Template:1348-06-00-Trento

1348, June

Social and Psychological Reactions to the Outbreak of the Black Death in Trento.

et ego nondum bene liberatus sum a malo glandulae, et stans summo mane propter absentiam aliorum clericorum ad fenestram sacristiae S. Vigilii vidi quandam mulierum euntem ad sepulchrum viri sui, et in fovea volutari; tamquam volutaretur pecus sine feretro, vel alio cantore; et dico quod propter accidentia secunda crevit tantus timor inter gentes, quod multi divites fugiebant cum familiis eorum per villas, et relinquebant domus proprias, et Christiani evitabant se invicem, tamquam lepus leonem, vel sanus leprosum, et dico tam de patre vel de matre contra filium, et e converso, vel de sorore contra fratrem, et e converso, vel de propinquo contra propinquum, quam de illis qui non noverant se: quia aliquos vidi nolentes accedere ad sepulturam filiorum propter timorem, et multi confitebatur in sanitatem, et die noctuque dimittebatur corpus Christi, et Oleum sanctum super altaribus, et quasi nullus sacerdis volebat sacramenta portare, nisi illi qui cupiditate lucri torquebantur, et fratres et sacerdotes in Tridento nisi unum evadere vidi, vel etiam de frequentantibus ad infirmos: omnia cimiteria plebium de Tridento, in tam modico tempore plena fuerunt, quod opportunum erat funera sepeliri extra sacrarium, et in fovea una multoties ponebantur quinque vel sex funera; et quandoque aperiebatur bis una fovea in die una.

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. (Translation: Martin Bauch)

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