13. † Traditional tale: Tartars vs.
Genovese
Tartars dying of plague and
losing the battle, strap dead
plague victims to catapults
and fling them over the city
walls to the Genovese.
† Genovese contract the plague
and begin dying themselves.
Genovese escape by means
of ships to ports around the
Mediterranean carrying the
plague with them.
18. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death,
c. 1562
They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ...
ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug.
And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands ...
And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.
—The Plague in Siena: An Italian Chronicle
30. • Undermined Church authority
The regarding science, sin and the
causes of misfortune
Black • Shortage of Priests
• Younger Priests showed more
Death intellectual curiosity
Avignon • Relocation of papacy from Rome to
southern France pressured by
Papacy French King Philip IV
• Simony (selling church lands and
(1309- taxing the clergy)
• Indulgences (purchasing “leftover
1377) grace” from the lives of Saints)
Great • College of Cardinals conflict
Schism between French and Italian interests
• Election of two popes
(1378- • Avignon
• Rome
1417)
