Seminar 1: Boccaccio The Decameron
Answer the following questions in detail using proper sentences:
#1 – 3 on the handout
Considering that there was so much ignorance about the Black Death, can we consider Boccaccio’s account to be credible? If so, to what extent? If not, then why not? Boccaccio’s account is credible though there are some parts that are not. He probably was accurate in talking about the different ways groups of people reacted and segregated themselves from the other populations. It is natural for people to pull away from society in order to protect themselves from getting germs and sick. “And almost without exception, they took a single and very inhuman precaution, namely to avoid or run away from the sick and their …show more content…
“...fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their own children, as though they did not belong to them.” (pg. 455)
Explain any positive elements about the Black Death that can be found in this account.
Finally, Boccaccio stated there were so many deaths the cemeteries ran out of space and they ended up burying people and covering them with soil. Ironically, they finally tried to contain the bacteria and came up with a solution when they should have done this much earlier. This may have been the start of eradicating the disease.
Boccaccio describes the change in funeral traditions. Why is there a change?
Normally, funerals would have officials, mourners and solemn prayers but changes had to occur. Now priests did not, “go to the trouble of pronouncing solemn and lengthy funeral rites, but with the aid of these so-called sextons, they hastily lowered the body into the nearest empty grave they could find.” (pg. 456)
There was a change in the long-established custom of each person having their own plot and burial because they ran out of space in the cemeteries and were forced to do mass burials …show more content…
Laughter occurred because because people of the city were so used to death all around them, it was a way of coping with what had happened and to try and raise whatever happy feelings they may have.
What happened when there was not enough ‘consecrated ground’ for customary burial?
The church or people couldn’t pray for individual burial sites so instead, huge trenches were excavated in the churchyards into which new arrivals were placed in their hundreds, stowed tier upon tier like ships cargo, each layer of corpse being covered over with a think layers of soil till the trenches was filled to the
Answer the following questions in detail using proper sentences:
#1 – 3 on the handout
Considering that there was so much ignorance about the Black Death, can we consider Boccaccio’s account to be credible? If so, to what extent? If not, then why not? Boccaccio’s account is credible though there are some parts that are not. He probably was accurate in talking about the different ways groups of people reacted and segregated themselves from the other populations. It is natural for people to pull away from society in order to protect themselves from getting germs and sick. “And almost without exception, they took a single and very inhuman precaution, namely to avoid or run away from the sick and their …show more content…
“...fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their own children, as though they did not belong to them.” (pg. 455)
Explain any positive elements about the Black Death that can be found in this account.
Finally, Boccaccio stated there were so many deaths the cemeteries ran out of space and they ended up burying people and covering them with soil. Ironically, they finally tried to contain the bacteria and came up with a solution when they should have done this much earlier. This may have been the start of eradicating the disease.
Boccaccio describes the change in funeral traditions. Why is there a change?
Normally, funerals would have officials, mourners and solemn prayers but changes had to occur. Now priests did not, “go to the trouble of pronouncing solemn and lengthy funeral rites, but with the aid of these so-called sextons, they hastily lowered the body into the nearest empty grave they could find.” (pg. 456)
There was a change in the long-established custom of each person having their own plot and burial because they ran out of space in the cemeteries and were forced to do mass burials …show more content…
Laughter occurred because because people of the city were so used to death all around them, it was a way of coping with what had happened and to try and raise whatever happy feelings they may have.
What happened when there was not enough ‘consecrated ground’ for customary burial?
The church or people couldn’t pray for individual burial sites so instead, huge trenches were excavated in the churchyards into which new arrivals were placed in their hundreds, stowed tier upon tier like ships cargo, each layer of corpse being covered over with a think layers of soil till the trenches was filled to the