The Coronavirus.1

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Disease, Middle Ages, Songs

Tags

Coronavirus, Epidemic, Giovanni Boccacio, la peste noire, Pandemic, Self-Isolation, the Black Death, The Decameron

La peste noire en Europe a également au des conséquences dramatiques sur le reste du monde

Burying victims of the Bubonic Plague at Tournai

In this history book written in the 1340s by the French chronicler and poet Gilles li Muisis, residents of a town stricken by the plague burn Jews, who were blamed for causing the disease. (Royal Library of Belgium)

About Covid-19

A potentially deadly virus is threatening lives everywhere. It may have started in China, and it may not. It seems that viruses and other pathogens can lie in a dormant state for years, perhaps centuries, only to rise again here and there. The Black Death is still alive. The Black Death so horrified Europeans that many of Europe’s inhabitants would not take baths fearing that freshly-cleansed skin could absorb pathogens.

I remember reading that Henri IV of France sent for his advisor, Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully, but that hearing from his messenger that Sully had just taken a bath, Henri IV asked that he stay indoors for a few days. The Black Death also survived in songs and in literature. Camus (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) wrote La Peste (The Plague), 1947, but we will focus on Giovanni Boccacio’s Decameron. The Decameron was completed in 1353, as the Black Death (1347-1351) was waning. Wikipedia reports the “[i]n total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14^th century epidemics.” The Decameron had an enormous influence on Geoffrey Chaucer‘s (1340 – 1400) Canterbury Tales. But we are not looking at the Decameron, as a work of literature. The Decameron, written in Florentine Italian, is an example of self-isolation to avoid contagion, and, in our case, an epidemic heralding a pandemic.

Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time.[1]

A Tale from the Decameron by John William Waterhouse, 1916 (Wikipedia Commons)

The Decameron: self-isolation

The Decameron consists of a hundred tales told by seven young women and three young men who had self-isolated outside Florence. Self-isolation may well be the best option is a global attempt to save humanity. It’s a form of containment.

I believe that persons who can afford to self-isolate have a better chance of surviving Covid-19. The affluent and employees who benefit from sick leave may be able to self-isolate. But what about citizens who have been fired because they are not needed and may not have sick leave? These would be, for instance, persons working in travel agencies or for an airline company that may go bankrupt.

The agora is no longer a safe area and people should travel and use public transportation as little as possible. What happens to the individuals who have no sick pay? One cannot live without an income, but if earning an income means not only possible, but probable exposure to the coronavirus, remaining in the agora is unacceptable.

Flagellants-Black-Death-Netherlands-atonement-sins-God

Flagellants in the Netherlands scourging themselves in atonement, believing that the Black Death is a punishment from God for their sins, 1349 (Britannica)

We spend billions on defence: war. And we may have to spend billions on another type of defence: a war on a devastating virus now deadlier than war. China is building hospitals and hospitals might be built elsewhere. But time is of the essence. Bill Gates and other wealthy people have donated huge amounts of money to essential research. But, again, time is of the essence. A researcher may have a brilliant idea tomorrow, but that may not happen. Moreover, producing the vaccine or remedy may also take time. In such a case, it is perhaps best to stay home at the government’s expense. Research is essential, but who and when will researchers discover the cure.

These viruses are unpredictable and fickle. The 1918 Spanish flu killed three grown sons in a day, but a daughter and her child survived. Coronavirus seems to attack the elderly and spare children. But we are all at risk, including those who recover. One will recover, but will one recover fully? They may find it difficult to earn a living even if they can manage their illness.

I caught a virus (H1N1) in February 1976. It did not kill me, but caused a permanent disability that eventually cost me my position and my blue house. My employers knew I needed more rest than other persons, but my workload grew heavier than the workload assigned to my colleagues.

But the current case is the novel coronavirus.

We must help those who cannot help themselves for lack of an income. We all pay taxes. Once this outbreak is under control, planes will fly again and travel agencies will reopen, but our current obligation is to save lives and contain the disease, which may mean self-isolation. Moreover, among the persons who survive, some may not be as strong as they were before their illness. Will employers everywhere increase their workloads, causing them to fall ill? That’s what they did to me.

It may cost a great deal of money, but we must save humanity. Let’s go through this horror with dignity, calm, and as charitably as we can. All of us must avoid exposure, and the elderly are at a terrible risk.

Life will be normal again.

