Thanks for this treat - I wonder if we are still capable of creating stuff like this text. This however stood out as a harbinger of our current plethora of mental plagues:
"Soon the flagellants were marching behind magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold embroidered for them by women enthusiasts."
Witness "Gays for Palestine", women demanding and effecting mass-invasion of moslem men, and the rest of the madness of the 20th century's last decades. Is it not the same hysteria, only a mental plague instead of a bodily one?
The last passages about the art of the Plague Era brought to mind the works of Albertus Pictor (Albrekt Immenhusen), a German who moved to Sweden sometime in the 1400s and who garnered great fame as a painter of churches. His "Death Playing Chess" is well-known and was (as you know) a common theme in the aftermath of the Plague; it also served as inspiration for Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal', and the original painting had a banner, now faded with age, that read:
"Jak spelar tik matt" - "I put you in checkmate". It is also a pun, since "matt" in Swedish can mean exhausted, spent, faint or deathly tired.
Oh, that's just all too correct--and I'll reply by directing you to one of my favourite (sic) Danse macabre at a small church in rural Slovenia at Hrastovlje:
A veritable shitshow! Today’s masters are envious of such levels in population reductions. I am sure they would use the plague if they could, but have opted for a safer option - severe reductions in fertility through a variety of means, the most effective being the intramuscular injections of the time ticking bio-weapon.
And just think: all of us who are of European descent are the children of those who survived this plague. I am tracing my ancestry back to these times via Church records and this is when it gets difficult to find my people - it would have been absolute chaos. I will likely be thwarted by this time and just remain content to stop here.
And, unlike during 'covid,' people still attended Holy Mass.
If you can get your hands on it, the entire book is like that--awesome, that is, if you like the 14th century.
As to your family research, let me know if you'd like/need my help.
Finally, as to the quarantine issue, well, why wouldn't people attend mass? Personally, I consider church service perhaps a tad more protective than the Covid poison/death juices--for while I'm unsure if either affords protection in this life, the prospect of salvation is, well, as you know a somewhat more distinct probability…
Thanks for this treat - I wonder if we are still capable of creating stuff like this text. This however stood out as a harbinger of our current plethora of mental plagues:
"Soon the flagellants were marching behind magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold embroidered for them by women enthusiasts."
Witness "Gays for Palestine", women demanding and effecting mass-invasion of moslem men, and the rest of the madness of the 20th century's last decades. Is it not the same hysteria, only a mental plague instead of a bodily one?
The last passages about the art of the Plague Era brought to mind the works of Albertus Pictor (Albrekt Immenhusen), a German who moved to Sweden sometime in the 1400s and who garnered great fame as a painter of churches. His "Death Playing Chess" is well-known and was (as you know) a common theme in the aftermath of the Plague; it also served as inspiration for Bergman's 'The Seventh Seal', and the original painting had a banner, now faded with age, that read:
"Jak spelar tik matt" - "I put you in checkmate". It is also a pun, since "matt" in Swedish can mean exhausted, spent, faint or deathly tired.
Oh, that's just all too correct--and I'll reply by directing you to one of my favourite (sic) Danse macabre at a small church in rural Slovenia at Hrastovlje:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/danse-macabre-of-hrastovlje
I also liked Bergman's movies; it was a time when real films were made, much like Sergio Leone's western movies.
A veritable shitshow! Today’s masters are envious of such levels in population reductions. I am sure they would use the plague if they could, but have opted for a safer option - severe reductions in fertility through a variety of means, the most effective being the intramuscular injections of the time ticking bio-weapon.
Oh, well, the Black Death was a real plague (unlike the Covid shitshow).
As to the present, well, I suppose that's what we get for attempting to play God.
And just think: all of us who are of European descent are the children of those who survived this plague. I am tracing my ancestry back to these times via Church records and this is when it gets difficult to find my people - it would have been absolute chaos. I will likely be thwarted by this time and just remain content to stop here.
And, unlike during 'covid,' people still attended Holy Mass.
Thank you Stephan for this. I will read it again.
If you can get your hands on it, the entire book is like that--awesome, that is, if you like the 14th century.
As to your family research, let me know if you'd like/need my help.
Finally, as to the quarantine issue, well, why wouldn't people attend mass? Personally, I consider church service perhaps a tad more protective than the Covid poison/death juices--for while I'm unsure if either affords protection in this life, the prospect of salvation is, well, as you know a somewhat more distinct probability…