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During this plague ([[1348]]), Lord Guerra, Count of San Bonifacio, the Podestà in [[Siena]], died along with almost his entire household. Also, in [[Florence]], [[Pisa]], and throughout all of [[Tuscany]], there was a dreadful [[mortality]]. This plague generally lasted six months from its onset in each region. The noble man [[Andrea Moresini]], the Podestà of [[Padua]], died in his third term of office in the month of June. His son, who succeeded him in office, immediately died. However, hear something remarkable: during this calamity, no king, prince, or lord of a city died. +
I myself am not yet fully recovered from glandular illness, and standing early in the morning at the window of the sacristy of St. Vigilius due to the absence of other clerics, I saw a certain woman going to the grave of her husband and rolling in the pit; as if she were a beast rolling without a bier or any singer. And I say that because of subsequent events, such great fear grew among the people that many wealthy individuals fled with their families to villages, abandoning their own homes, and Christians avoided each other like a rabbit avoids a lion, or a healthy person avoids a leper. This applied to fathers and mothers against their children, and vice versa, or sisters against brothers, and vice versa, or relatives against relatives, as well as those who did not know each other. For I saw some unwilling to approach the burial of their own children out of fear, and many confessed in good health, and day and night the body of Christ and the holy oil were left on the altars, and almost no priest wanted to carry the sacraments, except those driven by the desire for profit. Among the friars and priests in Trento, I saw only one escape, even among those tending to the sick. All the cemeteries in the parishes of Trento were so quickly filled that it became necessary to bury the dead outside the consecrated ground, and in one grave, five or six bodies were often placed; and sometimes one grave was opened twice in a single day. +
In Saint Vigilius, 40 prebendary clerics died, of whom 14 were canons, and both mansions were vacated twice within six months. Regarding pregnant women, I say that of those who were pregnant during that time of illness, not six survived in Trento, because all died. It was said that the aforementioned illness spread throughout the whole world, among pagans, Turks, Jews, as well as among Christians, but not all at the same time. In some places, it occurred in autumn, in others in winter, in some in spring, and in others in summer. Young people died more quickly than the elderly, and maidens more so, and the more beautiful the maiden, the quicker she died, and more women than men. I always heard that the second wave of mortality started with the maidens, especially the more beautiful ones, which was certainly the case in Trento. I saw three maidens who would have been beautiful at the royal court die in one day when the above-mentioned sickness began, and at that time, laborers were not to be found, and the crops remained in the fields because there were no gatherers. In 1349, a laborer was paid 13, 14, or 15 soldi, but they were almost impossible to find even for that price; a woman was paid 6, 7, or 8 soldi for one day. A cartload of low-quality wine was sold for 40, 45, or 50 pounds of small coins. Good wine was sold by the cartload, but I saw a cartload of good wine being sold bit by bit for the equivalent of 100 pounds, and I am referring to Trento wine. I write no more because much more could be written. The second wave of illness in Trento lasted six months, and so it was throughout the world as I heard. More doctors died than others, and the seven best, as I saw and heard from other parts, because there was no medicine or remedy for the second illness except from God alone, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. +
This plague which has now arisen, and which has been enquired after, seems to me to have arisen from the first kind of causes mentioned. It appears that in most, if not in all countries, it spread through all seasons for years, without much change in the rules of the rain, the blowing of the winds in the different seasons, either from our own observation or from what we are told from other countries. The seasons change without their change apparently affecting the disease, but it always remains the same. It broke out in Almeriah at the beginning of Rabi I year 749 (1 June 1348), raged part of the spring, the whole summer until the autumn months and part of the winter until now, when my book is being written, in the middle of Di-lkifdah, that is, the first days of February. So far it has not gone, but the manifestations of God's grace can be felt, may he turn his grace to us completely very soon! All this time the nature of the illness remained the same, but it happened that the symptoms changed with the seasons. It began lightly, and at first only a few people were afflicted; then it gradually and (p. 41) slightly increased until the end of Ğumādā 2, that is, the end of September, and then it increased violently and continued with about the same severity until now. It was most merciful of God that it started so easily in Almeriah, for if it had suddenly attacked the people, as it did in other places of Islam, the inhabitants would have perished helplessly as a result of the terror.
It started in a corner of the city known as Hūām, the north-east corner of Ğabala, the home of the poor and needy. The first cases were known from people called Beni Danna, and from them the disease gradually spread among the neighbours, slowly increasing and spreading to the surrounding area until it reached the outer limits of the city and then the city centre. The maximum number of deaths in one day during the entire period was 70, a number that is relatively low compared to what we have been told about other Islamic and Christian cities. Credible reporters told us that there were 1202 deaths in one day in Tunis, over 700 in Tlemcen, 1500 in Valencia on the day of the Unsorat, and 1252 on the island of Mallorca on 24 May, where the survivors were estimated at about a quarter of the total number of inhabitants. The same was reported for all larger and smaller towns.
