The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-14
SOLDIERS DIED LIKE WORMS.
Strange Plague That Swept Away
Enemies of the Papacy.


The epidemics of the Middle Ages
were so numerous that even such indie
fatigable historians as Hecker aud Haze
ser have been compelled to leave many
of them unnoticed. One of the most in
teresting of these, both from the his
toric and medical standpoints, is the
plague which fell upon the German ar
my in Italy, A. D. 1867. and which has
been fully described by several con-
temporary chroniclers. The following
outline is based mainly on the account
given by Henry, archdeacon of Salz-
burg, who says that he has carefully
compiled it from the narratives of eye
witnesses
The long controversy between the en-
pire and the papacy had eliminated in
an open schissn and the establishment
of an anti-pope, to support whom Fred
erick Barbarossa invaded Italy with a
great army. directed at once against
the independence of the church and of
the Lombard cities. The terrible de-
struction of this army in the moment of
its triumph sent a thrill Of mingled
horror and exultation throughout Eu-
rope.
Then happened a thing unheard of
since the creation of the world. which
till the end thereof will make the ears
of whose heareth it to tingle. Peruse
the chronicles of the nations; where
will you find a tale such as that which
tells how the power, wealth, and pride
of all Germany died not as men die,
neither fell like one of the princes,
but were destroyed in heaps, like the
rainworms or the locusts after a tenn
Dest?"
The great church of ST Peter at
Rome had been taken by storm. They
broke down the gates thereof with axes
and swords, and cut off chips from the
doors, boasting that they would take
them to their wives as tokens of their
own powers and of the ignominy of
the blessed Peter; so the vengeance
of God came upon them in the pesti-
lence."
Three days later, Aug. 1, Frederick
and Beatrice were crowned with great
pomp by the Antelope Paschalic, in
the still blood stained church. The next
morning was marked by a sudden tenn
pest of thunder and rain, after which
the sun shone out brightly, till thin
mist rising from the ground covered
the tents of the schismatic army, and
then the plague began. The number of
the victims, says Henry. great as it
was, was less terrible than the sud
denness of their deaths.
There were a hundred chosen men in
perors body guard, and camped apart
from the rest 1.-THE emperor had
mounted his horse and, wondering at
the delay, sent a messenger for them.
He found their weapons piled and their
horses tethered, but the hundred men
in armor and their attendants were all
of them corpses.
The plague seemed specially to single
out the graet men of the army, partic-
ularly the schismatic clergy. Rainald.
archbishop of Cologne, head and
leader of the schism;" the bishops of
Prague, Regensburg. Spires, Verdun
and Liege, all died in few days and
the death of so many princes and
mobiles brought into prominence, if it
did not originate, a curious custom Of
some interest for the history of anat-
omy Many persons, ashamed to leave
their dead friends in a hostile coun-
try" boiled their bodies and extracted
the bones, in order TO take them home
to their fatherland. Thus they boiled
Bishop Daniel and took his bones 10
Prague. but his clergy refused to pray
for his soul till it appeaTd TO one of
them and told him he had repented of
his schism before his death. Some. ac-
cording TO Henry, tried to preserve the
whole body by cooking and sailing it.
- certain man WAS cooking his
brother in a caldron, when a friend
sent to borrow it for a similar pur-
pose: but he replied that he could not
have il. for. after cooking his brother
he should want TO be cooked in it him