Epidemics in the early modern period: the changing representation of epidemics by the middling sort in Dutch chronicles

Abstract

The methods of preventing and controlling plagues depended heavily on contemporary understandings of its causes and course. However, this ‘contemporary understanding’ refers in general to the printed ideas expressed by; authorities, scholars and medical practitioners, and often excludes how ‘ordinary’ people framed epidemics. Chronicles – handwritten and chronological records of events – offer a new perspective on how the middle class of Dutch society responded to epidemics and provides an insight on how they thought and acted upon plagues and disasters.

Based on my current research of 115 chronicles written between 1500 and 1850, it seems that ordinary people, as well as those in positions of authority, secular, intellectual, and religious, continued to believe the idea that plagues could have natural and supernatural origins. Both faith and reason conditioned responses to plague and the solutions chosen did not prove antagonistic to another. The two systems of belief worked together, usually harmoniously. However, even if most people accepted the ultimate divine origin of plague, it did not prevent people from seeking assistance from mortal healers nor governments from enacting public health ordinances. Moreover, they also acknowledged the role of other factors, including odd weather patterns (scorching summers or frigid winters), famines, troop movements, wars, ‘fetid miasmas,’ stagnant pools of water, prodigies, monstrous births, and other premonitions.

Analysing the relationships that chroniclers made between epidemic plagues and other factors, and how they changed diachronically - under the influence of ‘new’ knowledge - is the core of my research. As a result, the framing of epidemic diseases tended to be holistic and inclusive, although the explanation and the combination of causes changed diachronically. Therefore, studying epidemics by analysing chronicles not only enables historians to investigate the response of the populace on epidemics, but provides an insight in their worldview as well.