Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Plague during the Elizabethan era
The Protestant Reformation
The black plague and the plague of the 1300s
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Plague during the Elizabethan era
The Letters of Magdalena and Balthasar
The letters of Magdalena and Balthasar give us a glimpse into the lives of a merchant couple in 16th century Nuremberg, Germany. Renaissance Nuremberg was a city much like Florence, full of culture and based on a strong merchant economy. The only difference was that while Florence was predominately Catholic, Nuremberg's residents were Protestant (Patrouch, 2-13-01). In this city, the plague ended the lives of thousands and this couple was alive to see the suffering it created. This caused two reactions in them. One was that of fear; a fear that they too would die from the plague and so they are both very careful with their health. The second was a vision of a God that could both punish and save them from damnation. In the letters of this book we discover how a Protestant couple in Renaissance Germany dealt with the illness and suffering that their loving God had bestowed upon them.
Between 1560 and 1584, Nuremberg lost thousands of its residents to an epidemic that was sweeping Europe. This was the reason for the couple's preoccupation with purgative health care methods such as periodic bleedings, salve solutions, and bathing and drinking spring waters such as those of Lucca, Italy. In the introduction of this book, Ozment states that Magdalena and Balthasar are "devotees of purgative medicine, in search of effective prophylaxis against the ragging maladies and diseases of their age (Ozment, 14). Due to this fear of sickness and death, Magdalena and Balthsar are fanatics of the medical remedies of the time.
Through these letters we can see that religion played a major role in the lives of the couple. As we read in the introduction, they seem to have a "love-hate relationship with God, their Afflicter and Redeemer" (Ozment, 14). Throughout their letters we will discover the strong beliefs that this couple had in the "medicine" of their time and the God that they both feared and loved.
Magdalena is the one who was exposed most to this deterioration that was occurring in Nuremberg. Numerous times she remorsefully mentioned the news of a lost friend or relative in her letters to Balthasar. Once while Balthasar was in Altdorf Magdalena wrote, "I must report to you a death among our friends in every letter I write; I wish it were not so" (M.
Steven Ozment examines the marriage between a sixteenth century German merchant and his wife. The publication illustrates the adversities of a long distance marriage, the Black Plague that passed through Germany, the passing of little Balthasar, their only child, as well as the trade of business that assists the binding of the two and their union together. Magdalena and Balthasar write letters back and forth to one another in an attempt to keep each other sane. The disposition of their marriage held a robust love for one another. Their letters were exchanged during the time of Balthasar's business travels. The numerous amount of diverse emotions, misfortunes, and affection that Magdalena and Balthasar exuded within their relationship embodied who they were as a couple.
In 1348, religious authorities determined that the immodest behavior of certain groups led to outbreaks of ubiquitous plague. The tendency to regard indecency as the cause of plague is displayed in records of the day. Henry Knighton’s description of a guilty crowd attending the tournaments is a telling example. He laments that, “they spent and wasted their goods, and (according to the common report) abused their bodies in wantonness and scurrilous licentiousness. They neither feared God nor blushed at the criticism of the people, but took the marriage bond lightly and were deaf to the demands of modesty” (130). As one can gather from this passage, the 1348 religi...
First, both of the main speakers within each of the following Puritan literary works were ministers during the 1700s, which was around the time of the Puritans. These works were also written within third person point of view. Now, both of these ministers then express their concerns for their congregation
Drawn from her surviving love letters and court records, The Burgermeister's Daughter is an engaging examination of the politics of sexuality, gender and family in the 16th century, and a supreme testament to the grit and perseverance of a woman who challenged the inequalities of this distant age. The story, in Steven Ozment's meticulous and experienced hands, goes well beyond the litigious Anna to encompass much else about the 16th century, including the nature of sexual morality, the social individuality of men and women, the jockeying for power between the upwardly striving bourgeoisie and the downward sliding nobility, and the aftereffect of the reformation on private life. Steven Ozment's understanding of the Medieval German society and its effects on its citizens is amazing. Steven Ozment brings a medieval drama to life in this extensively researched and absorbing account of the 30-year lawsuit between Anna Buschler and her family. Anna's father was the Burgermeister (mayor) of the German town of Schwabisch Hall. He banished his daughter from the family home in 1525 after he read letters that proved her sexual connection with two men. Anna responded by suing her father. Anna Buschler looked predestined to a comfortable and serene life, not one of constant personal and legal conflict. Born into an eminent and respectable family, self-confident and high-spirited in her youth, and a woman of acknowledged beauty, she had a standing as the beauty of her hometown, and as something of a free soul. In an era when women were presumed to be disciplined and loyal, Anna proved to be neither. Defying 16th-century social mores, she was the constant subject of defamation because of her indecent dress and flirtatious behavior. When her we...
