With the plague decimating the ranks of laborers, surviving workers started pining for higher wages. When the monarchy responded by enacting taxes and restrictive labor laws, the peasants rebelled.
Chaucer commended those who followed their societal roles and condemned those who didn’t.
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PODCAST: Between a third and half of Europe’s population died from the Black Death. The first episode of a new podcast series from The Anthill on how the world recovered from past shocks.
Dance of Death, Michael Wolgemut (1493).
Wikimedia
Fun fact: the term ‘influenza’ comes from the premodern belief stars influenced disease. Before epidemiologists, there were astrologers.
The biblical book of Ezekiel describes a vision of the divine that medieval philosophers understood as revealing the connection between religion and science.
By Matthaeus Merian (1593-1650)
Those experiencing stress and uncertainty amid the coronavirus may find guidance in medieval responses to plagues, which relied on both medicine and prayer.
Hippocrates refusing the gifts of Artaxerxes. Engraving by Raphael Massard, 1816.
Wellcome Images
The cities of Europe have experienced disease outbreaks for centuries, but they were able to bounce back using quarantine, economic stimulus and patience. Not all were successful.
Racism against fellow Indians and classism against the poor characterised India’s early response to coronavirus, that is reminiscent of British imperial public health policies.
There were eerie similarities between Pepys’ time and our own.
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Sure, there were no Zoom calls or ventilators. But thanks to a prolific diarist, we can see some striking similarities, from daily death counts to quack remedies.
The 14th century Black Death pandemic catalysed enormous societal, economic, artistic and cultural reforms in Medieval Europe. Infectious disease pandemics can be major turning points in history.
Franz Xavier Winterhalter’s ‘The Decameron’ (1837).
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Rumours, conspiracy theories, the blame game: sound familiar?
Nearly lost at sea, Robinson Crusoe lands on an island only to reckon with isolation, solitude and his own life.
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