Chapter 29, Avignon of Death
One month after the Black Death landed in Marseille, the death knight riding a gray horse finally visited Avignon, the holy city where the Pope was stationed.
The vector that brought the Black Death was still the rats on the Rhone River ferry—these deadly little things came with the boat from Marseille.
In fact, the fleas that spread Yersinia pestis are not particularly fond of people because humans don't have fur. Generally speaking, they prefer to stay on mice. If mice die, they will also give priority to sheep, cows, dogs, etc. Only when there is really no other way, they will pounce on humans. But even so, the Black Death still flooded Europe like a tide. This is because Yersinia pestis is far more dangerous to humans than to rodents.
But the only savior who could contain the plague, cats, had been wiped out by the possessed Europeans, and now they could only resign themselves to their fate.
And so, the flames of the Black Death burned brightly. It was like a wall of fire, advancing from south to north on the European continent, leaving corpses everywhere in its path.
Those places where the plague has not yet broken out have actually heard the bad news of the Black Death, but in addition to praying, people can only wait with bated breath
This is simply like the scene in "The Lord of the Rings": people watch the darkness on the horizon getting thicker and thicker, and the shadow of death getting closer, but they are helpless.
No matter how devout the Christians in Avignon were, the city, less than a hundred kilometers away from Marseille, fell quickly.
——In this era, Avignon had seven churches, seven monasteries, seven nunneries and a papal palace. There were the largest number of priests and monks in Europe, the most solemn religious celebrations, and they should be the most blessed by God... But they still fell quickly.
Just like before in Marseille, Sicily and Genoa, death began its routine work, leaving only a chilling record:
"...In the Camelot Abbey in Avignon, sixty-six monks died there before the citizens knew the news of the plague. The citizens thought it was very strange and thought these monks were hiding behind closed doors. , killing each other. Not a single person was left alive in the Augustinian monastery. There were also one hundred and fifty Franciscan monks who died. No one survived to tell what happened..."
Within a few days, the situation worsened: bodies piled up and rotted in the streets, and authorities were unable to do anything. In public places in the city, you can often see the dying clinging to healthy people with a completely understandable hatred and meaningless hope... In the midst of panic, the church urgently issued a message saying, This is God’s punishment for those who do not believe in God: “God sends disasters to arrogant people. The blind and ignorant people have to succumb to his feet. This has always been the case. You have to think about this carefully. ""If disaster befalls you today, it is because you think about the problem. The time has come. Good men should not fear it, but bad men should tremble."
Under the control of a huge sense of fear, the vast majority of people kneel down to God with great piety and sincerely reflect on their sins. However, the facts were not as the church said. The plague did not distinguish between good and bad people. Many clergy themselves were even killed by the plague.
However, although the church in Avignon can be called a model of stupidity, greed, extravagance and even depravity, and was widely criticized by European public opinion at the time, at the critical moment when death occupied Avignon, the grassroots clergy held the bottom line. They bravely shouldered their obligations, did not flinch, and insisted on comforting the sick and presiding over funerals at the cost of their lives... For the first time in many years, the priests of Avignon received praise from the world.
Then, because they came into contact with too many patients, these brave priests who were praised soon died together with the people who praised them.
Seeing that God did not seem to bless them, the citizens of Avignon were scared to death. Faced with such a tragic situation, they even thought that mankind was about to perish! Naturally, desperate people flocked to the Papal Palace to seek help from the Pope.
——According to the medieval European Catholic Church, the pope is the intermediary between God and the world. He can either beg God on behalf of mankind or forgive mankind on behalf of God. It can be seen from this that he must be the only person in the world who has the power to end this catastrophe.
As a result, Pope Clement VI, who was entrusted with "an unbearable weight in life" by his believers, had no choice but to bite the bullet and organize a grand religious procession, mobilizing thousands of priests and believers to hold up icons and crosses. , singing hymns and walking through the streets in an attempt to impress the cold God, but The result is self-defeating - during such an incurable plague, all group movements such as rallies and marches will only accelerate the spread of the Black Death, because it will increase the probability of contact between people, making One patient carrying the disease can infect hundreds or thousands of healthy people at once.