Theme of religion came out clearly in this story: “Philippa had what are known as High Church proclivities, and took the matter seriously” (Fox 1). People in this context honor God by fasting. One lady, Julia said that she could not eat an egg on a fasting day. Mr. Yeates said that his wife always had a gift for the church and that she highly honored the elders of the church. These are indications of a society that had religion at heart.
Aberth, John. From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.
Anna was the daughter of Hermann Buschler, a prominent citizen who had even been the burgermeister of the German town of Schwabisch Hall, within the Holy Roman Empire. When she was young, Anna had simultaneous affairs with a young local nobleman, Erasmus Schenk of Limpurg, and a cavalryman named Daniel Treutwein. Anna’s father was so upset when he discovered these affairs; he deprived her of mostly all her inheritance. Anna a scandalized woman, fought in the Hall legal system for decades, and she eventually won back some of her inheritance.
Julian of Norwich lived during a time of great fear dominated by economic and physical hardships, feudal era of control, fear of death from the bubonic plague, corruption within the church’s hierarchy and doubt and insincerity was rampant amongst believers. Living a simple existence she depende...
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Christians and Muslims were indeed vastly different in their reactions to the Black Death, backed up by many facts given throughout this paper. Hopefully the reader finds it fascinating that religion in this time period made all of the conclusions instead of fact based science which is used today, but nonetheless most importantly realizes that the Black Death failed in its attempt to take out the human
The Black Death plagues had disastrous consequences for Europe in the 14th century. After the initial outbreak in Europe, 1347, it continued for around five years and then mysteriously disappeared. However it broke out again in the 1360s and every few decades thereafter till around 1700. The European epidemic was an outbreak of the bubonic plague, which began in Asia and spread across trade routes. When it reached Europe, a path of destruction began to emerge. Medieval society was tossed into disarray, economies were fractured, the face of culture and religion changed forever. However the plagues devastation was not all chaotic, there were benefits too, such as modern labour movements, improvements in medicine and a new outlook on life. Therefore in order to analyse the impact the Black Death had on societies in the 14th century, this essay will consider the social, economic, cultural and religious factors in order to reach an overall conclusion.
Religion in the Middle Ages takes on a character all of its own as it is lived out differently in the lives of medieval men and women spanning from ordinary laity to vehement devotees. Though it is difficult to identify what the average faith consists of in the Middle Ages, the life told of a radical devotee in The Book of Margery Kempe provides insight to the highly intense version of medieval paths of approaching Christ. Another medieval religious text, The Cloud of Unknowing, provides a record of approaching the same Christ. I will explore the consistencies and inconsistencies of both ways to approach Christ and religious fulfillment during the Middle Ages combined with the motivations to do so on the basis of both texts.
Three years after Nelly had passed away, she still appeared to have business with the world of the living. The specter’s primary objective was to arrange the marriage of Georg...
Trudi Montag was growing up during the World Wars in Burgdorf, Germany. She lived with her father, Leo, and helped him run their pay library. When she was young her mother, Gertrude, went insane, and died at the asylum. Trudi could remember how her mother used to run away, and after her father carried her home, he would lock her up in the attic, to try to prevent her from escaping again. She always did escape, and Trudi usually found her outside, hiding under the stairs. Trudi would spend time with her mother in the attic, or under the stairs. In the attic, the two would play with the paper dolls Leo gave his wife, and Gertrude would teach Trudi how to escape from the attic. Under the stairs, Gertrude told Trudi of her affair with her husband’s friend, Emil, and how she fell off his motorcycle one day, and skinned her knee. Her knee healed, but the stones could be felt beneath her skin if she let someone try to feel for them. That very same day Leo got shot in the knee in the First World War, and had to come home, and would forever walk with a limp. Gertrude blamed herself for her husband’s injury, just as Trudi blamed herself for her mother’s death.
Picon, Gaëtan. "Notes on The Plague." Trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. L'Usage de la lechire. Paris: Mercure de France. 1960. 79-87.