(Continued from the first part Light at the end of the tunnel – entering the tunnel)
People needed something or someone to blame for the disease, for the death of all those near and dear ones. It was a period of utter desperation and hopelessness. Since rarely anyone understood biology, the real reason behind the disease remained unfounded until the 19th century. It was when the French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered the germ Yersina pestis. But back in the 14th-century people believed it was some kind of divine punishment – retribution for sins such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness. The only logical solution they found was to find a way to win God’s forgiveness. Alas, the Church and clergy could not show the way to atonement. This was mainly because most of the clergymen were dead, and those recruited to replace them did not know what to do. The repercussions of the death of the clergymen were severe as it strikingly meant that the Church had abandoned its people when they needed it the most. The faith of the people in the Church started dwindling and they resorted to what they thought was right to help them win God’s forgiveness. Some people thought that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers; thus thousands of Jews were massacred from 1348 to 1349 AD. The remaining Jews fled eastwards, where they were relatively safer from the rampaging mobs in the cities of the west.
All of these resultantly led to a situation where people were in desperate need of some ways to cope with the uncontrollable deaths and diseases. There was no way to evade mortality following the disease. Therefore, they started adopting steps that might give them the satisfaction of doing what they believed was the right thing to do. Some people coped with the terror and uncertainty by lashing out at their neighbours; others coped by turning inward and fretting about the condition of their souls. Some upper-class men joined the processions of the flagellants that travelled from town to town and engaged in public displays of penance – they would beat themselves up and one another with heavy leather straps studded with sharp pieces of metal while the townspeople were spectacled. The movement actually worked to an extent and provided some comfort to the people who felt powerless in the face of an inexplicable tragedy. The rise of the movement started to worry the Pope himself, whose authority the flagellants had begun to usurp. However, the movement later died out and disintegrated due to papal resistance.
Earlier people assumed that the world was destined in a certain manner and God-ordained. The Black Death overturned old certainties. Its devastation undermined religious prowess and beliefs. People were no longer willing to accept the status quo, which directly resulted in numerous political revolts at that time. People were no longer willing to accept things that were sanctioned by tradition or did not have a rational explanation for it. More significantly, the urban elite used reasons to understand the world and turned to classic literature to find the answers to their problems. The availability of vast areas of farmlands and decreased population allowed the people, who were earlier serfs, to own land and carry on agriculture on their own, thereby boosting their economic status. Eventually, people started to notice this pattern. Although a majority of the society was still conservative and did not give up on customs, the ones that questioned authority and sought a rational explanation, received wisdom and knowledge. This inspired a new movement that valued reason and critical thinking – the Humanist Movement.
The Humanism Movement slowly, but certainly gained momentum in Italy. The other areas too were influenced, but Italy saw the rise in the movement first hand. Among its many principles, humanism promoted the idea that man was the centre of his own universe and people should embrace achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science. Although the general mood was pessimistic and indeed many expected that the world would end sooner, a strong desire to experience the pleasures of life, to seize even the smallest of joys led man to grow above the pandemic. Thus the epoch of the Renaissance had set in.
In 1450, the invention of the Gutenberg press allowed for improved communication throughout Europe and for ideas to spread more quickly. Reading became cheaper and was no longer a luxury. As a result, little known texts from early humanist authors such as Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, which promoted the renewal of traditional Greek and Roman cultures, were printed and distributed to the masses.
The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, a place with rich cultural history where wealthy citizens could afford to support incipient artists. Members of the Medici family, which ruled Florence for over sixty years, were famous supporters of the movement. It was an intellectual and artistic revolution that had a different flavour than what was experienced during the dark ages. The movement slowly expanded from Florence to other Italian city-states such as Venice, Milan, Bologna, Ferrara and Rome. Other European countries experienced the Renaissance later but the impacts of it were nevertheless revolutionary.
It was believed that the period of the Renaissance was a silver lining to the dark period that marked the end of the dark ages. This paved the way for the ages of exploration with ships and searches for the new world. But in reality, the situation in Europe was still grim. It was the wealthy society of Italy that primarily benefited from the Renaissance. Although it meant a revamp in the economy, wages for agricultural workers who could not own lands were still low. After the plague arrived, wages did rise for a brief period, but it did not sustain. Additionally, in Florence, life expectancy declined during the Renaissance period. While the wealthy Italians did fund the era’s artistic achievements, most Italian peasants would have preferred to have higher wages than the Mona Lisa.
Despite its fallacies, the Renaissance movement influenced the thought and outlook of the people. It had led to great socio-economic, cultural and religious transformations. After the initial horrors of the plague, Italian society staged a spectacular recovery. Italy slowly became richer. The plague’s impact reduced the influence of the Catholic Church, and the culture became more secular. The new social mobility meant that individualism came to be respected. The Black Death unleashed forces all over Europe that ultimately made the path to modern ages and society possible.
On the evening of 3rd August 1492, Christopher Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina, opening the way for widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas – the “Age of Discovery” had thus begun.
