Early Modern Europe

From Squalor to Splendor

A Dangerous World

Early modern Europe unable to protect itself from famine, disease, accidents and social violence

Pre-modern medicine did not work against disease. Antibiotics did not exist, surgery often killed the patient, and since germs

were unheard of, antiseptic practices had no meaning

Diseases were swift (influenza), not slow like AIDS

Typhus, smallpox and typhoid were deadly

More Dangers

Bubonic Plague was worst… continued to return to kill in Europe. It is a disease of rats and rodents, transmitted by fleas.

Up to a ¼ of children died by the age of one, another ¼ by the end of fourteen

Family was destabilized by constant death; few Europeans knew their grandparents

Other Major Concerns

Famine

Other Major Concerns

Severe Punishment

An Artist’s Interpretation

“The Triumph of Death” by Belgian Oil Painter Pieter Bruegel (1562)

An Artist’s Interpretation

L’umana Fragilita (1656) by Salvator Rosa: “Conception is a sin, Birth is pain, Life is toil, Death a necessity.”

Rosa’s Life

In 1655 a devastating plague swept Naples. Salvator Rosa's son, his brother, his sister, her husband and five of their children, all died. The transience of human life was a recurring theme in 17th century painting and thought, but for Rosa, in the year he made this painting, the subject had a tragic immediacy. A letter to his friend Ricciardi makes clear the effect this multiple bereavement had upon him: "This time heaven has struck me in such a way that shows me that all human remedies are useless and the least pain I feel is when I tell you that I weep as I write."

An Artist’s Interpretation

Jacques Callot, Plundering and Burning a Village (1633)

Thirty Year’s War

The Thirty Year’s War took place from 1618 to 1648

It involved all of Europe at various points; largely religious conflict.

Description of Art From Previous Slide: Armed soldiers pillage and burn a village including a small chapel in the upper centre (there is a cross to its left). The inhabitants and livestock are rounded up to be taken off as prisoners or booty. Livestock can be seen being herded at the lower right. A man can be seen being killed at the lower left under a tree. There is a grieving wife who sits next to her dead husband in the centre foreground.

The Shield: Religion

In 1500 Europe, religion pervaded almost everything

Providence refers to divine care and God’s justice on Earth; according to providence, there are no “accidents”

In this model, all good and bad things come from God

The Shield: Religion

Salvation was God’s equity in the next world; given by the church which made them powerful

Inevitably Christians would sin; and sin again; and sin again

Without help, people lacked the power to save themselves

The necessary help was grace, a gift dispensed by God alone, but channeled through his Church

Much of the church’s edifice was paid for by prayer

Christians, in the face of death and danger, paid the clergy to pray for them

The Shield: Religion

Salvation is God’s equity in the next world. In early Europe, it was allotted by the church, which gave them extreme power

Inevitably Christians would sin; and sin again; and sin again

Without “help”, people lacked the power to save themselves

The necessary help was “grace”, a gift dispensed by God alone, but channeled through the church

Much of the church’s edifices were paid for by prayer

Christians, in the face of death and danger, paid the clergy to pray for them