PART V: Lay Reactions in Europe

These facts, and others of the like sort, occasioned various fears and devices amongst those who survived, all tending to the same uncharitable and cruel end; which was, to avoid the sick, and everything that had been near them, expecting by that means to save themselves.  And some holding it best to live temperately, and to avoid excesses of all kinds… and shut themselves up from the rest of the world… Others maintained free living to be a better preservative, and would baulk no passion or appetite they wished to gratify, drinking and reveling incessantly from tavern to tavern…And such, at that time, was the public distress, that the laws, human and divine, were no more regarded… [Others] decided that the only remedy for the pestilence was to avoid it: persuaded, therefore, of this and taking care for themselves only, men and women in great numbers left the city [and fled to the country]; as if the wrath of God had been restrained to visit those only within the walls of the city…

It should be known to all Christian that pestilence, and every other manifestation of God’s vengeance, arises because of sin....Pestilence arises from a multitude of sins, but most especially from swearing worthless, deceitful and meaningless oaths….

If I am asked…by what means can someone save himself from [the plague]…I say that…everyone over seven should be made to vomit daily from an empty stomach, and twice a week…he should lie well wrapped up in a warm bed and drink warm ale with ginger so that he sweats copiously, and he should never touch the sheets after that until they have been cleansed of the sweat, for if the person sweating had been in contact with the pestilence a healthy man could catch the plague from the sheets unless they have been well washed. And as soon as he feels an itch or prickling in his flesh he must use a goblet or cupping horn to let blood and draw down the blood from the heart, and this should be done two or three times at intervals of one or two days at most. And if he should feel himself oppressed deep within the body, then he should let blood in the nearest veins, either in the arms or in the main veins of the feet…

Whenever anyone is struck down by the plague they should immediately provide themselves with a medicine like this. Let him first gather as much he can of bitter loathing towards the sins committed by him, and the same quantity of true contrition of heart, and mix the two into an ointment with the water of tears. Then let him make a vomit of frank and honest confession, by which he shall be purged of the pestilential poison of sin, and the boil of his vices shall be totally liquefied and melt away….

Afterwards let him take the most delightful and precious medicine: the body of our lord and savior Jesus Christ…compared with this all other remedies of doctors are futile and profit little against the plague…

Unlike what had been seen in the east, where bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here there appeared certain tumours in the groin or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of the body; in some cases large and but few in number, in others smaller and more numerous – both sorts the usual messengers of death.  To cure of this malady, neither medical knowledge nor the power of drugs was of any effect…