"Black death" Quotes from Famous Books
... and the "Black Death," a fearful pestilence, desolated a land already decimated by protracted wars. The valiant old King, after a life of brilliant triumphs, carried a sad and broken heart to the grave, and Richard II., son of the heroic Prince ... — The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Prisoners were released. Exiles were allowed to return. Men and women accomplished works of pity and holiness, as if they feared the all-powerful God would consume them with fire from heaven."[443] This movement was altogether popular. It broke out again in 1349, in connection with the Black Death. Flagellation for thirty-three and a half days was held to purge from all sin. This was heresy and the flagellants were persecuted. The theory was a purely popular application by the masses of the church doctrine of penance, outside of the church system. It reappeared from time ... — Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... heaviest in the scale of Jove. To-morrow's light (O haste the glorious morn!) Shall see his bloody spoils in triumph borne, With this keen javelin shall his breast be gored, And prostrate heroes bleed around their lord. Certain as this, oh! might my days endure, From age inglorious, and black death secure; So might my life and glory know no bound, Like Pallas worshipped, like the sun renowned! As the next dawn, the last they shall enjoy, Shall crush the Greeks, and end the woes ... — MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... not the Black Death or the boil-pest, but the English "sweating-sickness." This hitherto unknown disease had first broken out in the same year when the wars of the Roses ended on the field of Bosworth; but it was entirely confined to England, passing neither to Scotland nor Ireland. ... — Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... been troubles," Malone said. "In the Eighth Century, it was Saracens; in the Fourteenth, the Black Death. Then there was the Reformation, and the Prussians in 1870, and the ... — Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... survey of the results of the Black Death, Matteo notices not only the diminution of the population, but the alteration in public morality, the displacement of property, the increase in prices, the diminution of labor, and the multiplication of lawsuits, which were the consequences direct or indirect of ... — Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... (1425) by Vitovt, grand-duke of Lithuania; the immediate political consequence of which was the weakening of the hold of Muscovy on the south-western Russian states. During Basil's reign a terrible visitation of the "Black Death" decimated the population. ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... would appear that at least three men were concerned at different times in the work. The share of the first of these, Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, being but a slight one, may be briefly dismissed. In 1348-49 a terrible visitation of the black death devastated the country. The bishop, being concerned that many were being interred in unconsecrated ground, purchased three acres of land in West Smithfield outside the city boundaries, known as "no man's land," and consecrated it for purposes of burial, and ... — Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... room. The severe epidemics which have occurred from pneumonia have occurred in camps where sanitary conditions are grossly violated. Under such conditions pneumonia has become a most alarming epidemic, sometimes called the black death. In a single house, however, disinfection of the wastes of the patient and a proper care of the personal hygiene of the rest of the family will avoid the spread of the disease, and if the patient has sufficient vitality, sustained by good food and fresh air, ... — Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her ears, as down, down, she went—in imagination—to a black death among the spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an impetus, cast a last look upon the stony officer, with a wild shriek sprang to the awful verge and came near losing her balance. Recovering herself with an effort, she turned ... — The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... city, seaport by seaport, sweeping down multitudes before it; nor had science yet discovered how to encounter or forestall it. We heard of it in a helpless sort of way, as if it had been the plague or the Black Death, and thought ... — Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... jealous of their alliances and their breeding—the natural and actual leaders in thought and action. England suffered badly enough as the result of war, with the persecutions of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth, and the Black Death, included for full measure. France suffered also, but Germany fared worst of all. By the end of the Thirty Years' War the older feudal nobility had largely disappeared, while the class of "gentlemen" had been almost exterminated. In France, until the fall of Napoleon III, and ... — Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... sing no more, For fear lays hand upon the throat. (Beneath the stars the airmen float.) Hush, hush, my babe, lest fiends that fly Shall come to still your hunger cry. Let grief not speak its tale aloud! (Black death is racing with a cloud.) Through heav'n's eternal window panes, Far, far above the swift air lanes, God's starlight shines forever more. (How restless glide the ships ... — Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... page, Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme. He scarcely paused to tell his beads, Except at night; and then he lay And tossed, unrestful, on the straw, Impatient for the coming day,— Working like one who feels, perchance, That, ere the longed-for goal be won, Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast, Black Death may pluck him from the sun. At intervals the busy brook, Turning the mill-wheel, caught his ear; And through the grating of the cell He saw the honeysuckles peer; And knew't was summer, that the sheep In golden pastures lay ... — Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... closing takes place once more. Perhaps the