Fear of Contagion

The wonderful Miss Shade has been posting excerpts from John Kelly's The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time on her blog Materies Morbi, and I've been so intrigued that I simply had to buy the book and get in on the action:

The pestilence's magisterial pace also gave Parisans ample time to contemplate the meaning of love and duty and honor in a time of plague. What would they do if a loved one was afflicted? What would the loved one do if they were afflicted? The fear of contagion makes the psychology of plague different from the psychology of war. In plague, fear acts as a solvent on human relationships; it makes everyone an enemy and everyone an isolate. In plague every man becomes an island -- a small, haunted island of suspicion, fear, and despair. (page 177)

Philip Daileader: St. Valentine's Day - A Medieval Origin

Yeah, yeah... it's a month late, but fascinating nonetheless. 

Over-delegation

People often remark on the decline of civilizations with something to the effect of "an empire is never truly destroyed from without, but rather decays from within." I tend to agree with this sentiment. The process of such self-destruction is not always obvious to contemporaries, however. A policy of decay often unfolds in shades of subtlety, where threads of indolence, abandonment, and contraction intertwine. The actors doggedly play out their parts in this grand pratfall, seemingly ignorant to the larger geopolitical context which envelops them. As one historian aptly notes, with regard to Rome:  

What is genuinely striking about the process of the 'Fall of the Roman Empire', to which it is necessary rapidly to add 'in the West', as its eastern half was to survive for another 1000 years, is the haphazard, almost accidental nature of the process. From 410 onwards successive western imperial regimes just gave away or lost control of more and more of the territory of the former Empire. At the same time, it must be appreciated, no emperor or Master of the Soldiers would have thought they were actually abandoning or putting outside the Empire the various provinces that they thus surrendered. In terms of constitutional theory practical authority in areas of administration and defence were being delegated to imperial appointees in the persons of the Germanic kings. These remained in theory subordinate to the higher authority of the emperors, even though the latter ceased to obtain material benefit from or to exercise direct control over the provinces. In this way the western Empire delegated itself out of existence.

~ Colins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000. Palgrave Macmillan: London. 2010.

Castles

"As the Dark Ages waned, the popularity of castles increased. In fact, one could say that the rise of the castle marked the transition period between the Dark Ages and the High Middle Ages, as empires and kingdoms collapsed under the onslaught of new invasions and migrations, like the Roman Empire. The Vikings shattered the feeble Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the British Isles, threatening the remnants of the old Frankish empire in the west. The Norsemen, mainly those from modern-day Sweden, also tangled with the Slavs of Eastern Europe, leading to the creation of the Russian kingdoms. In the south and west, the forces of Islam swept into Europe, destroying the armies of weak Christian kingdoms while Byzantium fended them off in the East from the 7th century until the 9th century of the Early Middle Ages.  

Throughout the Dark Ages, the kingdoms that successfully resisted the onslaught of the "barbarians" from the North and East and the Islamic forces from the South relied heavily on fortifications for their defense. Both Viking and Moor also adopted fortified positions to strengthen their hold on the territories they occupied and to enhance their offensive operations. In the 9th century, Alfred the Great led Saxon forces against the Norse intruders, laying down the foundations of a new nation that would come to be known as England. By the time the Germanic ruler of the Latin regions of the Frankish empire in the West was succeeded by the first dynasty of Latin kings in the 10th century, the Viking problem was well in hand. Rollo's Norsemen settled in Normandy and his heirs became vassals to the Frankish king early in the 9th century. Both Hugh Capet, who founded the Latin dynasty of France, and his son who succeeded him, had to contend with their vassals more than any external enemy. The castle played an important role in their struggles to maintain their power over their dominions." ^[1]

1. Kaufmann, J.E.; Kaufman, H.W. The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts, and Walled Cities of the Middle Ages. Da Capo Press: Cambridge. 2001.