I Read Books About the Black Death

Bear continues in pain but manageable. This is likely to be the state of things for some time except for flare ups.

A few years back I went through a phase of reading books about the Black Death. I quite enjoy death and disaster - but only if it's a few centuries away. I don't like it too close. There is a lot of literature about the Black Death, and not all of it is worth reading. I've always been fascinated by the way that it shaped society and changed the way government worked, for better or worse.

With the current events, I dipped into a book called Journal of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, which you can read free on the Gutenberg Press site. It's a darned good read, written by the same person who wrote Robinson Crusoe, and is fiction with a lot of research included.

The first wave of the medieval bubonic plague that hit England at the end of 1348 (previous waves hit before in the sixth century CE  and possibly second century CE and 4000BCE but I'm less sure of those dates) was a massive shock to society. The second wave that hit England around 1361 was perhaps even more psychologically damaging although without the same death toll. It meant that the plague was here to stay. And it kept coming back in waves right up until the end of the seventeenth century (last deaths were early twentieth century in Suffolk, but those were isolated cases). Bubonic plague continued to be a dreadful illness, but people knew that it could happen, like a bad winter or a failed harvest.

As the plague returned, a set of measures to deal with the crisis grew up with each major outbreak. People knew that strangers could bring plague, so mayor's had to issue bills of health for people who wanted to travel. People were aware of the incubation time and the length of time the bacillus could survive on cloth, for example, which led to the isolation of goods for forty days, which is where the word quarantine comes from, the Italian for forty days. There were people appointed as doctors for the poor, watchers where houses were boarded up to isolate plague victims and attempt to stop the spread, special taxes that would be used to pay for food for those shut up and the economic upheaval that came with plague and provisions for burying those who had sadly fallen victim. As soon as plague was identified, or even suspected, by the time of the outbreak of 1665 in London, rules and regulations swung into action. It was almost a routine hazard and you can see it referred to in Romeo and Juliet where one of the characters is detained because of plague regulations.

I wonder if we will see the same things happening with Covid 19. With all the talk of a Second Wave and a return to lockdown measures if it happens, I wonder if we will see it coming back again and again, sometimes spaced out by decades and sometimes over a few years. I wonder if we'll get used to getting a little stockpile together if it looks like there's going to be another outbreak, or whether we'll autmatically keep a stock of masks in the drawer for when they're needed. I wonder if planning for businesses will take into account the chances of it being a 'corvid year' and whether they need to plan for a lot of working from home. People die every year of the bubonic plague, even now. Most cases are in Madagascar, but it is also endemic in parts of the USA.

As you can tell, I haven't been particularly cheerful today. I managed a response to the writing prompt here, and that's about it. Bear had a skype call with a friend of DH who encouraged him with the violin and duet playing, so that was pretty awesome.

Hugs and good health to all.