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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."
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