So, the religious procession in Avignon had just begun, and a large number of the people participating in the procession had already vomited blood and fell to death. The remaining people were so frightened that they lost their crosses and icons and fled in all directions... Pope Clement VI It was painful to realize that all he had done was to make those who trusted him die faster. He had no choice but to overturn his own edict and order that religious processions and gatherings be banned throughout Europe until the plague was over.
From this point of view, this pope can still be regarded as a good person. After knowing that he made a big mistake, he overturned the previous edict: at least, he did not sacrifice the lives of others for his own face - in history On the other hand, not all big people can do this.
However, regardless of whether the pope was a good or bad person, he could not find a way to combat the Black Death. From then on, there were no more parades in the holy city of Avignon, and even the merchants, pilgrims and messengers quickly disappeared, and the streets became silent - every day, patients suddenly fell and died on the street, or died in their own homes deserted. It wasn't until the body of the deceased emitted a rotting stench that the neighbors knew what was happening next door. The churches where the bells once tolled all day long soon became quiet, not because the plague subsided, but because there were no more living people to ring the bells.
In the long desperate situation with no hope in sight, people's mentality is constantly changing. When some people are still healthy, they first set an example and teach others to ignore those who are sick. Later, when they fall ill, they are abandoned by people and die like this.
Other residents of Avignon abandoned their homes, relatives and property and fled the city, as if they thought the plague was God's angry punishment in view of human beings' misdeeds. However, this punishment only fell on those who stayed. On the heads of people living in the city, as soon as you leave the city, you seem to have escaped this disaster. But in fact, in the Provence countryside outside Avignon, there are also desolate fields that are not cultivated, open wine cellars that are not cared about, ownerless cows wandering on the roads, and the local residents are nowhere to be seen. The road is littered with corpses and skeletons...
Before the collapse of the municipal government, more than 7,000 houses in Avignon had become haunted houses (the city has a total population of only 50,000 people). They were either empty or lying quietly with rotting corpses inside. corpse. The city's cemeteries soon became overcrowded with corpses and could no longer accommodate the burial of any more dead. The Pope purchased a piece of land with his own money to serve as a new cemetery. As a result, the place was soon filled with eleven thousand corpses again. What's even more frightening is that because there was no one to guard it (the gravekeepers were exposed to corpses every day, the probability of infection was too high, and all the first batch died soon), the cemetery quickly became a canteen for pigs and dogs. The ferocious dogs roamed the streets in groups, devouring all kinds of dead bodies, and even broke into houses, biting and devouring dying patients. But it was the pigs that stole the show. When it gets dark, no one calls. All the pigs that could move freely were gathered together. They grunted and grunted all the way to the cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Then he happily poked his nose there, chewing whatever came out. After a night of munching, the pigs were satisfied and left the cemetery burping, scattering back to every corner of Avignon, leaving behind large pits in the cemetery and corpses that had been chewed beyond recognition by the pigs. The next day, they will return here for a midnight snack.
——Not only the ferocious dogs are hurting people, but even the chubby pigs are starting to eat people! Such an appalling scene made everyone's worldview seem to be shattered. Many confused Christians began to ask themselves, are humans no longer the masters of this world?
But that's not the most terrifying thing. What's even more terrifying is that people die so fast that even pigs and dogs don't have time to eat them! By the end of March, all the cemeteries could no longer bury more bodies, and all the gravediggers were dead, as well as all the priests who were willing to conduct funerals...
Faced with this situation, His Majesty Pope Clement VI, who was almost in a state of confusion, had no choice but to turn to the river for help. He consecrated the Rhone River that flows through Avignon, making it the largest cemetery in the world at that time. Every morning, hundreds of corpses are thrown into the Rhone River. If you are lucky, they will drift down the river into the blue Mediterranean. There, these corpses will rest on the seabed and turn into sparkling white bones.
Day after day, corpses were thrown into muddy graveyards to be eaten by pigs. day to day. The corpse was thrown into the raging river and flowed to the sea... Even so, the devout people still believed in God as always and prayed to the Pope for salvation.
