Bubonic Plague Quotes
The Bubonic or Black Plague
He was one of the world’s greatest polymaths who among his other accomplishments was the “Father of Sociology” and was the leading Islamic intellectual of his era.
The Black Plague, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349, had left relatively few able bodied people alive. Given this shortage of labor, even the beggars were forced to work in this form of “workfare”, thus outlawing private charity and welfare. See {611124} and {611125}
The Black Plague had terrorized Europe and many Jews were blamed and killed. The Pope responded to the slaughter:
His modernization was too slow and did not include political modernization sufficient to build a strong, large, popular support base, and he proceeded much too fast for the Islamic fundamentalists who revolted, formed a theocracy and although substantial progress had been made, the Revolution ended most progress and rolled back much of the modernity.
The graphic is a painting of the effect of the plague in Ireland. Clearly his first sentence exaggerates, but there were some areas where most humans died. See {620882} for a Muslim Historian’s description of the plague.
The Black Plague, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349, had left relatively few able bodied people alive. Given this shortage of labor there was a rapid inflation, especially to the distress of the landed class who had to pay much more for their food. The king therefore established what amounted to price controls, wage controls and forces labor. See {611125} and {611126}
This is one of the favorite quotations of students of labor relations. The Black Plague, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349, had left relatively few able bodied people alive. Given this shortage of labor, the price that workers could command rapidly increased. The wealthy were outraged that the law of supply and demand and the marketplace produced such a labor inflations and the king then passed this draconian decree that in effect was one of the early attempts at wage control. It went further in that the workers were required to work for the official wages and had no choice of not working at all. In effect, labor was drafted. See {611124} and {611126}
Some bigots blamed the Jews for the Black Plague, then rampant. This is documentation of the Pope’s intercession to protect Jews. Pope Benedict XII, ?-1342, was an enlightened and moral leader who did not share the superstitions of many and realized that something was transmitting the disease. See {611790} for his behavior. The graphic is of the Pope.
In Christian Europe anti-Semitism was rampant until the end of WWII. Innocent Jews were tortured and massacred. Many Islamic lands were much more tolerant and humane; many Jews not only flocked to them but thrived. Great Jewish Rabbis and philosophers did much creative work in Islamic lands—especially Andalusia which was then a Muslim nation. So many Muslims who deplored the Holocaust were puzzled when the United Nations placed the Jewish Homeland in the Middle East. Why not have Israel in Germany? However the Jews had a kingdom encompassing Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and much else of the Middle East centuries before Arabs ever came to the area and Islam existed. The Jews had conquered; then others did, and then the Ottoman Turks. Everyone with a claim on Palestine has taken it from some other people and then has had it taken from them by others. But there is a type of argument that the historically worst anti-Semites should provide the land for Israel.
The time described was 1349 when the Bubonic Plague had ravaged Europe. This “prevention methodology was probably intended as some sort of disinfectant but in reality the fire would inhibit the rats which were the main carriers of the plague and his isolation would have protected him from being infected by other people. The Pope’s method was about as good as one could do at the time. The Graphic is of the Pope—not Konigshofen.q
