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‘Sensing the Suffering of Women in London’s Plague Outbreaks’: with a particular focus on the haptic senses, this short paper will enrich our understanding of the experiences of women as victims of plague in London’s 1625 outbreak #EMQuon 1/13
Both the examples in this paper come from Thomas Dekker’s 'A rod for run-aways', which addressed those who fled London during the city’s severe plague outbreak of 1625. Dekker touched on some examples of women suffering as a result of plague #EMQuon 2/13
Dekker’s pamphlet explored the relationship between fear, contagion, and maternal touch. In one passage, he described the consequences of maintaining this intimate touch. He highlighted the unavoidability of physical contact between mother and child #EMQuon 3/13
At first, it appears that the woman in Dekker’s description did not fear compassionately touching her child. However, the extract implies that anxieties relating to the status of motherhood outweighed the risk associated with intimate touch #EMQuon 4/13
Children represented the reputation of women as ‘vessels for reproduction’ and were therefore essentially a status symbol. The woman continued to touch her child because contemporary ideals about motherhood were deemed more important than precautions against plague #EMQuon 5/13
In another example, Dekker explained how financial status and greed sometimes outweighed the dangers associated with touching fabrics and textiles. Cloth was not always feared. Many people still handled fabrics for a number of reasons #EMQuon 6/13
In some instances, the value of cloth outweighed its risk as a communicator of disease. The circulation of clothing in 17C London centred on its value and what the materials it was created from were worth. Most materials were reusable, resalable, and valuable #EMQuon 7/13
In this example, Dekker noted an incident where avarice outweighed fear. The role of cloth as a harbinger of infection was forgotten and replaced with an overwhelming desire for material gain #EMQuon 8/13
Ernest Gilman wrote that plague-time London was a ‘carnivalesque theatre of death’. This assertion is particularly powerful. Dekker employed literary techniques such as zoomorphism to transform London’s inhabitants into creatures of greed such as ‘Rauens’ #EMQuon 9/13
Clothes never escape circulation. Fabrics and textiles were turned into money and money was transformed back into these items. London’s inhabitants abandoned any fear of touching dangerous clothing because the value of the material outweighed the risk of infection #EMQuon 10/13
The body of the plague victim was entirely dismissed in favour of her clothes. Touch became impersonal, avaricious, and fearless when the value of items exceeded their risk of communicating plague #EMQuon 11/13
The sense of touch was particularly dangerous during outbreaks of plague in early modern England. In 17C London, however, the dangers associated with touch were largely ignored in favour of concerns surrounding financial or social status #EMQuon 12/13
This paper has uncovered the complex relationship between women and plague in the early modern period. The senses are a crucial avenue for exploring experiences of epidemic disease. Thanks for reading! #EMQuon 13/13
