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“Bring out your dead!”

“I’m not dead...”

The first mention of my family in the Cotswalds area of Gloustershire was in 1278, I have the genealogy and if anyone is doing a study I might be interested.

That scene always makes me think about the character seen off in the distance swinging a black cat into the side of a building as hard as they can: the cat's scream as its being swung cut short with the sound of the thud of the impact of its body against the wall of the building.

Actually, if one pays close attention, this action can be observed portrayed at least in a couple other scenes. I believe that it is not a superfluous part of the scene. If so, then why repeat it at risk of it being noticed?

I once pulled out all the books in the library pertaining to accounts of the Black Death at the library and spent the better part of the day going through them. Talk about bleak, dreary and dismal days, makes hopelessness look positively bright. These people had not a clue about what was going on, all that they knew was that they were in a pretty bad way.

The accounts I read described a rather disconcerting and unsettling experience: wailing of anguish, constant ringing of church bells, the stench of decay, the smoke of burning flesh, the symptoms and signs of the onset and progress of the disease, whole families succumbing, etc. Quite horrifying from a modern perspective in contemplation of having to live through as a matter of course.

Case in point were the reports of the cannibalism of infants by the peasants. While not very well documented, many reports of it exist. I was reading about various scholar's rationalization of such in the sense that during the height of the plague there was famine. What little food they did produce the sovereigns seized (leaving many of their feudal tenants with virtually nothing/I>. Its speculated that many had to resort to cannibalism of their infants in that the infants were absolutely not productive.

One has to keep in mind what life was like for the average person back then. Life was extremely hard. The summer was one mad dash to get enough provisions stocked up to make it through the winter. Probably the alleged cannibalism occurred most often during the harshest and darkest period of winter. Combine that with the psychosis attributable to ergot amine poisoning and chronic malnutrition, self-preservation would only instill a sort of "Donner party-mentality".

Boy I'm glad we don't have to deal with that any more. What a glorious thing it is to be "civilized" nowadays, eh? What, with flushing toilets, running water, "free" health-care, drugs based on scientific principles (not the efficacy of Gregorian chants to chase away the evil spirits). I believe that each and every Thanksgiving holiday, we should give extremely sincere and most humble thanks to whatever power that one may believe exists (whether one believe that pure chance, or supernatural deity rules the universe) that we all have lived our lives during present times rather than any other.

“Bring out your dead!”

Beat me!

Bring out your dead!”

I'm not dead!! I think I'll go for a walk!

“I’m not dead”