Healing Options during the Plague: Survivor Stories from a Fourteenth-Century Canonization Inquest

Abstract

Witness testimonies in the 1363 canonization inquest for Countess Delphine de Puimchel help us explore differing reactions to the first two waves of plague in 1348 and 1361, the diverse social and healing networks available to the sick, and the importance of affect in the healing process. Every witness in the inquest had lived through both the 1348 and 1361 epidemics. Their testimonies show that sufferers actively sought out healing even when they feared that none existed, healing practitioners continued to care for the sick through both waves of epidemic, and emotion played an important role in sufferers’ healing. Their language allows us to look at the interaction between miracle and medicine, the interaction of healing practitioners, and the expectations of sufferers during severe epidemics in the later Middle Ages.

The “First Mortality” as a Time Marker in Fourteenth-Century Provence

“…These testimonies are a useful source for reaction to the two waves of plague. 12 Although there were no articles of interrogation about plague, witnesses used phrases that included the term mortality, which was how they referred to the waves of plague. While most of the witnesses in Delphine's inquest were educated, relatively wealthy, and well traveled, it still included many people whose voices would usually not be heard, especially women.…”

The relationship between measures of religiosity and the prevalence and outcome of COVID-19: a population-level pilot study

“…Historically, religious belief and practice have provided comfort, material and spiritual support, and a sense of hope in the face of epidemics of infectious disease (Schupbach, 1976;Archambeau, 2011).…”

Las vidas occitanas de santas tardomedievales: sacra infantia, formación e imitación

“…A este proceso escaparon las vidas de mujeres carismáticas del mismo siglo xiv, ya que tales fenómenos formaban parte intrínseca de la performatividad de este tipo de santidad (Sanmartín 2016: 194). Así lo vemos en los cuatro ejemplos que se exponen aquí: en vida se presentan como lideresas espirituales y figuras de autoridad, pero al mismo tiempo también como mujeres extáticas y sanadoras (Archambeau 2011).…”