FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Following the great outburst of human achievement which came in the 13th century, the 14th might be ex pected to present a still higher step in culture in accordance with the law of progress that is often presumed to rule in human affairs. On the contrary, as is so often noted, this great artistic period was followed by a time when art became more conscious, and elements of degeneracy are readily noted. The century witnessed a culmination of its art and philos ophy in Dante, who was 35 years of age when it opened. His great poem belongs to the cen tury however, so that the period possesses the greatest poem, if not the greatest poet of all times. The mid-century was subjected to the severe trial of the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague, which ravaged most of Europe, carry ing off more than half the population, sparing neither sex nor age, and perhaps as rule carrying off more of the vigorous individuals than of the weaklings for they were more ex posed, and resistive vitality was seldom suf ficient to protect any one however vigorous once infection took place.
Medical factors have seldom been given due weight by historians, but the Black Death above all has not been estimated at its true value as a determiner of historical tendencies for a cen tury afterward. To appreciate this, some of the figures of the losses are needed. Florence lost 60,000; Siena, 70,000; Venice, 100,000; Avignon, 60,000; Paris, 50,000; the compara tively small town of Saint Denis, 14,000; while there were smaller towns in France in which but 2 out of 20 of the inhabitants sur vived, and in Sardinia and Corsica only one third of the population was left. England is said by some to have suffered even more severely than this, one almost contemporary au thority saying that there was scarcely 1 in 10 of the population left. Hecker Black Death,' New Sydenham Society) declares this an exaggeration, yet it serves to show some thing of the awful ravages that must have been inflicted. He calculates the deaths throughout Europe from the disease at 25,000, OCO. Historians generally have represented
that a great wave of irreligion followed close on the heels of the disease, but Hecker em phasizes exactly the opposite,— a great wave of religious enthusiasm, and above all of peniten tial exercises. The plague recurred at irregular intervals, and when there came to be a feeling of security there was a reaction toward license, but mainly on the part of the cowards who had fled from various posts of duty and thus saved themselves. It is easy to understand what a revolution in the social order was effected by these immense losses. A great many institu tions were seriously paralyzed in efficiency. As pointed out by Gasquet, the clergy suffered Particularly. Their duties of affording re ligious consolation to the sick, which were bravely fulfilled as a rule, exposed them to fection. Large numbers of the religious orders perished because of this, and because the duty of nursing the sick so often incumbent on them was peculiarly dangerous and community life led to the spread of the infection. There were religious communities entirely wiped out or only a few left. A great many of the hierarchy fell victims through their zeal for their flocks and unworthy men, schemers for place, obtained high ecclesiastical positions which they would not have received in the more exemplary times before the Plague. Gasquet has traced a lively picture of conditions that developed in England which may be applied to other countries. The result was a sad de, generation in Church efficiency that gave good grounds for the bitter criticisms of ecclesiastics which are found in the literature at the end of this century and the beginning of the next. A degeneration took place in every serious phase of life,. the progress of art was sadly interfered with, education interrupted for a generation and required several more to catch up with its previous state, while cam, merce and industry of all kinds suffered in like manner.