RELATED ARTICLES

“Oh, du lieber Augustin,” a Plague Song

Sources and Resources

Britannica
How the Black Death Worked
History Today: the Black Death
The Decameron is Gutenberg’s [eBook #23700]

_________________________________
[1] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Black Death (Encyclopædia Britannica: 13 December 2019) https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death

Love to everyone ♥

Johann Nepomuk Hummel — Ach, du lieber Augustin

The One Hundred Years War, the Plague & Charles d’Orléans, revisited

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in France, History

≈ Comments Off on The One Hundred Years War, the Plague & Charles d’Orléans, revisited

Tags

Charles as prisoner of war, Charles d'Orléans a poet, Charles Duc d'Orléans, Duke of Orleans, Joan of Arc, Posts revisited, the Battle of Agincourt, the Black Death

La Bataille de La Rochelle, Jean Froissart

La Bataille de La Rochelle (One Hundred Years War) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jean Froissart

TWO POSTS:

The One Hundred Years War & the Plague (click on the title to open)
Charles d’Orléans: portrait of an unlikely poet (click on the title to open)

I wrote the above posts two years ago and I wish to publish them again.

The One Hundred Years War & the Plague

The first tells about the ills nature can inflict on humans. In 1348–53 CE the Black Death had decimated Europe. Half the population of France had died when France was also at war: the One Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453). The post also tells about the harm humans inflict on themselves: war. My first republished post features Joan of Arc who was betrayed, having saved the kingdom of France. Charles d’Orléans was a “prisoner” in England when Joan of Arc was tried, convicted, and executed.

Charles d’Orléans: portrait of an unlikely poet

The second post is about Charles, Duc d’Orléans, a prince detained in England for nearly 25 years after the Battle of Agincourt (1415). He was a “prince of the blood” and could therefore be crowned. His son would grow to be king Louis XII.

During his years of detention, Charles started to write poetry. As a poet, he is Charles d’Orléans. Therefore, in my eyes, he was, for a very long time, the poet who had written « Le temps a laissé son manteau… » It is a beautiful poem. Charles also wrote « En la forêt de longue attente » and poems in English. Finally, Charles d’Orléans is associated with Valentine’s Day.

Charles d’Orléans is an important figure to the Dutch.

Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918)

Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans

Charles, Duc d’Orléans

February 23, 2014

WordPress

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The One Hundred Years’ War & the Plague

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History, The Human Condition

≈ 526 Comments

Tags

Charles d'Orléans, Charles VII, Joan of Arc, the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War

Joan of Arc

: Painting, c. 1485. An artist’s interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (Photo and caption credit: Wikipedia)

—ooo—

Allow me to reflect on the One Hundred Years’ War (1337-1353) that opposed France and England and their various allies and, at the same time, also to reflect on the Black Death, a pandemics that occurred eleven years after the war began.

La Bataille de La Rochelle,
Jean Froissart

The One Hundred Years’ War

The One Hundred Years’ War was a series of wars. There were periods of peace. Still, between 1337 and 1453, men were killing one another as France fought to oust the English.

The French did oust the English, despite England’s victory at Agincourt, the victory out of which emerged a poet, Charles, Duke of Orléans, and other English victories. But consider the price.

A Pyrrhic Victory

It was a Pyrrhic victory. During part of the years Charles d’Orléans was detained in England, a brave young woman, named Joan of Arc (ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431), without whom Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461) would not have been crowned King of France, in 1429, was betrayed, sold to England by the Burgundians and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. She has been pronounced a martyr, beatified (1909), and canonized. But recognition did not give her back her most precious possession: her life. Life, short as it is and harsh as it may be.

The Triumph of Death, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ca. 1562 (Museo del Prado) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Black Death: The Plage

The French did oust the English. However, during the One Hundred Years’ War, half the population of France died. Between 1348 and 1350, the Black Death ravaged a large part of Europe. But, if one combines war, famine and the plague, France’s losses were enormous.

Pandemics can be more devastating than wars as they are likely to resurface as epidemics. If you have read my post on the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, you may remember that, in 1416, the Limbourg brothers died of the plague, as did Jean de France who had commissioned his extraordinary Book of Hours in 1410. When they died, the brothers had nearly but not completely carried out their assignment. The Très Riches Heures were completed by Barthélemy van Eyck and Jean Colombe.

The plague killed mercilessly. In some regions of Europe, it snuffed two out of three lives in the space of four days, and the only possible salvation was immediate flight before contamination. There were epidemics of the plague from about the time of the Crusades until the late eighteenth century.

But we need not look back that far, i.e. as far as 1348-1350. The so-called “Spanish Flu” of 1918 killed more individuals than all the battles of World War I combined. I was told that a woman lost three grown sons in the space of twenty-four hours.

Conclusion

We are at the mercy of Lady Fortune who is not always generous. Yet, we lend her a hand. People are still killing one another, regardless of the cost: loss of life, trauma, impoverishment. In fact, let us turn the other cheek, so to speak.

Gustav Mahler (7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911)

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