In my History of Psychology class this spring, we explored parallels between emotional reactions to COVID-19 and the Plague…

For years, I’ve read from Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of stories, The Decameron, to illustrate how different personalities can react to a disaster in widely different ways, then as now. But this time, doing so evoked unintended resonances to today’s pandemic. While as yet smaller in scope–one third to one half of the population of Europe, North Africa, India and Chine were wiped out by the so-called Black Death–the parallels to the different ways folks are coping with COVID-19 and the Plague are worth exploring.

There has been little focus in histories of psychology on medieval explanations of people’s differing reactions to the plague. That said, scattered attempts at such analysis have been made.

A sociologist named James W. Thompson wrote a journal article in 1921 comparing the moral and social impact of the Black Death to the impact of the Great War, now known as World War I. The moral crisis and experience of death at such a massive scale and the moral crisis that seemed to have resulted led Thompson to identify parallels between them. He wrote of the two historical traumas:

“It is surprising to see how similar are the complaints then and now: economic chaos, social unrest, high prices, profiteering, deprivation of morals, lack of production, industrial indolence, frenetic gaiety, wild expenditure, luxury, debauchery, social and religious hysteria, greed, avarice, maladministration, decay of manners. (p. 565)

For Thompson, the “roaring twenties” had begun in the most fearsome way possible.

In critiques of contemporary histories of psychology, some scholars have bemoaned the relative neglect of interpreting the importance of historical events. As the Black Death has been noted by many historians as a major factor in a shift from medieval to renaissance society and their associated theories of human nature, it seems important to take a uniquely psychological look at the plague and its social, emotional and behavioral impact on individuals, both during and in the aftermath of the crisis.

Boccaccio’s Decameron

Boccaccio’s Decameron is a marvelous collection of medieval tales linked by a most unique premise. While the Plague ravishes the towns and villages of Italy, ten individuals have fled into the hills to try to wait out the devastation. In the meantime, they tell each other stories to pass the time. But Boccaccio sets up this scenario by first describing the terrible realities of the plague that caused these ten to flee in the first place. Boccaccio’s description is considered one of the better records we have of the personal impact of the plague on Italy.

Boccaccio noted several what we recognize now as psychological strategies people adopted in dealing with the deadly plague. There is almost something of the social psychologist in Boccaccio’s effort to describe different individual reactions to the social and emotional stress of a devastating plague.

Comparing reactions to COVID-19 and the Plague

In a description available throughout the internet, he noted four categories of response in all. To begin, he noted that:

“There were some people who thought that living moderately and avoiding any excess might help a great deal in resisting this disease, and so they gathered in small groups and lived entirely apart from everyone else. They shut themselves up in those houses where there were no sick people and where one could live well by eating the most delicate of foods and drinking the finest of wines (doing so always in moderation), allowing no one to speak about or listen to anything said about the sick and the dead outside.”

Social distancing anyone? But then as now the ability to social distance was an indication of privilege. These individuals were clearly people of means, even able to arrange musical entertainments for themselves.

But there was another group, more hedonisticly inclined:

“They believed … making light of everything that happened was the best medicine for such a disease; so they practiced to the fullest what they believed by going to one tavern to another all day and night, drinking to excess; and they would often make merry in private homes, doing everything that pleased or amused them the most. This they were able to do easily, for everyone felt he was doomed to die, and, as a result, abandoned his property, so that most of the houses had become common property, and any stranger who came upon them used them as if he were their rightful owner. In addition to this bestial behavior, they always managed to avoid the sick as best they could.”

While circumstances may not have reached some of the dire aspects of this description (and hopefully never will), the partying and making light of a pandemic are clearly recognizable in similar patterns of behavior today.

Boccaccio described a third group that took a middle path, not totally isolating themselves, but not carrying on excessively either:

“They did not shut themselves up, but went around carrying in their hands flowers, or sweet-smelling herbs, or various kinds of spices; and they would often put these things to their noses, believing that such smells were a wonderful means of purifying the brain, for all the air seemed infected with the stench of dead bodies, sickness and medicines.”

Many politicians today can be seen trying to paint an overly “rosy” picture of the pandemic, claiming that staying positive is the best approach.

A final group, Boccaccio detailed, simply fled the city of Florence entirely:

Boccaccio was clear that no one strategy spared all or consumed all. But as the plague took full hold, the conduct of the people as a whole fell to a marked degree. Those who had avoided the sick were themselves abandoned if they fell ill:

“Since they had given, when they were healthy, the bad example of avoiding the sick, they in turn were abandoned and left to languish away without any care. The fact was that one citizen avoided another, that almost no one cared for his neighbor, and that relatives rarely or hardly ever visited each other—they stayed far apart. This disaster had struck such fear into the hearts of men and women that brother abandoned brother, uncle abandoned nephew, sister left brother, and very often wife abandoned husband, and—even worse, almost unbelievable—fathers and mothers neglected to tend and care for their children as if they were not their own.”

