Problems of Medieval Europe
The setting: Medieval Europe. The problem: the pope is living in Avignon, under strict control from the French King. The plague is ravaging Europe, leaving behind whole cities of corpses. Sanitation is very poor, there are no sewer systems, and more often than not, one could find human and animal feces lining the streets. The standard of living is very low, and much of this is blamed on religion. Many people would like to see the pope dead. Solutions are virtually non-existent. The pope is looking for a way to restore his power, and improve the life of Europeans.
The main problem facing the pope was, of course, the plague. Nearly twenty-five million people had died of this highly infectious disease already, and it didn't appear to be slowing. Medieval physicians had developed a number of "cures," some as absurd as placing live chickens on the wounds of the infected. Due to the primitive technology at that time, there were very few actual cures. Many of the practices of the doctors were invented simply to deceive the populous into believing that they had cures, and that all was not lost. The pope, in his quarters at Avignon, sat between two large fires. They thought that this would purify the "bad air" which most blamed for the spread of the plague. Although there was no bad air, the fires actually did prevent the plague, killing off the bubonic bacteria. This was an example of what some people call "accidental science," or a discovery made from superstition, or by accident.
From the viewpoint of a medieval doctor, there were few things you could do. Most medicine at that time was based on the four humors, and the four qualities. The four humors were phlegm, blood, bile, and black bile. Illness would occur when these humors were imbalanced. Doctors often let blood, attempting to restore balance. There were also four qualities; heat, cold, moistness, dryness. Diseases were often deemed to have two qualities, i.e. hot and dry. If a person had a disease that was hot and dry, they would be administered a plant that was considered cold and moist.
Basically what I have tried to say in the previous two chapters is that there was no medicinal cure for the plague in medieval times. If they had antibiotics, however, there would have been very few fatalities.
Many wondered what the true cause of the Black Plague was and how it spread all across the world in such a short amount of time. Throughout its time period, many medical authorities and scientists sought to give rational explanations for the reasons why the plague was spreading and believed it was caused by several factors such as: “corrupted air and water, hot and humid southerly winds, proximity of swamps, lack of purifying sunshine, excrement and other filth, putrid decomposition of dead bodies, excessive indulgence in foods (particularly fruits), God's wrath, punishment for sins, and the conjunction of stars and planets” (Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence). The confusion and lack of scientific knowledge on the harmful disease caused much panic and triggered many outbreaks among individuals. Many people began to start placing cities and ships under quarantine, burning sulfur to purify bad air, burning clothes, and even blaming and killing Jews in hope that they could solve a cure or at least stop the spread.
An important fact to remember is that in those times, opinions and actions were either based on or blamed on religion and superstition. For example, people started marching across the country, punishing themselves on the basis that the plague was the result of all of man’s sin, whilst trying to persuade people of their cause. Also, charms were used by some cultures, such as the “Abra Kadabra” charm, which was either carved, or worn as protective jewellery to ward off the evil spirits causing the plague. It looked similar to the image below.
Pope Urban II was sought by Alexius Comnenus, a Byzantine Emperor who wanted the papacy to help his army hold off the advancing Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor. The reason for Alexius Comnenus contacting the pope rather than another emperor or monarch wasn’t just the fact they were secular, but because the pope would have more power to persuade the people. The Gregorian movement in 1050-80 was ultimately was responsible for the new instilled power of the papacy’s position over nonreligious rulers. The pope agreed to aid the Byzantine emperor, but he also had his own agenda when it came to the military advances and the new power of his position. The papacy did not intend to only help the Byzantine Empire but to further save all of Christendom from being overrun.
Both theories by Merton and Agnew are similar because their focus is that social situations and conflicts an individual’s comes in contact within his/her life, may produce crime by emphasizing the a goal of success, much more than the means to achieve it. With Merton’s theory he adopted Durkheim’s concept of anomie to explain deviance. Merton’s theory combined both structural and cultural factors. Merton insists that society promotes goals for their citizens and norms for other’s behavior in attempting to reach these goals. In Merton’s theory people do crime when they are unable to reach or accomplish goals. Merton’s theory also explains how an individual’s social structure prevents an individual from becoming economically fortunate. His theory of modern anomie and strain express that individuals respond to strain in 5 individual ways. Those five ways are conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. On the other hand Agnew general strain theory, feels strain comes from sources other than economic failure. Agnew general strain theory focuses on a few other types of strain and stress. Like the presentation of a negative stimuli, and the loss of a positive stimuli. Agnew feels that this sort of strain leads to a negative state of mind. The emotions like angry, frustration and fear, lead to crime and criminal behavior. One
During the Middle Ages, medicine was limited. This was critical because in 1348-1350 the Black Death killed millions, nearly one third of the population. Physicians had no idea what was causing diseases or how to stop them ("Medicine in the Middle"). The Catholic Church told its people the illness was punishment from God for their sins (Gates 9). Some of the only procedures doctors could perform was letting blood by using leeches, and mix ‘medicines’ using herbs, spices, and resins (Rooney 106-107). Other medicine was administered by drinks, ointments, poultices, baths, and purges (Rooney 120). One hundred years later, when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, many scholars moved to Italy, where they freely exchanged ideas. With them the scholars brought their libraries of books, giving European scholars access to the Greek and Latin culture. As new ways of thinking spread from Italy across Europe, this time period became known as the Renaissance, which was an era of discovery. As explorers returned with new discoveries and information, Europeans expanded their knowledge about astronomy, botany, and geography. Scientists like Copernicus and Galileo studied the world using observation and experimentation. Thanks to Gutenberg’s printing press, this new information was available to anyone who could read. For this reason the ideal Renaissance man was expected to be a well-rounded scientist, artist, mathematician, and philosopher all in one. The way people thought about medicine changed during this era. These changes brought about unique surgical methods, instruments, medicines, and practices, with a a few notable people. The Renaissance era of discovery did much for the world of medicine.
