For Worse No Matter How Bad 

At the height of the Black Plague raging during the medieval age, the one cry heard most frequently was, ‘Bring out Your Dead’. Death was so omnipresent that some cities lost ninety percent of their citizens. By the time the plague played itself out, neither church, nor government, nor the medical profession, was inclined to go out and succour the needy. They knew that exposure meant almost certain death.

It is remarkable, therefore, that throughout these times, it was unknown for the husband to abandon his wife, or the wife to abandon her husband. They stayed with each other while healthy. They stayed with each other while the healthy spouse nursed the sick one. More often than not they died together. But always the healthy spouse stayed till death parted them.

While the plague decimated the countryside, it also revitalized marriage since so many people lost their spouses.

Lovers who found each other during these trying times, looked for ways and means to keep themselves fit and healthy till they reached the alter rails.

Some had a shot of elderlberry every day, believing this to be particularly beneficial. Others wore all sorts of charms and necklaces. Spells were very much in demand. And one couple of lovers, determined to survive no matter what, went so far as to bathe themselves in urine every morning.

However, the most prevalent belief was that the disease was carried on the air, and to prevent becoming infected, the bad smells had to be counteracted by such good smells as the burning of incense or filling a house with flowers. Out of doors, people resorted to holding flowers to their noses in order not to inhale the foul air around them.

In those early medieval weddings, the bride’s bouquet often included not only flowers but herbs such as rosemary, sage and even garlic. It was many centuries later that the wedding bouquet stopped being a deterrent to bad spirits and bad air, and simply became a decoration – though often a symbolic one.

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