History · Ch 4 — The Three Orders
The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century
The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century
The fourteenth century shattered the stability the three orders had built. A series of devastating famines, beginning with the Great Famine of 1315–1317, struck first, followed by the Black Death that swept across Europe from 1347, killing a third or more of the population. …
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75), an Italian author who lived through the Black Death, describes its effect on a city:
'How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, (had) breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world! The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth.'
— Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75), Italian author …