May we never reach this horrific stage. It is interesting that it is our medical authorities that understandably require us not to be at the side of our dyin loved ones. It is also true that the horror of war and sustained conflict can still create this level of devastation and resulting trauma.

Funerals were poorly attended, if any one showed up at all, and services were brief. Boccaccio noted that even women “put aside, for the most part, their womanly compassion for their own safety.”

Then as now, the poor were the hardest hit of all:

“Most of them stayed in their homes or neighborhoods either because of their poverty or because of their hopes for remaining safe, and every day they fell sick by the thousands; and not having servants or attendants of any kind, they almost always died. Many ended their lives in the public streets, during the day or at night…”

After this harrowing account, Boccaccio finally shifted his narrative to the collection of characters who had fled and entertained each other with often bawdy tales.

Boccaccio did no further analysis. What is missing from his account is the impact that such an experience had on those that survived. It is thought that Boccaccio may have written The Decameron before the plague itself had fully played out.

An Arab perspective on the plague and character

Boccaccio was not alone on noting the deleterious effect of the plague on personal and moral behavior. Some observers expressed how this phenomena reversed what were essentially psychological assumptions on how crisis impacted interpersonal behavior.

A medieval Arab author from the same period took a more complicated stance, noting that he had observed how the challenge of the plague could also move men to more moral behaviors. Ibn al-Wardi was a 14^th century historian living in the Syrian city of Aleppo during the plague. He wrote an “An essay on the report of the pestilence” in 1348. Among his observations, al-Wardi wrote:

“Among the benefits … is the removal of one’s hopes and the improvement of his earthly works. It awakens men from their indifference for the provisioning of their final journey. One man begs another to take care of his children, one says good-bye to his neighbors. A third perfects his works, and another prepares his shroud. A fifth is reconciled with his enemies …another man puts aside his property (for charity); one frees his servants…”

In short, a positive impact of facing death might be that of improved perspective and a greater valuing of what is most important in life.

Nor were individuals trying to flee those who were infected, nor see themselves as somehow favored by God if they survived. Muhammad had taught that God chose those he took by illness, as such there was no point in trying to escape what God may or may not have fore-ordained. Al-Wardi addressed this notion directly, observing that those who died of plague were actually favored by God:

“This plague is for the Muslims a martyrdom and a reward, and for the disbelievers a punishment and a rebuke. When the Muslim endures misfortune, then patience is his worship. It has been established by our prophet that the plague-stricken are martyrs.”

It seems clear different cultural values and beliefs impacted this distinctly different assessment. Today some of our leaders include us to go out and heroically take risks so as to rescue our economy. That we might become martyrs for the cause is not mentioned, but implied. Ironically, al-Wardi would himself die of the plague in the city of Aleppo.

Medical advice on how to respond emotionally

Jacme d’Agramont was a Spanish physician and professor of Medicine who taught at the University of Lerida in the northeast corner of the country. In 1348 d’Agramont wrote a treatise entitled Regimen of Protection against Epidemics or Pestilence and Mortality, in which he advised civic leaders in the city on how to address the plague. It the first such work on record to address this aspect of the plague.

In his work, d’Agramont addressed both medical and religious interpretations — inexorably linked in any case at this time. But he also addressed emotional factors in terms of vulnerability to the disease process in decidedly psychological terms. In some of his comments, he echoes and also critiques strategies mentioned by Boccaccio.

In a section entitled “Influences on the Soul: Anger, Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anxiety,” d’Agramont wrote:

“I declare that in such times gaiety and joyousness are most profitable, unless joyousness is combined with a bad regimen either of food or of dissipation or other things. But among other influences that must be avoided in such times are especially those of fear an imagination. For from imagination alone, can come any malady. So one will find that some          people get into a consumptive state solely by imagination. This influence is of such great force that it will change the form and figure of the infant in the mother’s womb…” (Aberth, 54)

Suspecting some might doubt the power of imagination, d’Agramont proposed a perceptual experiment that will be omitted here. After supplying it, d’Agramont shifted to making practical recommendations:

“Thus, it is evidently very dangerous and perilous in times of pestilence to imagine death and to have fear. No one, therefore, should give up hope or despair, because such fear only does great damage and no good whatsoever. For this reason also it is to be recommended that in such times no chimes and bells should toll in case of death, because the sick are subject to evil imaginings when they hear the death bells. (Aberth, 54-55)

Thankfully, the practice of tolling bells is no longer so widespread. But it is hard not to draw parallels to the daily reminder we see in cable news outlets of the daily death toll or, conversely, its near total absence in others. It does seem a balance needs to be struck between staying informed and constant immersion into the details of the pandemic.

