Medical Folklore of Venice and Rome

Abstract

I PROPOSE to deal in this paper with two main themes: firstly with epidemics during the Middle Ages and human reaction to them, and secondly with the use of relics for the treatment of disease (and also, incidentally, for other purposes). I shall use evidence chiefly from Venice and Rome to illustrate my points. These two themes are so inextricably connected that I have sometimes found the easiest arrangement of my material to be by the churches with which the epidemics were connected or in which the relics are to be found. In medieval times the care of the sick was in the hands of the Church. This was natural since ecclesiastics in those days were the most educated class in the land whether in Italy or elsewhere. In both classical and medieval times sickness was considered to be a divine infliction, and its cure was therefore also a function of heaven. This applies to epidemics, when the whole population was affected, and also in cases of individual sickness. Cures could be effected in two ways : either by direct means, that is by the laying on of hands or else through the medium of inanimate objects such as relics. This latter method, as will be seen, is that which was most usually employed by the Church.