feature of this old system that bears most directly on the question of allotments was the treatment of the waste of the manor. The lord, like his tenants, was limited by custom as regards the number of beasts he could graze on it. After the havoc of the Black Death in 1349, many changes were necessitated by the scarcity and dearness of labour. It became less unusual for land to be let and for money payment to be accepted instead of services. There was a great demand for wool, ... — Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... modern movement of organized sanitation began. In the thirteenth century the great Italian cities (like Florence and Pistoja) possessed Codici Sanitarii; but they were not carried out, and when the Black Death reached Florence in 1348, it found the city altogether unprepared. It was Venice which, in the same year, first initiated vigorous State sanitation. Disinfection was first ordained by Gian Visconti, in Milan, in 1399. The first quarantine station ... — The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... stopped with my heart in my mouth at the narrowness of my own escape from the rushing black death. Pursuit was impossible. My car was capable of no such burst of speed as his. And then, too, there was a groaning man down in the ravine below. I got out, clambered over the fence, and down in the shrubbery into the ... — Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... Trojans, or of their renowned allies, Could point him out to Menelaus, loved Of Mars; and had they known his lurking-place They would not for his sake have kept him hid, For like black death they hated him. ... — The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... of these calamities, the fearful pestilence swept over France, called the "Black Death." It came from Egypt, possibly from farther east. In Florence three-fifths of the inhabitants perished by it. From Italy it passed over to Provence, and thence moved northward to Paris, spreading destruction in its path. It reached England, and there it is thought by some that ... — Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... cities, those of our own days mostly being but a continuation of what had grown at that time. The prosperity of the Flemish cities was based upon the fine woollen cloth they fabricated. Florence, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, before the black death, fabricated from 70,000 to 100,000 panni of woollen stuffs, which were valued at 1,200,000 golden florins.(36) The chiselling of precious metals, the art of casting, the fine forging of iron, were creations of the mediaeval "mysteries" which had succeeded in attaining ... — Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... accursed of God, and take thy place With hateful memories of the elder time, With many a wasting plague, and nameless crime, And bloody war that thinned the human race; With the Black Death, whose way Through wailing cities lay, Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught To avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guilt— Death at the stake to those that held them not. Lo! the foul phantoms, silent in the gloom Of the flown ... — Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... year 1348, Venice was visited by an earthquake, and this was followed by the plague (the Black Death). In order to complete the roll of the republic's misfortunes in this gloomy year, it may be added that she also lost almost the whole of her Black Sea fleet to ... — Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the City bounds, as they passed under New Gate, and by and by skirting the fields of the great Carthusian monastery, or Charter House, with the burial-ground given by Sir Walter Manny at the time of the Black Death. Beyond came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way carefully, over stepping-stones—this being no other than what is now the Regent's Park, not yet in any degree drained by the New River, but all quaking ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants, ... — The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... simultaneously, through the dread night-watches, their Night-thoughts,—grown audible to us! They Three are become audible: but the other 'Thousand and Eighty-nine, of whom Two Hundred and Two were Priests,' who also had Night-thoughts, remain inaudible; choked for ever in black Death. Heard only of President Chepy and ... — The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... that the break-up of the ninth century saw the Fens partly drowned, and that after the Black Death something of the same sort happened again, for it is in the latter fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that you begin to hear of a necessity for reclaiming them. John of Gaunt had a scheme, and Morton dug a ditch which is still called "Morton's Leam." I say, every defeat of our civilisation was ... — Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... soon as it is fairly healed I ought to join Prince Rupert again; but in truth I do not wish to go, for I would fain see this terrible Plague come to an end before I leave; for never since the days of the Black Death, hundreds of years ago, was there so strange and terrible a malady in ... — When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... villein became a hired labourer is obscure and an attempt was made to check it by the Statute of Labourers at the time of the Black Death. This was followed by the peasant's revolt of 1382, which corresponded to the far worse horrors of the French Jacquerie. Sharply though this was suppressed, the real object of the rising seemed to have been accomplished. Of the period of the Wars ... — The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... interference with profits, whether by disease, death, impassable streets, or disabled men. The age of chivalry was also the age of indescribable filth, plague, Black Death, and spotted fever that cost the lives of millions. It would be impossible in the civilized world to duplicate the combination of luxury and filthy, disease-breeding conditions in the midst of which Queen Bess and her courtiers held their revels. The ... — Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... VI. Affiliated societies sprang