In the same year and indiction, on June 2, a certain plague began in Trento, which was fivefold. First, there was continuous fever (p. 51), second, swelling of the glands, which appeared in the groin or under the arms, third, carbuncles, fourth, spitting of blood called anthrax, fifth, severe insomnia, sixth, what is called St. Christopher's disease. Certainly, out of six people, five died in Trento, and there was no family in Trento that was not diminished, and many families were entirely wiped out, and among many relatives, no person remained. Consequently, many houses, almost all, were without inhabitants, and many people went mad. Almost no one who fell ill survived beyond the third, fourth, or fifth day, but if they survived beyond twenty days, they were freed. However, the majority died on the third, second, or first day, or suddenly, because many people were found dead while walking on the road, as if they were ripe pears. Of those who spit blood, I saw or heard of none who survived, and those who were cured of other ailments remained almost entirely impaired or could barely recover after a long time. +
The benevolent man Albert von Osten, with pious thought of his deceased brothers Godfred and Wedekin, called von Osten, and with his wife Grete's consent, donated a homestead in Sønder Mern with a penny of debtland belonging to the monastery with all royal rights, taxes and services due thereto, to remain in the monastery's eternal possession for his, his wife's and said brothers' sins. He also gave the one who lived on this homestead the free right, together with his other subjects, to cut wood in his forest there for buildings and for hearths. In the year of our Lord 1348 [[Pentecost]]. +
That year, and the fifteenth of May. A great mortality began in Arimino, and then in the countryside, and lasted until the first of December. And the two people died of three. And first the poor died, and then the other great ones, except that tyrants and great lords did not die. And this mortality was general in every country. +
In the name of God, amen. In the year of our Lord's birth 1348, first indiction, on the 17th day of June. Furthermore, since it is difficult, indeed almost impossible, due to the illness and mortality of people, to be able to gather the appropriate assemblies of the commune of Pistoia in sufficient numbers [...] it is deemed and agreed by the said Council to provide, ordain, and reform that for the entire duration of the present offices, which should last from now until the 8th day of the upcoming month of August, it will be sufficient to convene twelve out of the twenty-four members (appointed for the provision of the commune's expenses of Pistoia) and at least six out of the twelve members (appointed for the custody and fortification of the castles) to deliberate and provide for what these offices are to deliberate and provide. And thus, they may be able to provide and deliberate during the said period with the said number, as if they were gathered in the usual and appropriate number. +
Concerning the burning of the Jews and in which places on earth and for what reason. In the same year ([[1348]]), from the feast of John the Baptist [24 June] to the feast of All Saints [1 November], all the Jews throughout the kingdom of Arelat, with the exception of the city of Avignon, which had been acquired by Pope Clement VI and in which the Jews residing there were protected, were burnt and killed, until the city of Solothurn, where they were also burnt, on account of the plague which raged in that and the following year and was attributed to the Jews. For it was said and it was generally believed, and the Jews themselves admitted, and this will be shown in the following years, that they had poisoned the springs. Therefore the people of Constance at that time ordered that they should draw their water from the lake and not from the springs, and that the Jews should only use the Christians' springs and wells, while the Jews' wells were blocked up with faeces and stones. +
Since now - according to what we have learnt - this custom has prevailed in our diocese of Lund, before we were accepted as bishop to take care of the church's governance, that the heirs of deceased clergymen who have had beneficium here, for shorter and longer periods of time, without any fixed rule, but according to various decisions of various authorities, have received the revenues and incomes of said deceased clergymen's benefices, whereby several, both the heirs of the said deceased, as well as those who received the same benefices, have sometimes suffered a serious interruption in their rights, you have humbly requested that we, with with vigilant care we will provide you with a suitable medicine. +
Anecdote: I witnessed at the time of the Great Plague at Damascus in the latter part of the month of Second Rabīʿ of the year 49, a remarkable instance of the veneration of the people of Damascus for this mosque. Arghun-Shah, king of the amirs and the Sultan's viceroy, ordered a crier to proclaim through Damascus that the people should fast for three days and that no one should cook in the bazaar during the daytime anything to be eaten (for most of the people there eat no food but what has been prepared in the bazaar). So the people fasted for three successive days, the last of which was a [[Thursday]]. At the end of this period the amirs, sharifs, qadis, doctors of the Law, and all other classes of the people in their several degrees, assembled in the Great Mosque, until it was filled to overflowing with them, and spent the Thursday night there in prayers and liturgies and supplications. Then, after performing the dawn prayer [on the Friday morning], they all went out together on foot carrying Qur'ans in their hands — the amirs too barefooted. The entire population of the city joined in the exodus, male and female, small and large; the Jews went out with their book of the Law and the Christians with their Gospel, their women and children with them; the whole concourse of them in tears and humble supplications, imploring the favour of God through His Books and His Prophets. They made their way to the Mosque of the Footprints and remained there in supplication and invocation until near midday, then returned to the city and held the Friday service. God Most High lightened their affliction; the number of deaths in a single day reached a maximum of two thousand, whereas the number rose in Cairo and Old Cairo to twenty-four thousand in a day. +
