Herhily's Triumph: Fourteenth Century Europe

Fourteenth century Europe witnessed the greatest epidemic in the medieval era in the form of the black plague. In the following decades, the pace of social transformation and progress began to pick up and would ultimately come to fruition in the Renaissance. However, while historians agree that the plague certainly was partly responsible for this change, they quarrel over that extent. Raymond Delatouche, Michael Postan, and David Herhily are three such historians, each attributing a different amount of blame to the disease while highlighting large social or population trends. However, in each of their rather brief discourses, Delatouche and Postan fail to provide sufficient evidence and often voice their doubts to its credibility and even that of their arguments. Herihily, on the other hand, cites numerous data to reinforce his claims, and thus his reasoning is vindicated.

Raymond Delatouche examines the declining social trend of the 14^th century that preceded the outbreak of the Black Death and continued thereafter. The first major problem in his discussion is that he uses France as a model for all of Europe, because it was "then the leading nation of western Europe" (Bowsky, 47). However, while his assumption that "Whatever affected France had profound repercussions everywhere" (Boskey, 55), may hold some weight due to France's preeminence, the social, political and economic positions elsewhere throughout Europe differed and thus most likely would have been affected differently in many ways. Additionally, he initially underlines his arguments by claiming that historians of all kinds would "have noticed, from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fourteenth [century[, signs of malaise, decline, and exhaustion" (Bowsky, 48) Instead of subsequently citing numerous examples to support this assertion, Delatouche merely mentions the unsuccessful crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and their large death tolls, which does not back his claim but serves only to further confuse the reader. The pivotal downfall to Delatouche's argument comes again from his lack of supporting evidence, but this time concerning his main point. Noting that "What is striking, from the end of the thirteenth century, is the collapse of moral potential, the loss of creative élan, the pursuit of leisure, even when leisure-time activities were of the highest quality - artistic, intellectual, and even religious" (Bowsky, 49), the author again fails to provide any strong and specific examples to prove this point. Seemlingly, he expects the reader already possess the knowledge and expertise of the aforementioned historians. Unfortunately, though, not every reader is blessed with such wisdom and thus cannot back Delatouche's claims with such knowledge.

Arguing that Malthusian agricultural trends were the eminent cause of population decrease during the 14^th century, Michael Postan brings up an interesting point, arguing that although the epidemics of the fourteenth century did decimate the population, these populations were already decreasing in size, and so were slow to recover thereafter. Like Delatouche, Postan does not provide the reader with enough evidence, especially with numerical data, which is so crucial to any population argument. Thus, even though his claims of a decreasing population trend occurring many years before the advent of the plague may very well be true, he is yet to illustrate them in his writing and the uninformed reader will never be certain there is credibility to his assertions. However, it is Postan's own self-doubt that robs his paper of any and all merit. After making his argument, he begins his final paragraph by saying, "This hypothesis is tentative in the extreme; a mere guess which may well turn out to be untrue" (Bowsky, 58). It immediately becomes evident that Postan is not trying to prove that the plague was a small player in a larger negative population growth trend, but rather as he goes on to say, "to underline the complexity of historical causation". (Bowsky, 58).

David Herhily also puts the outbreaks of the plague in a greater context, stating that they "were terrible in their carnage, but they alone do not explain the failure of the population to rebound from them" (Bowsky, 62). Unlike Postan, though, his argument supplies sufficient numerical evidence to examine the population trends in question. Initially, Herhily denies a purely Malthusian theory by claiming that birth rates were not steady as such a theory assumes. To support this claim, he mentions many population figures and census data to support his argument. Although the exact accuracy of medieval numbers themselves can almost never be trusted, such as the oddly specific "rural population [of[ 11,364" (Bowsky, 62), Herhily is using hem here to illustrate a trend, so while the exactness of the numbers may come under serious scrutiny, the author really only needs an approximate amount upon which to base the trend. In addition, at one point, Herlihy makes note of the high fertility ratio of Florence. Upon examining the footnote, one sees that Herlihy cites his own work, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia, showing that he has already done considerable work on the subject. Finally, to conclude his paper, Herhily attributes the dwindling birth rates to the failure of young people to marry primarily because of economic insecurity. Not only does he show that wealthier noble families sired more children in his mention of the Cancellieri, but goes on to cite Leonbattista Alberti's explanation of the connection between poverty and marriage as well. (Bowsky, 63-64). Ultimately, because Herhily produces enough evidence to support his claims, his argument triumphs in that it is rather credible.

Through looking at these three essays, a reader learns new perspectives on the context of the plague in a greater scope during the 14^th century. However, while many of the assertions in the article may be interesting, the reader cannot truly take creed in them unless they are adequately back by enough and appropriate evidence, such as those of David Herhily. Thus, out of such readings, the reader will notice that while many historians make fascinating claims concerning certain events and time frames, not all can be trusted.

Bibliography

1) "The Plague as a Recurrent Phenomena". Bowsky, William M
2) "The Black Death and the Transformation of the West". David Herlihy, Samuel Kline Cohn