black death final exam

states, cities, and kingdoms

major cities: florence, genoa, london, venice

• people with land and wealth had power

• england → parliament

  • only citizens in parliament (kingdom)

• cities → counsil (legislative), officials, religious

describe the two types of clergy

secular clergy

• priests and bishops / archbishops

  • bishops / archbishops hold a diocese

  • hold regular services and associate with secular people

regular clergy

• religious houses

• gave up secular life to devote self to prayer

  • monks, nuns, abbots / abbesses, friars

  • friars leave and preach throughout europe

• supposed to live very basic lives without wealth or luxury

ritual year

• connected to agricultural season

• brings communities together

• dual religious and social purposes

• lent was a miserable time where the diet was limited to grains, vegetables, and fish

  • lasted 40 days before easter and was a time of self-denial

how to describe the plague

• bubonic: buboes, 80% of cases

• pneumonic: lungs, coughing, airborne transmission, 15% of cases

• septicemic: blood transmission, 5% of cases

evidence for and against yersinia pestis

• YP doesn’t spread far or fast

• similarity in symptoms: buboes, fever, quick death

• no records of rats dying

• BD high mortality; YP low mortality

• YP doesn’t travel person to person

humoral theory

• 4 humors / liquids in body

  • in balance = healthy

  • out of balance = unhealthy

• treatments: vomiting, bloodletting, dieting

• counter balance excessive humor

• temperaments: choleric, melancholy, sanguine, phlegmatic

  • zodiac signs

• treated by physicians who went to universities

how planets, air, and stars caused the disease

• different alignment changed the weather and other earthy things (earthquakes, bad storms, etc.)

• everything was connected through aether (planets, people, plants, animals, etc.)

• conjunction of planets

• miasma: fog and rotten smells are poisonous

  • swamps and seas

  • human activities like butchering

how people viewed parish priests during and after the black death

• pastoral care: religious education, support for the poor, comforting the sick and troubled, “village therapist”

what did people leave in their wills

describe sacraments and what they were used for

• baptism, communion, penance, marriage, holy orders, last rites / extreme unction (final confession and anointing)

  • baptism: essential sacrament typically done as soon as child was born

  • forms of penance: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, alms

manors and rural society

before black death

• manor is owned by lord or lady and typically run by a steward; land is worked by tenant farmers and serfs

  • lords and ladies have financial, legal, and judicial rights

  • tenants and serfs have a set rent and inheritance rights

after black death

• actions of tenant farmers and serfs: demands for higher wages, serfs running away, negotiating services, uprisings, buying nicer things, taking and refusing land, laws preventing switching jobs or increasing wages

paston family

• from serf to urban professional to gentry

• class insecurity from their past as a serf

• could be disgraced by the nobles for marrying down

changes in wages, prices, rents, and labor services

• wages and prices increased, rents and labor services decreased

• prices decreased after 1370

• better diet and less malnutrition for lower class (skeletons and dental records)

• better housing and clothing for lower class

• negotiation of these things through landlord / landlady

criticism of … by lay people

parish priests

• lacking full education and performing rituals incorrectly

• biased if from same village that they worked in

• breaking rules

regular clergy

• seclusion of clergy viewed as selfish

• too much wealth and not using it a charity

• not helping people

bishops / archbishops

• changing aspects of religion (i.e. limbo)

• not keeping parish priests in check or making sure they’re fully trained

• isolated and rich

friars

• said that lay people get into heaven based on the amount of money they give to them

• selling indulgences (forgiving of sins)

  • “selling heaven”

  • begins with papacy in avignon

lollards (people who criticize the catholic church)

john wycliffe

• catholic priest who wrote critical works of the church

  • on civil domain (1377)

    • cc shouldn’t own property or have excessive wealth

  • on the church (1378)

  • on truthfulness of holy scripture (1378) → started lollard movement

    • anything not in the bible is wrong

    • no popes, bishops, or archbishops

    • baptism is the only sacrament needed

  • on the eucharist (1379)

    • eucharist: consecrated bread

    • transubstantiation: transformation of a substance (bread to jesus’s body)

    • transformation is impossible or caused by magic / the devil

lollards translated bible into english for lay people to read

• owning copy resulted in execution through burning at the stake

• HIGHLY ILLEGAL