact, between 2000 and 2009 there were over 20,000 cases reported, with about 7% resulting in death! The illness is most prevalent in areas of reduced sanitation; these conditions occur in many parts of the world—even First World countries—and (as mentioned in the BBC article linked to above) Madagascar's prisons are a breeding ground for the disease. Madagascar accounts for a large percentage of total cases; it is not the top of the list, however—a list that includes the United States. Read more here.

To read about the Bubonic Plague as discussed in DailyMedieval, see my four-part series:

• Part 1 (an abbreviated timeline)
• Part 2 (a little about how it was spread)
• Part 3 (straightening out a nursery rhyme misconception)
• Part 4 (a touching first-hand response to the initial outbreak)

You might also be interested in

• How the Plague affected the economy of the 14th century
• How the Plague affected the Church

Great Surgeon

The history of medicine includes many brave and progressive thinkers who were not willing to follow the herd or be content with what was already known. One such in the Middle Ages was Guy de Chauliac. Born about 1300, he studied at a university in Montpellier known for its expertise in medicine. After becoming a Master of Medicine and Surgery around 1325, he went to Bologna for further study. His reputation became such that he was invited to Avignon to be personal physician to Pope Clement VI, then Pope Innocent VI and Pope Urban V. The papal connection gave him access to a library that included the texts of the Greek physician Galen in their original; most of Europe knew Galen through less accurate Latin translations.

He possibly saved Clement's life during the spread of the Black Death, when he advised the pope to stay near blazing fires. Although many physicians fled Avignon at the arrival of the Plague, Chauliac stayed to study the disease and treat people. He determined that it was contagious, but couldn't figure out the method of contagion. Still, he advised bloodletting, a healthy diet, and exposure to pure air (hence the fires, which would have serendipitously served to keep fleas away). He also realized that there were two diseases involved because of different sets of symptoms: the initial Bubonic Plague, and the follow-up Pneumonic Plague which found its foothold in the weakened population and killed much more swiftly. Chauliac spoke out strongly against those who blamed the Jews for the Plague, explaining that scientifically it made no sense to consider them at fault.

Tools for withdrawing an arrow.

His value to the rest of the world and history was the writing of Chirurgia magna (Great [book of] Surgery) in 1363. Its seven volumes covered every imaginable medical topic of the day: intubation, surgery, disease, anesthesia, hernia, cataracts, ulcers, bloodletting, cauterization of wounds, and the use of special instruments (some of which he designed himself, such as an elaborate contraption for withdrawing an arrow from flesh). Chauliac drew on the past, quoting Galen (129-c.200) and Avicenna (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, c.980-1037). He placed great emphasis on learning anatomy, saying that "A surgeon who does not know his anatomy is like a blind man carving a log."

Chauliac was not always accurate. He believed, for instance, that pus was an important part of the healing process and should be left alone. Nevertheless, his Chirurgia became a standard text for the next three centuries, translated into several European languages. Unfortunately for future generations, anti-Islam sentiment caused many translators to leave out knowledge from Islamic scholars, resulting in a less complete and less accurate work. Still, he has been labeled the "Father of Modern Surgery," and his great work was the standard text until the 17th century.

Peasants

"Free"dom isn't "free"

Before discussing the first "Occupy" movement--the Peasants' Revolt of 1381--I thought I would first briefly address the topic of peasants.

One unexpected facet to life as a peasant in Medieval England was that you could be either free or unfree. There were, in fact, several levels of "free"dom represented by various terms:

• sokeman
• villan/villein
• bordar
• cottar/cottager
• slave

Being "free" had disadvantages as well as benefits. The unfree peasant was tied to a lord and that lord's domains. His fate and his family's was bound to that place, and he worked for the lord. The benefit, however, was that he had a place to live, and the lord was obligated to make sure his tenants thrived (or else he would lose his workforce).

You could free yourself by marrying a freeman, or else by running away and living elsewhere for a year without being discovered and dragged back (and likely punished with fines, etc.). Finding employment as a runaway peasant wasn't that easy, however.

Something curious arises from a study of inheritance records: medieval English peasants often had saved sufficient funds to purchase their freedom; purchasing their freedom is rare, however, as evidenced by how much money they leave to their inheritors. Why would this be?