up in several Tuscan cities; and in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, at that time General of the Order, held a chapter of its several houses. The next year was the year of the great plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his brethren leave their seclusion, and go forth on works of mercy among the sick. Some went to Florence, some to Siena, others to the smaller hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were bidden to assemble on the Feast of the Assumption at Siena. Here the founder ... — New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... plague, known as the "Black Death," was the most deadly epidemic ever known. It is believed to have been an aggravated outburst of the Oriental plague, which from the earliest records of history has periodically appeared in Asia and Northern Africa. There had been a visitation of the plague in Europe in ... — Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Both Chaucer and Dryden had experienced great plagues in London, the Black Death in the fourteenth century and the ... — Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... Jews, living, as the deemed, in absolute security and peace, were caught up in the wave of persecution that swept over Europe at that time. Accused of poisoning the wells and causing the pestilence, or black death, as it was called, they were condemned ... — The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... of face and carriage, Deigning scarce a quicker breath, Comes she to the funeral marriage, The betrothal of black death. ... — Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... gloom. Quickly, however, seeing that he was in error, Arvina turned upon his traces, and was almost immediately successful; for there, scarce twenty feet from the spot where he had found the dagger, with his grim gory face turned upward as if reproachfully to the dark quiet skies, the black death-sweat still beaded on his frowning brow, and a sardonic grin distorting his pale lips, lay the dead slave. Flat on his back, with his arms stretched out right and left, his legs extended close together ... — The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... in the 14th century, after the great plague, the Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of the landed and personal property of every European country was in the hands of the Church. Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences are the harvests of ... — The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... believed, to enormous accumulations of ice on the coast, which prevented intercommunication between them and Iceland, and cut off their chief food supplies. They may also have been decimated through the great pestilence called the Black Death, which prevailed in 1349, especially in the northern countries; while, if any remained, they are supposed to have been killed by the Esquimos, or Skraelings, as they were then called, and who were a far more powerful race ... — Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... said Dickson, "your son hath had a touch of that illness which terminates so frequently in the black death you English folk die of? We hear much of the havoc it has made to ... — Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... visitations of disease that have afflicted Europe within historic times has wholly spared England. But from the time of the "Black Death" (1349) the country experienced no such suffering from any epidemic as that which fell upon London in 1665. That year the "Great Plague" is said to have destroyed the lives of nearly one hundred thousand people in England's ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... English victories in the wars of Edward III. against the French. It was the bows of the English yeomanry that won the fight at Crecy, fully as much as the prowess of the Norman baronage. But at home the times were bad. Heavy taxes and the repeated visitations of the pestilence, or Black Death, pressed upon the poor and wasted the land. The Church was corrupt; the mendicant orders had grown enormously wealthy, and the country was eaten up by a swarm of begging friars, pardoners, and apparitors. The social discontent ... — Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... changed in these parts since the days when the priors and monks raised these churches, and since the countryside was thickly populated. Silk and wool were staple industries here then. Many and various causes have brought about the change. First they say that the Black Death raged more violently here than in any other part of England, and second—— Excuse me!" Major Heathcote broke off suddenly as the butler handed him a telegram. "How did this ... — East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... roared Black, forgetting himself, but instantly ringing the bell, and the nameless ship moved backwards, faster and yet faster. But the black death-bearer followed her, as a shark follows a death-ship; we seemed even to have backed into its course—it came on as though to strike us ... — The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... but to show my people how great a craftsman I was. They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St. Barnabas's? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and ruinous she should remain; and I could hang myself in my new scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low—the Hayes, the Fowles, the Fanners, the Collinses—they were all in a tale against me. ... — Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... his brother Hasan, who was still a minor; the emirs who ruled in his name competed for the highest posts until Baibagharus and his brother Menjik carried off the victory. These two ruled supreme for a time. The so-called "black death" was ravaging Egypt; many families were decimated, and their riches fell to the state. The disease, which differed from the ordinary pest in the blood-spitting and internal heat, raged in Europe and Asia, and spread the greatest consternation even amongst the Moslems, ... — History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... next, men sicken and fall like blasted wheat. I heard a bruit of London that it was but a heap of graves—nay, one grave