Misc Notes

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Pious organizations were formed to ensure last rites and burial, often comforting the dying

It was reported that whole families would die including pets and livestock

Some families turn loose their livestock and pets in fear of death and let them eat dying crops.

After the plague, parents had a deeper connection to their children, and a boy past infancy had higher social standing

Was called the Great Death

With pandemics, people often have 2 or 3 diseases rather than just one

Some doors had symbols of a red cross, bundle of straw, or phrases "Lord have mercey

  • this was indication of plague victims inside

Some locked the doors to keep the bad air out, or to not be robbed and/or raped

Commoner houses were often built of thatch

When the second Pandemic begain in Europe, it was viewed not as a universal tragedy but as a local event

    • Monarchs only cared that taxes were paid

Buda Hungary, Christian physicians accused rival Jewish doctors of poisoning their patients

Direct contact with plague victims was forbidden

  • it was believed that coins were considered contaminated
  • There is evidence of common meeting locations between healthy people and infected communities
    • generally large flat stones in field or cleared woodlands
    • Goods and messages would be left by the healthy and retrieved by members of the isolated communities
  • In Penrith, England and Thun, Switzerland, coins used for payments were left underwater in flowing streams on specific, large, concave stones
    • rushing water was believed to have the power to cleanse tainted money

Many churches buried their dead facing towards Jerlusliam, for the coming of Christ and they rise from the graves

  • once the plague hit and 100's of people died a day, less care was taken of how people were buried, especially in mass graves

Purgatory

  • Due to the plague, anxiety surrounded the unavailability of preists to perform last rites