Theoretical Background During the past decades, various criminologists developed different theories in an attempt to explain the causes of crime within the society. In return, they were successful, as of today it was adopted or accepted, indeed all of theories explain the root causes of crime. One of these theories is anomie or strain theory which originally argues that the lower class frustration to higher class causes crime (Merton, 1938) in an attempt to explain why the majority of the people who commits crime are lower class. In 1985 Robert Agnew a sociologist come to an interest of studying the theory and finds a potential for the theory in explaining several causes of crime in society, but due to its limitation he developed and reformulated
...to prevent the disease. Some people fled to the country side and quarantined themselves. In the churches they took measures that would have not ever been seen if the plague had not taken place. In one instance, one of the priest was giving out mass on the end of a pole. Pope Clement sat in-between to big fires in order to breath pure air.
Deviance is a natural part of and necessary for stability and social order in society, this according to functionalist theorist Emile Durkheim (MindEdge, Inc., 2016). Traditionally, society is generally successful in providing motivation for individuals to aspire for goals of some sort, whether through wealth, prestige or perceived power (Henslin, 2011). However, from a functional perspective, theories have been developed in identifying when lawful and equal access is not afforded to certain individuals in the process of obtaining such goals. This restriction and inequality to opportunity for access in the quest to achieve success is what is now referred to as structural strain theory, which was developed by sociologist Robert Merton (Henslin,
Europe, in the Middle Ages, began to arise with new inventions, like the printing press, that helped many people in that time period, to advance in their education and their labor work, but before all that time, there was the rise of a strong and deadly disease that infected and killed millions of people throughout the world. Before the Black Plague, there were other diseases that had spread around Europe before the Middle Ages but it wasn’t as quickly and deadly as the Black Plague. The Black Plague was found to have come from animals, like rats, but it was mostly from the fleas that were on the rats. The plague in the middle ages had an advantage in Europe due to the overpopulation and the lack of space also because the medicine that was
The field has not quite reached consensus on definitions of LD, and there are professionals as well as members of the public who do not understand them or believe they exist. For example, in a Roper (1995) survey of 1,200 adults, 85% associated LD with mental retardation 66% with deafness, and 60% with blindness. In Rocco's (1997) research, faculty "questioned the existence of certain conditions or if they existed, the appropriateness of classifying the condition as a disability" (p. 158). However, most definitions describe learning disabilities as a group of disorders that affect the ability to acquire and use listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or math skills (Gerber and Reiff 1994; National Adult Literacy and Learning Disabilities Center 1995a; National Center for Learning Disabilities 1997). These difficulties vary in severity, may persist across the lifespan, and may affect one or more areas of a person's life, including learning, work, and social and emotional functioning.
only way to cure the plague and keep the kingdom stable seems to be the
The Sudden death of nearly one-third of the population in Europe had major immediate and lasting social implications. One of the most apparent effects of this was that on religion. After an initial outburst of renewed piety, the Black Plague ultimately weakened the role of religion and specifically the Catholic church. When people started dying in droves, the masses looked to religion for comfort and salvation. Many, believing the plague to be the wrath of God, took up such extreme practices such as self-flagellation hoping for forgiveness. Another extreme practice, although born out of perceived necessity, included burying oneself alive on holy grounds because no priests were left or willing to perform last rites . Due to the lack of priests, who had either died helping the sick or refused to see the sick, the Pope eventually had to declare a worldwide
Strain theory is the inability to achieve one’s goals because of the loss of positive stimuli, or the presentation of negative stimuli. Strain theory may play a pivotal role in some of my peer 's lives due to their inability to achieve their goals. In class we talk about how strain theory cause great deal of crimes through means of certain strains or stressors, which increasing the likelihood of crime. Examples of Stressors and strains is not having positive role model this may influence crimes to happen. Other issue of strains that may play a role in crime is the inability of gaining monetary success. Monetary success usually cause problems that arise due to the lack of income or lack of quality education that would drives individuals to commit crime. My perspective to general strain theory is that a lot pressure was put on me to succeed in life, and that played a factor in my of my own strain to succeed, we didn’t have a lot income in the house, but my parents did provide everything in order for me to succeed. People such as Robert Merton believed that when societal norms only accepted goals, such as the 'American Dream, ' which then place pressure on the individual to conform, they force the individual to either work within the society has produced, or instead becomes a members of a deviant subculture in an attempt to achieve those
The classroom is a diverse place where learners from all different genres of life meet. Included in these learners are those that display learning disabilities. According to the British Columbia School Superintendent’s Association, ‘learning disabilities refer to a number of conditions that might affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. These disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning’. They also posit that ‘learning disabilities result from impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving, thinking, remembering or learning. These include, but are not limited to language processing,
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