rather, for they flung the bodies into a great trench; there was no time to do otherwise: Black Death is swift with ... — The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... to the occasion, and the spirit of old Ranter proving true, he broke into the long even gallop that makes the miles pass swiftly. It was a race against time, against James Rodolph and his crew. I knew if once they gained the Braes, black death would stalk among the ruins, for Charles Gordon would ... — The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... native diocese of Mende; thence he removed to Lyons, where we know that he lived for several years, for in 1344 he took part as a canon in a chapter that met in the Church of St. Just in that city. Just when he was called to Avignon we do not know, though when the black death ravaged that city in 1348 he was the body-physician of Pope Clement VI, for he is spoken of in a Papal document as "venerabilis et circumspectus vir, dominus Guido de Cauliaco, canonicus et praepositus ecclesiae Sancti Justi ... — Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... year of woe and dread, 1348, the Black Death fell upon England. Never before had so frightful a calamity been known; never since has it been equalled. Men died by millions. All Europe had been swept by the plague, as by a besom of destruction, and ... — Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... became even heavier than before. The town through its length and breadth was shattered and dilapidated; whole families were homeless and packed like rabbits in hutches; the slaughtered dead, men and beasts, could not be buried quick enough; black death stalked abroad in the guise of what was called hospital typhus—an epidemic fever of some kind. After the French flight, I take it, provisional chief-policeman Wagner had returned to his deputy-registrarship; ... — Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... These, then, were the voices of Italy and Austria speaking the devilish tongue of the final alternative. Cannon, rockets, musketry, and now the run of drums, now the ring of bugles, now the tramp of horses, and the field was like a landslip. A joyful bright black death-wine seemed to pour from the bugles all about. The women strained their senses to hear and see; they could realize nothing of a reality so absolute; their feelings were shattered, and crowded over them in patches;—horror, glory, panic, hope, shifted lights within their ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... over many years. The builders began by setting out their aisles as usual, and by the middle of the fourteenth century the south aisle was finished, and the lower courses of the north aisle and the new aisled chancel were built. However, in 1349, the Black Death interrupted the work. The north aisle and chancel were not completed, and the new arcades of nave and chancel were not built until the fifteenth century. In this case there were certainly older, and almost certainly narrower aisles. The rebuilding ... — The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... Leasing or Farming, we are taught, Was introduced 'bout twelve-nought-nought; The Feudal system's weakened and The Tenants 'usufruct' the land. On various counts the serfs go free And work for wages (Edward Three). The Black Death and the foreign wars In labour ranks commotion cause; Strikes and craftsmen's combination Then arise among the nation; These movements preached by one John Ball, Who, born too soon, ... — A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... and rocks of Marblehead. Ah, child, with trembling hand I set my candle at the pane, With fainting heart and choking breath, I heard the dolorous rain— The sea that beat the groaning beach with wild and thunderous shocks, The black death calling, calling from the savage equinox; The flap of sails, the crash of masts, or so it seemed to me, And cries of strong men drowning in the clutches of ... — Standard Selections • Various
... sphacelus[obs3], sphacelation[obs3], leprosy; eruption, rash, breaking out. fever, temperature, calenture[obs3]; inflammation. ague, angina pectoris[Lat], appendicitis; Asiatic cholera[obs3], spasmodic cholera; biliary calculus, kidney stone, black death, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague; blennorrhagia[obs3], blennorrhoea[obs3]; blood poisoning, bloodstroke[obs3], bloody flux, brash; breakbone fever[obs3], dengue fever, malarial fever, Q-fever; heart attack, cardiac arrest, cardiomyopathy[Med]; ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... navigator who came in search of them in 1828, believes that they were carried off bodily by the English after the ravages of the "black death" in England, to repair the waste of human life, citing a treaty of 1433 in which England was charged with abducting Danish subjects for that end. Another theory is that the Frisian king Zichmni carried them off captive. Pope Nicholas asserts this outrage as a fact in a bull in 1448. But Zichmni ... — Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... mothers, millions of humble workers, happy in the richness of life—where were they now? Life, innocent human life—the most precious thing we know or dream of, freedom to work for a living and win our own joys of home and love and food—what Black Death had maddened the world with its damnable seeds of hate? Would life ever be ... — Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... long-shadowed spear, and smote the shield of the son of Priam, equal on all sides; and through the glittering shield went the impetuous spear, and was stuck firmly into the deftly-wrought corslet: and the spear pierced right through his soft tunic beside the flank: but he bent sideways, and evaded black death. Next the son of Atreus having drawn his silver-studded sword, raising it, struck the cone[161] of his helmet, but it fell from his hand shivered round about into three or four pieces. And the son of Atreus groaned aloud, looking towards the ... — The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... which he regards as inspired by the financial necessities of deep mining, Bechtel dates this development from the mid-14th century.[4] The mid-14th century situation is confused by the occurrence of the Black Death, which reduced mining activity drastically, and the events of which Bechtel speaks have been put as much as a century later.[5] In any case, the development of deep-mining methods had clearly made considerable progress in nonferrous mines when the De re metallica ... — Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf
