It happened 700 years ago

The first episode of violence against Jews occurred in Toulouse, France, in April 1348. About forty members of the local Jewish community were accused of being responsible for spreading the plague and were ferociously murdered. A few days later, the violence spread rapidly throughout southern France, Catalonia and Aragon, often accompanied by the stripping of property. Almost seven hundred years have passed since the spread of the black plague in Asia and Europe, but, if we read the chronicles of the time, we discover that humanity retains a series of behaviors that differ only in the historical context in which they are implemented, but not by their nature. Although so many centuries have passed, the search for the culprits to whom to attribute responsibility for an epidemic is still in vogue and also concerns the "very high levels", ready to denounce the "Chinese virus" to world public opinion.

Despite the impressive technical and scientific development, our generation has discovered the limits of our knowledge and unpreparedness in the face of a virus totally unknown to our immune systems. And so we failed to anticipate the disease and we were forced, as had happened in the past, to pursue the disease. Compared to the Middle Ages, we certainly have more possibilities to respond quickly and effectively, but we all perceived a certain sense of existential precariousness to which we were not used. A sense of fragility, on the other hand, is clearly present in most of the previous generations. Now as then, mourning plays a central role and can affect everyone without distinction. It is obvious that even in the Middle Ages, those who had more resources had more chances to avoid contagion. But in the event of illness, the chances of survival were the same for the rich as for the poor.

We leave the story of the terrible suffering of those days to a direct witness of the time. In the "Chronicle of Siena" of 1348, the author himself ends his work by writing: "And I Agnolo di Tura called the fat, will bury 5 of my children with my hands; and even out of those who were badly covered with earth, that the dogs pulled and ate many bodies, for the city ». The bubonic plague had a death rate of 90% of those affected, much higher than Covid-19, but this is an uninteresting, almost irritating, data for those who have lost a loved one. Today as then, suffering is not measured and does not depend on quantity.

If we want to continue in the wake of the confrontation between past and present, we can finally remember that, due to the hardness of the crisis of the fourteenth century, also crossed by wars, famines and political crises, the men of the time reacted with creativity trying to build new forms of relationships on the rubble social, economic policies. Seven hundred years later, we too, who are going through a time of pandemics, wars and famines that affect a large part of humanity, have the opportunity to rethink new spaces, new relationships, new opportunities.

Renato Bonomo
NP june / july 2020