Archives: March 2010

14 Mar 2010, Comments (4)

Disease and Divine Judgment

Author: Ann Scott

Leper warning of his presence with a bell

During the Middle Ages, all classes of people visualized diseases and other physical illnesses as the direct punishments of God visited on the sufferer for his or her sins. In this superstitious fashion, people believed that disease was usually the result of a specific sin or of repeated offences. These sins could be anything from offending the church, to slandering the king; lying, cheating, fornication, adultery, or just simply not practicing enough piety (insufficient prayers or offerings).

People often shunned the victims of especially vicious or disfiguring diseases such as leprosy, as much for their fear of the personal wickedness the sickness revealed in the sufferer (spiritual contamination) as they did for their fear physical contamination. The Church generally allowed these superstitions to flourish, if for no other reason than to use examples of such divine judgments as motivation to encourage obedience to ecclesiastical mandates. Furthermore, sick people of means would usually pay generously for the Church’s prayers and spiritual interventions on their behalf and on behalf of their souls. In extreme cases of widespread disease such as the plague, however, the Church and the people  usually blamed their sufferings on the sins of the King or on the collective sin of their nation in disobeying or blaspheming God.

- Ann Scott -

12 Mar 2010, Comments (0)

Catholic Church: The Common Denominator in Medieval Europe

Author: Ann Scott

Baptism of Clovis in 496 AD

After the fall of Rome in 410 AD and Clovis the Frank’s subsequent acceptance of Western Christianity in c. 496, the common denominator of medieval Europe became the Catholic Church. As Clovis conquered nearly all of the old Roman province of Gaul, he forced his conquered foes at sword point to accept Christianity. Catholic monks missionized other unconquered land in preparation for the imminent conquest of the Christian (and thus God-ordained) king.

The Church helped preserve its uniformity by retaining Latin as it’s official language. The priests said mass in Latin regardless of the language of the host country they occupied. The church produced all its scholarship in Latin, a purpose essential to the spread and communication of scholarly learning and theological discussions throughout Europe. In so doing, the Church excluded most of the laity from this exchange of knowledge and ideas, keeping these almost exclusively in its own possession and thus under its control.

As the Middle Ages unfolded, the Church continued to strengthen its position as the common denominator among often-feuding princes and warlords. As a result, the Church emerged as the dominant central force in Europe, in many ways both Europe’s savior and scourge.

- Ann Scott -

9 Mar 2010, Comments (0)

Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV Centuries

Author: Ann Scott

Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV Centuries in Catalonia (NE Spain)See Large Version of Cover

The large 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and Chili sent many historians and geologists scurrying to the history books and historical seismic data. As a  medieval historian, I wondered what kind of seismological data exists from fourteenth and fifteenth century Europe. One enlightening study published in Historical Seismology sheds useful light on the subject.
– Ann Scott –

Abstract:
In 1985 the Geological Survey of Catalonia started a project to compile a comprehensive catalog of seismic activity in Catalonia in order to provide a correct evaluation of seismic hazard. The project concludes with the publication, in 2006, of a book that gathers the results of the interdisciplinary work carried out on the most important historical earthquakes in Catalonia, which took place in the XIV and XV centuries.

One of the most prominent features of this monograph is that it provides a compilation of all the documentation concerning the earthquakes of the late medieval period. For the first time it has been possible to undertake a joint analysis of all the documentation of the earthquakes of the late medieval period in Catalonia and to evaluate these events using homogeneous criteria.

In this paper some methodological aspects of this research are discussed and the main results are given. A catalogue of the earthquakes of the XIV and XV centuries has been compiled. From this catalogue it can be deduced that the earthquake with the greatest intensity, IX, occurred on 2 February 1428 (Mw about 6.5). The second largest earthquake occurred on 3 March 1373, with an epicentral intensity of VIII–IX (Mw about 6.2).

Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV Centuries

Book Series: Modern Approaches in Solid Earth Sciences
ISSN 1876-1682
Volume 2
Book: Historical Seismology
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
DOI  10.1007/978-1-4020-8222-1
Copyright  2008
ISBN 978-1-4020-8221-4 (Print) 978-1-4020-8222-1 (Online)
Part II
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-8222-1_7
Pages: 147-162
Subject Collection: Earth and Environmental Science

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14th Century 1300s Augustine's City of God Benedict's Rule Benedictine Monasticism Cenobitic Monasticism Christian Philosophy Constantine I Daily Life in the Middle Ages English LIterature Fall of the Roman Empire Medieval England Medieval Sounds polytheism Saint Augustine's Confessions Saint Benedict’s Rule St. Augustine's City of God Theodosius I