1 of 3

Imagine for a moment that we are able to climb into one of those fabulous time machines of science fiction fable, set the clock back five centuries, and travel across half a millennium to Europe in 1489.

We arrive on a hill overlooking a village, amid green grass and yellow daisies. Before us we can see the red-tiled roofs of houses in the town, their steep slopes broken up by small windowed dormers. Our eyes are almost immediately drawn to the church and its high bell tower, which seems to form the center of the town, and which stands above all the other buildings, as if to direct and draw them up, as it were, into the heavens.

Our initial view is shaped by the romantic illusions we have brought with us from our more complicated technological world of rabid schedules and interminable rush-hour traffic.

The village we see before us is “picturesque”; a village, we imagine, bustling with friendly, healthy, hard-working people, who will surely welcome respectful strangers into their integrated community. These fortunate folk have no need for words like pollution, economic decline, ecological disaster, social despair, or nuclear winter.

The idyllic image, however, passes quickly. Even from a distance, we begin to focus on the dirt houses and the thatch roofs scattered without order around and within the village. (Those quaint red roofs are on the houses owned by the most prosperous inhabitants.) As we wander down from our pleasant, grassy knoll and enter this charming little village, our romantic curiosity turns to shock.

Everything stinks! We alone seem to notice the garbage floating in the rough-cut canals. Our breath is taken away by the mingled odors of smoke, refuse, and cooked cabbage.

The people we see have obviously not bathed. Indeed, they are filthy, and appear never to have washed. The result is only too evident. Their hair is unkempt; they are missing teeth. (They have never heard of nylon combs, toothbrushes, disposable razors, fingernail clippers, steam irons, deodorant, or Kleenex tissues.)

We cannot mistake the rich who appear in the streets. They are dressed in finery—deliberately chosen to mark themselves off from their inferiors; though their clothes, like those of the less-fortunate folk around them, have a somewhat wrinkled look. They travel with a retinue, begetting both fear and contempt in the eyes of the lower classes. However, they are as feeble as anyone before Fortune, who is close to being considered a deity by both rich and poor.

In the thatched roofs we can now and then hear the squeaking and scampering of rats. If the people only knew, as we know, that those rats carry fleas that can transfer the bubonic bacillus to human beings: the black plague.

There appear to be many more crippled people around than in the comfortable society we have left. In this world a broken limb can easily result in death, and if it does not, its mark will always remain; for a broken bone cannot be set properly. In this world, what we consider simple, easily cured diseases, kill or maim permanently.

Everyone is in the narrow streets. It is here where business is done, gossip is exchanged, visiting occurs, fights break out, games are played, news is announced.

And there is much news in 1489. The Turks are moving ever closer. There is almost always a public execution to be spoken of, acts of revenge to be commented upon, warnings that since December 28 (the anniversary of the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem) fell on a Thursday last year, all the Thursdays in the coming year will be ill-omened. Even more are there warnings about the imminent end of the world.

next page... |  1 of 3

share this page

RSS Feed   RSS Help