Considering and observing the deadly pestilence, which so fiercely sends its arrows everywhere, and because of the scarcity and high cost of wax, it is not possible to give the customary honor to funerals with such wax, wishing to distinguish the times and provide duly for these matters [...], no commoner or noble person can or should send or have carried to the funeral of any deceased person, regardless of their status or condition, candles of greater weight than specified below: namely, a commoner may send only four pounds or less, under penalty of ten pounds of denarii for each offense; and a noble may send candles weighing ten pounds and no more, or less if they wish, under penalty of twenty-five pounds of denarii +
There are many people, almost innumerable, who daily come to the courts, both their own and those of examiners, and due to this circumstance arising from the mortality of the present time [...] And because many notaries and countless others who have received requests for wills and various other documents are deceased [...] And because our offices suffered greatly due to the absence of notaries and scribes and also other officials of ours, who are outside Venice and do not care to come, it is advised that with this part published, all members of chanceries, notaries, and clerks of all our offices, both clerics and laymen who left two months ago, are bound to have come to Venice within eight days [...] under the penalty of losing the offices they held [...] Because our city suffers greatly in the matter of the sick due to the absence of physicians who left Venice... +
In the same year ([[1346]]), Johannes Andreae flourished, an excellent [[doctors|doctor]] of canon law, who wrote his lecture known as "Novella" on the volume of Decretals and many other good works in canonical law. He died in the year of our Lord 1348 due to the pestilence among men, which was in Bologna and everywhere in [[Italy]]. +
As our city appears to be sufficiently freed from this pestilence through the mercy of our highest Creator, and it is necessary, with divine assistance, to ensure that it remains so, and since many bodies, dead or dying outside Venice, are being brought to Venice, which is a cause of corruption of the air [...] And as many sick people who come to Venice could bring about corruption of the air, may it be far from us, they advise that no foreigner, whether man or woman, great or small, sick or appearing to be sick, in any way, should be allowed to come to Venice from any place or location, whether subject to our authority or not subject to our authority +
Then we went to Ghazza and found most of it deserted because of the numbers that had died during the plague. The qāḍī told me that only a quarter of the eighty notaries there were left and that the number of deaths had risen to eleven hundred a day. +
Anecdote: The preacher ʿIzz al-Dīn gave a banquet one day and invited me among his guests. I asked him the reason for it. He told me that during the plague he had sworn he would give a banquet if the plague were to cease and a day were to pass during which he did not pray over a corpse. Then he said: 'Yesterday I did not pray over a corpse so I arranged the banquet as I had promised.' I found that some of the shaikhs I had met in al-Quds [Jerusalem] had departed to be with God Most High. May He have mercy on them! Only a few of them were left like ... +
Among the living in this part of Gaul on the right bank of the Po, on the first of August in the year 1348. +
On Thursday, the 10th of Jumada al-Awwal, after the noon prayer, the preacher performed a funeral prayer for sixteen deceased individuals all at once. This greatly alarmed and terrified the people, as death was striking many, and the death toll in the town and its surroundings reached nearly three hundred. Indeed, we belong to Allah, and to Him we shall return. After the prayer, another funeral prayer was performed for fifteen deceased individuals at the Great Mosque of Damascus, and at the Mosque of Khalil, a prayer was performed for eleven souls. May Allah have mercy on them.
On Monday, the 21st of the same month, the deputy of the Sultanate ordered the killing of dogs in the town. These dogs had become numerous throughout the town, and there were reports of them attacking people and blocking their way during the night. The defilement of places by these dogs had become widespread, making it difficult to avoid. Many had compiled sections of the hadiths regarding their killing and the differences among the scholars on this issue. Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, used to command in his sermons to slaughter pigeons and kill dogs. Malik, in the narration of Ibn Wahb, stated that it is permissible to kill dogs in a town where they cause harm, provided the Imam permits it for the public interest.
On Friday, the second of the month of Rajab, after the Friday prayer at the Umayyad Mosque, a funeral prayer was performed for someone absent, who was Judge Alauddin, the son of Judge Shubha. Then, a funeral prayer was performed for forty-one deceased individuals all at once. The interior of the mosque could not accommodate them, so some of the deceased were taken outside to the gate of Al-Sirr. The preacher and the naqeeb (head of a group) went out and prayed for all of them there. It was a significant and solemn moment, a great tragedy. Indeed, we belong to Allah, and to Him we shall return +
Then I travelled to al-Maḥalla al-Kabīra, then to Naḥrarīya, then to Abyār, then to Damanhūr, and then to Alexandria. I found the plague had abated after the number of deaths had risen to a thousand and eighty a day. Then I went to Cairo and was told that during the plague the number of deaths there had risen to twenty-one thousand a day. I found that all the shaikhs I had known were dead. May God Most High have mercy upon them! +
