"Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of every law, human and divine, vanished.Most of those who were in office had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many members of their family, that they were unable to attend to their duties; so that thenceforth every one acted as he thought proper.Others in their mode of living chose a middle course.They ate and drank what they pleased, and walked abroad, carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs, or spices, which they smelt to from time to time, in order to invigorate the brain, and to avert the baneful influence of the air, infected by the sick and by the innumerable corpses of those who had died of the plague.Others carried their precaution still further, and thought the surest way to escape death was by flight.They therefore left the city; women as well as men abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and retiring into the country.But of these also many were carried off, most of them alone and deserted by all the world, themselves having previously set the example.Thus it was that one citizen fled from another--a neighbour from his neighbours--a relation from his relations; and in the end, so completely had terror extinguished every kindlier feeling, that the brother forsook the brother--the sister the sister--the wife her husband; and at last, even the parent his own offspring, and abandoned them, unvisited and unsoothed, to their fate.Those, therefore, that stood in need of assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants, who, for an exorbitant recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine, remained with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently became themselves victims to their avarice and lived not to enjoy their extorted gain.Propriety and decorum were extinguished among the helpless sick.Females of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness, and committed the care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of the lowest order.No longer were women, relatives or friends, found in the house of mourning, to share the grief of the survivors--no longer was the corpse accompanied to the grave by neighbours and a numerous train of priests, carrying wax tapers and singing psalms, nor was it borne along by other citizens of equal rank.Many breathed their last without a friend to soothe their dying pillow; and few indeed were they who departed amid the lamentations and tears of their friends and kindred.Instead of sorrow and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity and mirth;this being considered, especially by the females, as conducive to health.Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, mercenaries of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the grave that was not already too full to receive it.Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater.Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their dwellings, or in the immediate neighbourhood; and thus they fell by thousands; and many ended their lives in the streets by day and by night.The stench of putrefying corpses was often the first indication to their neighbours that more deaths had occurred.The survivors, to preserve themselves from infection, generally had the bodies taken out of the houses and laid before the doors; where the early morning found them in heaps, exposed to the affrighted gaze of the passing stranger.It was no longer possible to have a bier for every corpse--three or four were generally laid together--husband and wife, father and mother, with two or three children, were frequently borne to the grave on the same bier; and it often happened that two priests would accompany a coffin, bearing the cross before it, and be joined on the way by several other funerals; so that instead of one, there were five or six bodies for interment."Thus far Boccacio.On the conduct of the priests, another contemporary observes: "In large and small towns they had withdrawn themselves through fear, leaving the performance of ecclesiastical duties to the few who were found courageous and faithful enough to undertake them." But we ought not on that account to throw more blame on them than on others; for we find proofs of the same timidity and heartlessness in every class.
During the prevalence of the Black Plague, the charitable orders conducted themselves admirably, and did as much good as can be done by individual bodies in times of great misery and destruction, when compassion, courage, and the nobler feelings are found but in the few, while cowardice, selfishness and ill-will, with the baser passions in their train, assert the supremacy.In place of virtue which had been driven from the earth, wickedness everywhere reared her rebellious standard, and succeeding generations were consigned to the dominion of her baleful tyranny.