The free peasant could rent land from a lord, or purchase and work his own land; his obligations to the lord (in the form of taxes/tithes) was less than that of the unfree peasant. The freeman could uproot and travel to greener pastures, if they were available. The lord, however, had no obligation to take pity on the freeman if the harvest was bad. Being free meant being free to sink or swim on your own. The unfree peasant had stable expectations for what he owed the lord that did not change from year to year and could be planned for. The lord could raise the rent on the freeman, if he felt like it. The unfree peasant was a dependent on whom the lord himself depended for labor. This symbiotic relationship lasted for centuries, until thrown off-kilter by the Bubonic Plague.

The Black Death, Part 4 (of 4)

Friar Clynn looks beyond the present

Friar Clynn was a Franciscan living in Kilkenny in western Ireland at the time of the Bubonic Plague. He wrote a work called "The Annals of Ireland," largely a history of military engagements. From what little we know, we assume he was writing it on behalf of a particular family, the de la Freignes.

The only reason we know his name is because he attached it to the following entry at the end of the Annals. (I quote from the translation found in T.H.White's Book of Merlyn.)

Seeing these many ills, and as it were the whole world thrust into malignancy, waiting among the dead for death to come to me, I have put into writing what I have faithfully heard and examined; and, lest the writing perish with the writer, or the work fail with the workman, I am leaving some pages for the continuation of it, in case any man may remain alive in the future, or any person of the race of Adam may escape this pestilence, to carry on the labors begun by me.

The entry is followed only by blank pages.

We do not know the date of this entry.

We do know that he made an entry dated in June of 1349. By that time, the Pestilence would have swept through and been done with. There is, however, no evidence of his survival past this date. Did he survive the Plague and die from old age or some other cause? We don't know. What is interesting on a human level, however, is that he saw what looked like the end of the known world coming. A disease was sweeping through every country and devastating the population with no successful treatment. By the time it reached Ireland, the stories of massive loss of population in Europe would have added a level of horrifying inevitability to the experience. Here, however, was a man who looked beyond the despair around him and his own terror, who turned his thoughts not to his own salvation, but to an unknown future and the uncertain hope that somehow mankind would persevere.

The Black Death, Part 2 (of 4)

Hype aside, what do we know?

The Middle Ages called what was happening "The Great Pestilence."

The "Black Death" was a term coined in the 1600s to refer to the the grimness of the event.

The "Bubonic Plague" came into currency around 1885-1890 because of the swellings/bruises that resulted from infection. The Latin for bruise is "bubo, bubonis."

Yersinia pestis, isolated in the 1880s by bacteriologists Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato (who were working independently; you can guess who "published first"), loves to breed in the digestive tract of the flea. Because its prolific duplication prevents the flea from being able to digest blood, the flea travels from host to host, biting furiously in an attempt to avoid starving. This causes bacteria to spill out and into the bloodstream of the mammal. Here's a pictorial view.

If you would like a more detailed graphic of how it works (and understand biochemistry more than I do), click here.

A dozen or so cases of Bubonic Plague are diagnosed and treated each year in the United States. The victims invariably (unless they exist solely for an episode of House) live in areas of poor sanitation.

The Black Death, Part 1 (of 4)

A timeline for the Bubonic Plague

(An incomplete list of) Breakouts of the Bubonic Plague:

540 C.E. -- Breaks out in Egypt and reaches Constantinople in 542.
1334 -- Constantinople
1345 -- Volga River Basin
1347-1351 -- Constantinople again, then Alexandria, Cyprus, Sicily; Italy; France and Germany, London; Norway, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; then Eastern Europe; then Russia

Then approximately once each decade for the next century, it appears again. Having taken the weakest among the population in the first go-round, smaller percentages of the population die each time.

1679 -- One last small outbreak in England, but the Plague strikes central Europe hard.
1711 -- Austria
1770 -- Balkans for two years
1855 -- "The Third Pandemic" begins in China and spreads throughout the world, but with greatest losses in China and India; 12,000,000 dead
1877 -- Third Pandemic hits Russia, China, India again
1889 -- Third Pandemic finally peters out
1894 -- Alexandre Yersin isolates the bacterium that causes the Bubonic Plague (called Yersinia pestis after him); Yersin realizes rats are the mode of transport. The pandemic is ended in China in 1896.

2005 -- In September, three mice infected with Bubonic Plague go missing from laboratory in New Jersey.