D’Agramont did not make suggestions as to how the populace was to avoid such negative emotions in the face of such massive illness. Presumably, an appeal to higher spiritual powers would be part of such a strategy.

Another physician, this one a Muslim scholar from Granada in Southern Spain, wrote a similar treatise. Abu Ja’far Ahmad ibn Khatima wrote “A Description and Remedy for Escaping the Plague in the Future” in 1349. Like D’Agramont, Khatima primarily addressed medical concerns but he also addressed emotional ones:

“It is most expedient to create joy, serenity, relaxation, and hope. One           should attempt to create them with permitted means as often as possible.    One should seek out agreeable, dear and charming company … Read (the Holy Book and) books on history, humor, and romances. Let me warn of disparaging others, especially when accompanied by sadness. The latter should be avoided, because it is one the main causes of the calamity. It strikes intellectuals the hardest, least of all idiots and indolents. Avoid all excitement, all anger and horror, in short, everything which causes emotion.” (Aberth, 59)

Immediate reactions to the aftermath of plague

It is also intriguing to note the behavioral response of those 14th century folk who managed to survive the horrors of the Bubonic Plague. Matteo Villani, whose brother had died in the plague, wrote these observations:

“Those few discreet folks who remained alive expected many things … They believed that those whom God’s grace had saved from death … would become better-conditioned, humble, virtuous, and Catholic; that they would guard themselves from iniquity and sins, and would be full of love and charity one towards another. (p. 7)

This psychological belief about the reaction of human nature to deliverance from pestilence, clearly held by Villani and others would soon be disproved. One wonders if al-Wardi’s earlier description of positive reactions were more hoped for than actual reactions.

Villaini continued, offering some minimal situational explanations, for why this optimistic scenario did not occur, but rather the contrary took place:

“For, since men were few, and since, by hereditary succession, they            abounded in earthly goods, they forgot the past as though it had never      been, and gave themselves up to a more shameful and disordered life   than they had led before. For, mouldering in ease, they dissolutely abandoned themselves to the sin of gluttony, with feasts and taverns and delight of delicate foods; and again to games of hazard and to unbridled lechery, inventing strange and unaccustomed fashions and indecent manners in their garment, and changing all their household stuff into new forms. (p. 7)

However, it seems clear that this behavior exceeded the Italian’s existing informal psychological insights to explain. These changes in behavior and apparent morals impacted both the upper and lower classes, according to Villani.

“The common folk, both men and women, by reason of the abundance and   superfluity that they found, would no longer labour at their accustomed     trades, but demanded the the dearest and most delicate foods for their          sustenance; and they married at their will, while children and common         women clad themselves in all the fair and costly garments of the ladies      dead by that horrible death.” (p. 7)

This then was part of the surviving elite’s initial challenge to account for the unfortunate reaction to the trauma these folks had just experienced. The notion of a post-traumatic stress reaction was not available. At best, refuge might be taken in Greek notions of hedonism in the face of the reality (terribly heightened) that “tomorrow we might die.”

Those of us who hope, optimistically, that once we get to the other side of this pandemic that we will come to a better cultural place can take this as a cautionary tale. We all hope the death and human suffering caused by COVID-19 will not be as great as the Bubonic Plague. But that it is creating human trauma even now is beyond question. May our better angels guide us through our responses in the coming months.

If interested in reading more on Arab philosophers of the period reacting to the plague, check out an article about Ibn Khaldun, who some regard as the father of social psychology. His concept of periods of history was profoundly impacted by his surviving the devastation of the Plague and the societal changes in its wake.

Mark Carlson-Ghost

Comparing COVID-19 and the Plague

References

Aberth, John. Ed. (2005). The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Currently in public domain and available in various editions and online sources.

Ibn al-Wardi (1974). “An essay on the report of the pestilence. In Near Eastern Numimastics, Iconography, Epigraphy, and History, D. Kouymiian, Ed., translated by Michael Doles. Beirut, Lebanon: American University of Beirut.

Thompson, James W. (1921). “The aftermath of the Black Death and the aftermath of the Great War.” American Journal of Sociology, 62, 565-572.