However, it is very unfortunate that in the face of the catastrophe of the Black Death, not to mention protecting believers, the Pope could not even save himself!
When the Papal Palace in Avignon began to smell of corpses, Pope Clement VI finally suffered a mental breakdown.
——Unlike those iron-fisted predecessors in history who launched the Crusades against the heretics and competed with the Holy Roman Emperor, Clement VI, who was single-handedly supported by the King of France, was not a strong pope. Although he was corrupt, liked luxury and enjoyment, was addicted to music, poetry and painting, and had many mistresses and illegitimate children, he was also kind-hearted, gentle and even a little cowardly. You can call him stupid, incompetent, and incompetent, but you can never call him cruel, but you can't expect this guy to have a stoic heart.
Therefore, after the plague also broke out in the palace, Pope Clement VI, who had a "little fresh" style in later generations, also ran away. He comforted himself by saying that he couldn't do anything anyway, so why should he stay in the city and die in vain? The fact that the Pope is alive is the greatest encouragement to all Christians. If you get black spots all over your body and die sadly, what a blow it will be to the cause of God!
If it were normal times, Pope Clement VI's actions would definitely lead to criticism from the other bishops, and then be attacked by various political opponents. But at this moment, they are already too busy to take care of themselves, and they are either dead or Escape first, and no one can impeach the pope for his cowardice and abandonment of his duties.
Therefore, with such lofty thoughts in mind, Pope Clement VI fled for his life. He left Avignon and took refuge in a castle on the outskirts. There, he closed the door and thanked guests, hoping to escape the great plague. Two blazing fires were lit in the castle hall. His Majesty the Pope sat between the two fires all day long, thinking that the heat might prevent the infection. In the original history, he lived for another four years, but he eventually contracted the plague in 1352, when the Black Death was entering its final stage. , died soon after, and I don’t know if God was punishing the pope for escaping from battle.
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——The pope fled, the bishops fled, and the organizational structure of the Holy See was wiped out by the plague. The Papal Palace, which used to be bustling with people and bustling with traffic, turned into a dead silence like a ruin, and the stench of corruption was everywhere. But even in such a city of death, there are still many ordinary heroes. Their selfless actions allow those who hold a pessimistic view of human nature to see the looming light.
When a large number of patients were abandoned by their relatives, the nuns in Avignon bravely opened their doors. Accepted poor people suffering from the Black Death. Not only did they die, they took care of the patients day and night. They paid the price with their lives: almost all the nuns died.
The person who recorded their deeds wrote: "...We must believe that they will ascend to heaven and rest beside Christ..."
When the Papal Palace was abandoned, Jolick, the Pope's most valued chief physician, stayed to help the wounded despite the danger to his life. The chief physician has a heavy back, a thick beard, and walks like a big stupid bear. When talking to others, his mouth is always filled with a strong smell of garlic, like a rough Viking. But once he picks up a surgical instrument, he becomes the most dexterous man in Europe.
Jolick's life experience is a medieval story of "a poor boy's transformation". He was born in a small village in France, and his parents were ordinary farmers. If nothing else, he should be a farmer, marry a wife, have children, and farm for the rest of his life. But Jolick had a rare medical talent. When he was very young, he learned to treat wounds and correct broken bones without any teacher, and he became famous in the local area. Once, a noble lady fell off her horse and broke her leg. The doctors who were invited were helpless. Its legs began to rot and suppurate, and it was almost impossible to save it. At this time, someone brought Qiao Liq over. The illiterate farm boy treated her wounds. After ten days, the woman was ready to go to church.
This treatment changed Qiaolik's fate. A nobleman was deeply moved after hearing about this incident. He promised to provide a sum of money to allow this rural child to receive the best medical education. From then on, Qiaolik left the countryside and headed towards the vast world outside.
Later, this peasant boy became the best doctor in Europe. He served as professor at the Universities of Montpellier and Paris. As fate once again favored him, he was invited by the Holy See to go to Avignon to serve as the chief physician to His Majesty the Pope.