... entirely unknown name, have written in the tongue of the people; English has been sanctioned for use in the courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells us, has, since the 'furste moreyn' or Great Pestilence of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has taught nineteenth-century historians to call the 'Black Death'), been introduced into the grammar schools in the translation of Latin exercises, which boys formerly rendered into French. And under these new conditions lexicographical activity at once bursts forth with vigour. ... — The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... feudal order had been widely upset by the Black Death in 1349, and the further ravages of pestilence in 1361 and 1369. The heavy mortality left many country districts bereft of labour, and landowners were compelled to offer higher wages if agriculture was to go on. In vain Parliament passed Statutes of Labourers to prevent the peasant from ... — The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... As the fierce whirl of some dread maelstrom's power! Above the cavern's arch! see! Ninip[10] stands! He points within the cave with beckoning hands! Ur-Hea cries: "My lord! the tablets[11] say, That we should not attempt that furious way! Those waters of black death will smite us down! Within that cavern's depths we will but drown." "We cannot go but once, my friend, that road," The hero said, "'Tis only ghosts' abode!" "We go, then, Izdubar, its depths will sound, But we within that gloom will whirl around, ... — Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... assume the title of Grand Duke of all the Russias; and, acting in that capacity, he graciously confirmed the charter of Novgorod, for which he demanded and obtained payment. Simeon died in 1353 of the "black death," a pestilence which was imported ... — The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... fever, black death, and smallpox no longer cause people to flee into the wilderness to escape them when they occasionally break out in a town or city. We have learned how to prevent these ailments among people who will ... — Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... in kind, namely, walrus teeth, was sold in 1386 by the Pope's agent to a merchant in Flanders for twelve livres, fourteen sous. They kept up communication with their kin across the seas until the Black Death swept through the Old World in the Fourteenth Century; Norway, when it was gone, was like a vast tomb. Two-thirds of its people lay dead. Those who were left had enough to do at home; and Greenland ... — Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... demand; he produces argument after argument, appeal after appeal. All are unavailing. Why should the Soul be respected where nothing else is spared? Forced into surrender, the Mind at last yields up his best-beloved. Life is no more worth living now; black death and despair confront him; he cares no longer to be ruler over a miserable kingdom bereft of its fairest treasure, its only hope. For of what value to man is the Mind without the Soul? Poor and puny now indeed the crown, ... — Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... fairest maiden, Bride of mine to be forever." Louhi, hostess of Pohyola, Made this answer to the suitor: "I will only give my daughter, Give to thee my fairest virgin, Bride of thine to be forever, When for me the swan thou killest In the river of Tuoni, Swimming in the black death-river, In the sacred stream and whirlpool; Thou canst try one cross-bow only, But one arrow from thy quiver." Then the reckless Lemminkainen, Handsome hero, Kaukomieli, Braved the third test of the hero, Started out to ... — The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... and sweet lady, though you be younger than I, you have surely heard of the Black Death. Well named was it, for never was pestilence more dire; and the venom was so strong, that the very lips and eyelids grew livid black, and then there was no hope. Little thought of such disease was there, I trow, in kings' houses, and all the fair young lords and ladies, the children of King ... — The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... means addicted to the drinking of water. Considering the sanitary conditions in which they lived in those days, and the fearful contamination of water which frequently prevailed, and which doubtless had much to do with the spread of the Black Death and other like visitations, this was no doubt an advantage. Still there were drawbacks to the habit of constant quaffing of fermented drinks at all hours of the day, and it was often a difficult matter to keep in check the sin of drunkenness ... — The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... human abnormality, because it is not yet above the juvenile age of its growth, which is the age of feebleness and folly, disease and crime. The imperfect organism of childhood is incapable of resisting either temptation or disease. The twenty-five millions destroyed by the black death, in the fourteenth century, and the countless millions destroyed by war in all centuries, including the present, show how little we have advanced beyond the spirit of savage life. The ferocity of nations is as much the product of their cerebral organization, as the ferocity of the tiger, and springs ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... line at Crecy in 1346, and the archers of Crecy were not exactly the sort of men who take kindly to eviction, to say nothing of slavery. As no one meddled much with the villeins before 1349, all went well until after Crecy, but in 1348 the Black Death ravaged England, and so many laborers died that the cost of farming property by hired hands exceeded the value of the rent which the villeins paid. Then the landlords, under the usual reactionary and dangerous legal advice, tried coercion. ... — The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams |