We are pleased to introduce the final post in the Postgraduate and Early Career Takeover, by Ivana Bicak. Ivana’s latest research project, funded by the Wellcome Trust and conducted at the University of Exeter, explored early modern satires of experimental medicine in Spain.

In the sixteenth century, new medicinal plants from America entered Spain. Apart from transforming the medical practice of the time, these novel products had an immediate impact on the literary landscape, particularly satiric poetry. The witty verses of Spanish satirists offer us a unique view into how these experimental medicines were perceived by the contemporaries. The satires of exotic drugs such as guaiac and sarsaparilla underline the acceptance and familiarity of the newly discovered materia medica, as described by Christopher Booth in his recent post ‘The World in a Jar.’

After Christopher Columbus returned from his famous voyage in 1493, a terrible disease struck Europe, transforming human bodies into decomposing masses of pustules, broken bones, bald heads, and missing noses. The epidemic of highly contagious syphilis spared no one, sowing destruction from seedy brothels to shiny courts, from Spain to England.

In a desperate search for a remedy, many different treatments were tried. One of the more ingenious prescriptions included applying a freshly cut chicken or pigeon to the ulcerated penis, as per advice of the papal physician Gaspar Torella. Most physicians and patients, however, turned to mercury, a long-standing cure for skin diseases. This heavy metal was not exactly the happiest solution as the severity of its side effects frequently surpassed that of the disease’s symptoms. Thanks to its potent corrosive properties, mercury acted much more as a poison than as a cure. If the patient did not lose their nose due to syphilis, mercury made sure their teeth fell out.

The arrival of the new American medicines in Spain was therefore eagerly welcomed in the hopes of relieving the suffering of syphilitic patients across European borders. American anti-syphilitic plants flooded European medical markets. Among them, guaiac wood and sarsaparilla achieved immense popularity. As a result, they were exported from Spain to other European countries.

We are pleased to introduce the latest post in the Postgraduate and Early Career Takeover, by Katie Fellows. Katie had her doctorate awarded from St Peter’s College, Oxford, at the end of last year. Her thesis examined the early ecclesiastical career of Rodrigo Borgia before his election as Pope Alexander VI in August 1492. (Twitter: @KatieFellows1)

Since the Synod of Reims in 991, pontiffs have at times found themselves portrayed closer to the devil and the diabolic than the godly.[1] Why is this and why has such an idea found representation in a number of different forms?

This idea reveals a lot about the popular sentiments of the time and the growing tide of discontent towards the papacy. Dissatisfaction stemmed from a number of different factors including unpopular policies, nepotism, avarice, simony and sexual misconduct. Whilst researching my doctoral thesis on the Catalan Rodrigo Borgia’s early ecclesiastical career, I was struck with how popular these ideas were, particularly in explaining his election to the papacy in August 1492.

Contemporaries openly voiced their dissatisfaction at another Catalan pontiff who promoted his kinsmen to both religious and secular offices ahead of Italians. Similarly, his religious beliefs were questionable with contemporaries claiming he was either a Marrano or a Jew. This, along with Alexander’s relative tolerance of the Roman Jewish population and the Jewish migrants who arrived after being expelled from the Iberian Peninsula at the turn of the sixteenth century. In 1515, an anonymous pamphlet argued that his election was due to a pact with the devil and that as a Moor or a Jew and that he did not possess the morality to withstand the devil’s temptation. As Nathan Johnstone argues, from the eleventh century onwards the ‘Devil had become a focus of Christian discourses of scapegoating and othering’.[2] It is therefore not hard to see how images such as the one in this article were created.

Another possible explanation for such images were the tensions following the earlier French invasion (1494–1498) of the Italian Peninsula and the ongoing tensions between King Louis XII of France and Alexander. From contemporary letters to cheap broadsides and even a Jacobean play, these examples have helped form the Black Legend of the Borgias.

We are pleased to introduce the latest post in the Postgraduate and Early Career Takeover, by Claire Turner. Claire is a second-year PhD student at the University of Leeds whose research investigates sensory experiences and perceptions of the plague in seventeenth-century England. (Twitter: @_claire_turner_)

During a plague outbreak in London in 1625, tailor George Bicker-staffe was making his way to the Lord Windsor’s house in Mugwell Street when he suddenly heard ‘a great noyse’ which ‘came ratling downe the Stayres’. The noise had been produced by a fawn which, having once been tied up in the garden, had now got loose and was causing chaos in the Lord Windsor’s house. Bicker-staffe had been left ‘half breathelesse, and almost speechlesse, looking very ghastly’ after his ordeal. Several days later, having previously been in good health, he became unwell. Then, a mere eleven days after the event involving the fawn, Bicker-staffe died of the plague [1].

George Bicker-staffe’s strange and frightful experience was one of many to take place during London’s seventeenth-century plague outbreaks. His ordeal was used in medical texts to highlight the idea that feelings of fear increased the body’s susceptibility to contract the plague. Upon hearing the unidentifiable noise, Bicker-staffe inadvertently set in motion a process whereby his body underwent catastrophic emotional and physiological changes. This account is one of several to shed light on the dangerous and perilous nature of sounds heard during outbreaks of plague. It introduces us to the idea that sound was believed to indirectly impact the physiology of the human body.

Have you ever experienced illness through your ears? What noises and sounds do you hear when you or someone you know is ill? Pestilential soundscapes were the landscapes of sound produced during plague epidemics. The people who lived through London’s plague outbreaks experienced a huge variety of sounds, each of which affected how they understood the world around them. From the constant sounding of death knells to the screams of plague victims and their relations, the soundscapes of plague epidemics reveal fascinating insights into how people navigated the city during times of crisis. In this post, we’ll explore precisely how the sense of sound could be intimately linked with contagion in the early modern period.

If you were to travel back to a plague outbreak in London, one sound you were likely to hear would be the suffering of plague victims. Numerous accounts detailed the various instances when plague victims might be heard vocalising their pain and anguish. Several of these accounts took place in one particular spot: the window. Early modern windows were only occasionally fitted with glass. In many instances, they were instead fitted with thin and fragile materials such as paper or fabric. Therefore, unwanted noise travelled through windows with ease. It is unsurprising, then, that windows played a central role in the formation of pestilential soundscapes.

A cart for transporting the dead in London during the great plague. Watercolour painting by or after G. Cruikshank (1792-1878), Wellcome Images.