graver complexion, divers apprehensions and imaginations were engendered in
the minds of such as were left alive, inclining almost all of them to the
same harsh resolution, to wit, to shun and abhor all contact with the sick
and all that belonged to them, thinking thereby to make each his own health
secure. Among whom there were those who thought that to live temperately and
avoid all excess would count for much as a preservative against seizures of
this kind. Wherefore they banded together, and, dissociating themselves from
all others, formed communities in houses where there were no sick, and lived
a separate and secluded life, which they regulated with the utmost care,
avoiding every kind of luxury, but eating and drinking very moderately of
the most delicate viands and the finest wines, holding converse with none
but one another, lest tidings of sickness or death should reach them, and
diverting their minds with music and such other delights as they could
devise. Others, the bias of whose minds was in the opposite direction,
maintained, that to drink freely, frequent places of public resort, and take
their pleasure with song and revel, sparing to satisfy no appetite, and to
laugh and mock at no event, was the sovereign remedy for so great an evil:
and that which they affirmed they also put in practice, so far as they were
able, resorting day and night, now to this tavern, now to that, drinking
with an entire disregard of rule or measure, and by preference making the
houses of others, as it were, their inns, if they but saw in them aught that
was particularly to their taste or liking; which they were readily able to
do, because the owners, seeing death imminent, had become as reckless of
their property as of their lives; so that most of the houses were open to
all comers, and no distinction was observed between the stranger who
presented himself and the rightful lord. Thus, adhering ever to their
inhuman determination to shun the sick, as far as possible, they ordered
their life. In this extremity of our city's suffering and tribulation the
venerable authority of laws, human and divine, was abased and all but
totally dissolved, for lack of those who should have administered and