It is often thought that the Church is firmly opposed to dissection, but this is not always the case. Pope Clement VI was a supporter of anatomy and even publicly encouraged Cholic to dissect corpses "in order to discover the origin of disease." So Jolick liked Avignon very much. He stayed here for more than 20 years and wrote a "Surgical Encyclopedia". For the next three hundred years, this book has been regarded as a holy book of medicine.
Therefore, in order to repay the Pope's trust and cultivation, Qiaolick chose to stay in the Papal Palace regardless of the risk of his life, and tried every means to treat diseases and save people. He did not know what the disease was, and he did not know whether he could help the patients. But he still wanted to do something.
Of course, Qiaolick also knows that the disease is highly contagious and protective measures must be taken. So he put on a black robe that covered his whole body, thick cloth gloves, and a black top hat on his head. Finally, he put on a strange mask in the shape of a beak. The beak was actually a filter to prevent the plague from being infected through the nostrils and mouth. A sponge was stuffed in the middle of the beak, and the sponge was filled with vinegar mixed with cinnamon powder. .
After dressing up in this way, Jolik looked like a weird big crow. This big crow kept shuttling back and forth in the dying city of Avignon, trying all kinds of incredible ways to cure the disease - bloodletting, smoking, taking mineral powder, applying spices and ointments... But in the end The treatment results were still all failures: the European medical level of this era was simply unable to effectively treat plague.
Then Jolick also fell ill. This crow-like protective suit obviously had no effect, and he found tumors growing on his armpits.
So, he calmly returned to the Papal Palace, picked up a pen, and prepared to use the last time of his life to record everything he saw.
——This is the last job he can do for the world as a doctor and observer.
"...the mortality rate in the entire country is unimaginably high. Travelers who have passed through this country say that in the fields, in the towns, and in the wasteland, there are unattended cattle and sheep everywhere. Barns and wine cellars The gates of the city were open, and many of the houses were empty...a town that turned out to have a population of 20,000 , now there are only 2,000 people left. The town that originally had 1,500 people, now has only 100 people left. What I saw, what I heard, I heard. It’s all recorded here. I’m afraid it will be difficult for future generations to believe what I said...”
"...These shocking facts are scary, but unfortunately, we can't see an inspiring hero or an earth-shattering feat at all, just like the common examples in old stories... I'm afraid there is no such thing in the world. There is nothing more dramatic than a plague, and the more terrible the plague, the longer it takes, the more it tends to be very simple. According to my personal experience, the terrible days of the plague are not like a raging fire, but like a slowly grinding millstone, crushing everything with its force - just like some people As seen in prison, waiting for death is always the most despairing thing, and not knowing when the sentence will be is even more unprepared..."
The handwriting on the parchment suddenly became messy, because a heartbreaking cough interrupted Qiaolik's writing.
"...cough cough cough - I feel so uncomfortable..." He raised his hands with difficulty and looked at the faint black spots on his arms, and suddenly felt dizzy and tired again. So, Qiaolik quickly turned around and took out a bottle, and poured a few sips of the wine soaked in herbs into his mouth - although in the face of the terrible Black Death, this thing could at best have a placebo effect. Then he turned around and struggled to pick up the pen again.
"... As a doctor, all my measures and experience have been declared invalid. Now, this disaster is no longer something that mortals can withstand. We can only keep ourselves calm and wait quietly for death to come, Or looking forward to the salvation of God and destiny..."
Qiao Lik's suicide note only ended here, not because his life had ended, but because he saw an incredible spectacle!
——As if it was some kind of hallucination, a group of angels wearing white robes and wings appeared quietly in the sky above the Papal Palace, throwing balls of soft white light to the earth. One of the holy rays even passed through the open window and projected onto the dazed Qiaolick.
The next moment, he felt waves of comfortable warmth wash over his body, and the dark spots, abscesses and tumors on his skin healed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye. So, as a typical medieval Christian, the Pope's chief physician Jolick immediately knelt down tremblingly, looking up at the angels in the sky with extremely eager eyes, and his eyes were filled with tears of joy. : "...O God! It's a real angel... Great Lord, have you really sent angels to save us humble mortals?"