“…They don’t want to be locked up in the Contumatz, and jump over the fences…” : The Pricske quarantine institution in the eighteenth century

Abstract

When the archaeological research of the Pricske quarantine institution started in the summer of 2009, no one expected that quarantine would be such a topical issue due to a pandemic in 2020. Quarantine is not a novelty: in the Middle Ages, the mandatory isolation period was first introduced for maritime transport in the port cities of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik, Croatia), Marseille, and Venice. In the early eighteenth century, quarantine institutions were established along the borders of the Habsburg Empire as part of a sanitary cordon (cordon sanitaire). They protected the borders for almost 150 years and were meant to stop the spread of contagious diseases (especially the plague). The present paper is focused on the development of the quarantine system at the passes of the Eastern Carpathians. Furthermore, by the example of the excavated quarantine area at Pricske, I demonstrate what has remained of it at an archaeological site in Eastern Transylvania.