What Is The Theme Of The Decameron

A woman’s alternative would be becoming a nun, giving up all social freedoms and dedicating your life to serving the poor and God. Women who were subject to this life received a much more thorough education than other women, in order to properly learn religious concepts and theory. Otherwise, a woman’s education was limited to basic reading abilities paired with instruction on how to do homely activities. A woman of this time period had utterly no voice in politics. Law was man’s law. The life of these women were controlled by the men who surround them, their opinions meaning little to nothing. The life of a woman in medieval times was bleak and varied little. Romantic literature was on the rise, full of damsels in distress that only further perpetuated negative stereotypes of women during these times. These romances were full of helpless women in situations only a man could get them out of, or else they would be doomed. Despite this cultural oppression of women in this time period, some strong female characters were erected in medieval romances. A perfect example of an abnormally strong and independent female main character would be Enide from Erec and Enide written by Chrétien de

From 1347 to 1352 a string of the bubonic plague lay waste to western Europe, killing millions. In Italy, nearly a third of the population died; in England, half. The plague was a looming presence, always in the back of people’s minds. The symptoms of the Black Death caused great strife for westerners. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet, described the symptoms he saw during the first outbreak of the plague: “Not such were they as in the East, where an issue of blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men a women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli.” Both Italy and England desperately searched for answers, claiming that the Black Death was the cause of a higher force, but realising that the squalor of their countries also played a part in spreading the illness. Although Italy and England both had a common explanation for the cause of the plague and they both implemented better public health standards, they adopted different public health practices after the plague.

The Bubonic Plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, devastated the world between 1347 and 1351. Due to the plague being transmitted through fleas, many people were susceptible to the disease that wiped out much of the population. The plague caused much throughout Europe because of the number of lives lost, the number of people affected, and the limited amount of medical research that came from this period in time. The number of lives lost caused devastation in Europe.

The Black Death wasn’t some minor disease, but a disease so deadly and widespread at the time, that it greatly impacted Europe’s population, economy, and political structure. Carried by fleas and infected rats, the plague entered Europe through trading. According to C. Warren Hollister, “none can have emerged from the ordeal unaffected…” This portrays the severity of the plague, and how even if your life was spared by the “hands” of the Black Death, your life was changed in some way. Many people died in their homes, in hope of surviving the plague. Although many perished, those who survived were exposed to many opportunities. According to

The Bubonic Plague took the lives of many individuals in the heart of Florence. Its reign affected “not just that of men and women…but even sentient animals” (Stefani). While the plague only lasted a mere six months, from March 1348 – September 1348, it is a piece of time that society should forever acknowledge and learn from. Much of the significant information from the Bubonic plague are unbeknownst to people today, even though it possesses such an importance aspect in our history. Therefore, in this essay, I will discuss the effects the plague had on the people of Florence, and how the appearance of this plague brought about short and long term historical change what we see today.

Giovanni Boccaccio's the Decameron, written in the Early Renaissance, is a sharp social commentary that reflected the ideas and themes of the Renaissance and of Renaissance Humanism. His tales of nuns and priests caught in compromising situations, corrupt clergy selling chances to see religious artifacts, and of wives cheating on their husbands show the changing ideals of the time and the corruption that was running rampant within the church and in the lives of the general populace. The Decameron speaks against this corruption and reflects the secular attitude of living as happily as possible, demoting the principals of Christian morality that had ruled daily life in the time before the Renaissance. Another concept that sprung from the

The Decameron is a frame narrative written by Boccaccio. He is writing about the Plague he witnesses in the city of Florence. The Plague is called the “Black Death” which kills thirty percent of Europe’s population. This story explains how serious this disease is because it shows how men and women fled from Florence to a countryside to prevent from catching it. The disease is carried by flees, unfortunately, there were rats on the ships heading to Europe, the flees would bite the rats and then the flees bite the humans who eventually contracted this disease. These people are not aware of this in this time period and have several different assumptions on what is really causing this outbreak. The uninfected talk about what the Black Death is, the causes of the disease, how contagious this plague is, and the effects it has on their society and their responses to the plague.

This investigation strives to compare and contrast of the role of women during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. The inquiry is significant because in order to understand the culture and ethics of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages it is crucial to understand the importance of women. The issues that will be addressed include: the role of women in the Roman Empire, the role of women in the Middle Ages, and the similarities as well as the differences of the two major time periods. This investigation will focus on the time period of 27 BC to 1485 BC and the places investigated will include Europe, more specifically Rome. This will be accomplished through a detailed examination of the role of women in the

When trials hit it is often the case that communities respond in a very positive way, such as coming together and fighting for the cause. When the plague hit, a portion of the European community chose this route, embracing the good side of humanity. While others where lashing out and living recklessly, some chose to take a more reasonable response. Giovanni Boccaccio provides a first hand account of the occurrences surrounding the black plague in the introduction to his stories in From the Decameron. In Giovanni Boccaccio’s From the Decameron: The Plague Hits Florence he depicts one of the more positive responses to the pandemic:

Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through breath and sight. An so they died. None could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices. In many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in those ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug. I, Agnolo di Tura . . . buried my five children with my own hands. . . . And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world." (another description) Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial. The terror of this seemingly unstoppable march of death was the unknown nature of its origin. The absence of an identifiable earthly cause gave the plague supernatural and sinister quality. (The Black Death: Bubonic Plague)

According to Robert S. Gottfried, author of the book The Black Plague: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe, the Black Plague had a huge impact on human behavior and psychology, “the mechanics and commonplaces of everyday life simply stopped, at least initially “(77-78). With the devastation of the plague, “peasants no longer ploughed, merchants closed their shops, and some, if not all, churchmen stopped offering last rites” (Gottfried 78). In his book The Decameron, Boccaccio described many of the responses of the people during this time:

Boccaccio also infused The Decameron with his opinions on the Catholic church, which even at that time was Italy’s primary religious institution. Catholicism may have been popular, but Boccaccio was very blatant in showing that he did not approve of the Church’s conduct. In The Decameron, religion was practiced by fools, the church was a breeding ground for mischief, and “marriage” was a transaction devoid of meaning.

The Decameron, by Boccaccio, is a frame story written in the mid fourteenth century. There are a hundred stories told over a span of ten days. On the second day, a man tells a story about a princess, Alatiel, who was sent away to marry a king. Before Alatiel reaches her destination, she has sexual experiences with a lot of different men. Alatiel is treated like an object and allows this objectification to happen because she is so fickle and does nothing to stop the men. The fickleness of Alatiel and the treatment of her as an object is evident throughout the story.

In the late Middle Ages, women were forced under many disabilities. Society viewed women as “physically, intellectually, and morally inferior to men” (Bornstein 1). In the 1300’s when Dante wrote the Divine Comedy women did not play a key role in society outside the home. This was not solely excluding a certain sex because of who they were, but because of how society in history has viewed women. Many believed that women could not do a man’s job or fit to be in charge of a certain group. In the 1300’s, women were to be in charge of the household, take care of the children, make the food for the day, and be a loyal wife to their husbands. Through the 1300’s women had a desire to voice what they could achieve, so they started to speak out their

Classical gender roles make the women behave as if they are second-class citizens, being grateful to be in the presence of a powerful male figure; where in actuality, Fortunata, Trimalchio’s wife, sold her jewelry to finance Trimalchio’s first wine selling business, which is how he made his millions. Without the help and generosity of Fortunata, Trimalchio would, himself, be a second-class citizen who struggles to pay for daily bread, like most of the poor lower-class Romans.