Bio-warfare In Middle-earth

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Oh, dear. Yes, that's the cliched version available from a pop-culture vendor near you. Actually, the degree of serfdom, war, plague, famine and instability was no worse and at times rather better than in the tumultuous 16th century, an age of chaos and incessant wars punctuated by pestilence, tyranny and starvation. Compared to the filth and squalor of Elizabethan London, Edward I's London was a clean (if smaller) place with functioning sewers and well-frequented public baths.

I will have to simply disagree with your assessment and forgo any flippant remarks, however necessary I would consider them; in fact, regarding the 14th century, I would say you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. The French historian Michelet commented, "No epoch was more naturally mad." Every credible historian I've ever read has described the century as an unmitigated disaster economically, physically and spiritually -- one of the worst centuries Europe has ever struggled through until the mass slaughters of WWI and WWII in the 20th century.

A Little Ice Age descended upon Europe in the 14th century (that was to last until circa 1700), driving out settlements in Greenland, Iceland and Northern Scandinavia, and reducing growing seasons throughout Europe. By 1315, rains had become so torrential that crops failures were the norm and famines commenced. Oh yes, and the Black Death, the single greatest pandemic, wiped out a quarter to a third of the population, with intermittent bouts of the plague recurring throughout the remaining decades of the century. In towns of the Holy Roman Empire, France and Spain the great Jewish pogroms commenced: 900 burned alive in Strasbourg, and in Cologne over 1000 butchered (many burned to death in a synagogue) as the most appalling examples.

The peasant uprisings and the brutal reprisals that followed in France (the Pastoureaux and the Jacquerie), in Italy (the Ciompi), in Flanders (several Weavers Revolts) and in England (Wat Tyler's Rebellion), were all part and parcel of the desperation of the underclass, criminally overtaxed and underpaid with wages legally kept at pre-Plague levels in England (I refer you to The Ordinance of Laborers in 1349 and Statute of Laborers 1351). The Hundred Years War commenced before the Black Death and outlasted the century, and in its train mercenary armies destroyed France and overran Italy. Assassinations, poisonings, ransoms and murder were career moves for criminal entrepreneurs.

The abandonment of Rome for Avignon and the resultant Papal Schism rent the fabric of Christianity and led to the eventual Reformation with profligate sales of indulgences and selling of benefices outraging reformers and Papal taxation angering the Lords. Even a future pope, Robert of Geneva (nicknamed 'the Butcher' by the Italians who hated him) massacred almost the whole city of Cesena (about 5000 people). And, of course, there was the destruction of the Templars, a new Turkish invasion of the Balkans, Hungary and the besieging of Constantinople (and the Turks under Caliph Bajazet in turn crushed by Tamerlane's Mongol-Turkic invasion). The Danse Macabre and gruesome memento mori festooned Europe by the time the 14th century ended - death ruled.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Never mind that scholasticism was hardly an unfruitful or straitjacketed endeavor, and it's something akin to Lewis' "chronological snobbery" to deny the intellect of men like Aquinas, Bonaventure and Scotus; the era 1100-1400 also saw Gothic architecture, the windmill, the mouldboard plow, the horse-collar, glass windows, Francis Bacon, the chimney, the hammer-mill, liquor, the astrolabe, the blast furnace, Peter Abelard, the wheelbarrow, the university, Albertus Magnus, trade guilds, crop rotation, eyeglasses, Giotto, the artesian well, the navigational quadrant and carrack that made Columbus & co possible, polyphonic harmony, the mechanical clock, lager beer and Parliament arise in Europe. Oh, and Protestantism too if one counts Wycliffe and Hus (not to mention Francis, Dominic and a whole new version of Catholicism, sadly squelched by the Avignon popes).

Francis Bacon? He died in the 17th century. Perhaps you mean Roger the alchemist?
The windmill, invented in China.
Moldboard plow, also a Chinese invention.
Horse Collar? Chinese.
Glass windows? A Roman invention, and most European windows in the 14th Century were made of flattened horn, not glass.
Hammer Mill? 4th Century China.
The astrolabe? The Greeks have the rights to inventing it, and Medieval Muslim astronomers perfected it. Next.
The wheelbarrow? 100 A.D. China.
Blast furnace? Yawn. Extant in China 100 A.D.
Crop rotation? Two field rotation was being used since 6000 BC in the Middle-east, three field rotation around the time of Charlemagne in Europe.
Artesian wells? Imported from China according to the sources I drilled into.
The mariner's quadrant? Rudimentary quadrants were introduced by the Greeks, and, again, improved by medieval Muslims.
Mechanical clocks? China, circa 723 A.D.
Chimneys? They've been around since Roman times. The first in England was in 1185.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I think it's rather a hidden premise to take the position that intellectual life only counts if it's "humanist;" I would say rather that it became the fashion for authors and poets, like artists and architects, to emulate Classical models. Not unrelated, however, is the fact that the late 15th to early 17th century was also notable as an age of handwaving mystical woo-woo from alchemy to numerology to astrology, and, of course, witch-hunts (not really a medieval phenomenon). You see, the rigorous logic of the scholastic age made it far more an "age of reason" than the anything goes, wildly undisciplined Renaissance.

I would suggest that astrology was far more en vogue in 13th and 14th century. After all, Dante placed Bonati in Malbolge, the eighth circle of Hell, for practicing such divination, and Chaucer's work is littered with astrological references. Charles V of France wouldn't have a bowel movement without the stars aligning properly over his garderobe. Your dear portly Aquinas made a futile attempt to reconcile astrology and Christianity. But to be fair, Elizabeth I had a court astrologer and Brahe, Kepler and Galileo were all court astrologers. As a fad it lasted several centuries.