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Q. How can we protect ourselves and our cities?

Many preventive measures were tried, including:

  • Quarantine. In Milan, the archbishop ordered victims' homes walled up, with all occupants inside, sick or well.

  • Escape. "Men and women abandoned their houses and kin and fled abroad or to the country, as if God's punishment would not pursue them," wrote Giovanni Boccaccio of Florence.

  • Prayer. Pope Clement authorized processions in which thousands walked and prayed for days. However, he ended them when it became clear that they simply spread disease.

  • Cult rituals. Jean Froissart wrote of German penitents who-despite the disapproval of religious authorities-went from town to town, "scourging themselves with whips of knotted leather with iron spikes, to entreat God to stop the mortality."

  • Slaughter of Jews. Froissart wrote, "At that time the Jews were taken and burnt everywhere throughout the world, except in the domains beneath the protection of the Pope."