the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

the Orthodox believers and many of its relics were believed to bestow health on
the ill. The faithful would kiss the relics, be anointed with the holy oil from the
saints' bodies or even have the preserved bodies laid on top of them, as Stephen of
Novgorod and Ignatius of Smolensk vividly described (Majeska, 1984: 28-72).
The church of St. Sophìa harboured a number of objects with miraculous curative
properties. Ignatius of Smolensk described the miraculous icon of the All-pure
Mother of God near the great doors. Above the imperial doors hung the icon of the
Savior, which healed many sick according to the anonymous description of
Constantinople. 308 309 Moreover, relics were sealed into the major columns and
arches of the St. Sophìa church when it was built. Stephen of Novgorod mentions
porphyry columns that people rubbed to be cured. An earlier traveler, Anthony of
Novgorod, described columns that were covered with brass and which the
believers kissed and rubbed to cure their illness. 310 The collective handling of the
relics and icons probably formed an effective channel of transmission for the
plague bacteria. Especially pneumonic plague, the most contagious of the clinical
plague manifestations, could easily be passed on this way. At the end of the 18th
century, this belief in the healing capacities of saints and the miraculous properties
of relics remained as vivid as it had been during medieval times. Panzac (1997:
162) relates how during a plague epidemic in 1784, the French consul in Izmir
reported that a relic of the Holy Mother Mary had been brought over from Monte
whatever is made of the plague epidemic, 1349 seems indeed more plausible. Majeska,: Russian
Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 17.
308
Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 206,
210.
309
The writer of the Russian anonymus description of Constantinople also asserts that he saw
"awesome wonders - how an icon of the most holy Mother of God works miracles, granting healing
to the sick." from Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries, 128.
310
Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 214.
Again according to Majeska, the column at the described location is still partially clad with brass
plates, and Turkish people reportedly claim the column to weep and to use that fluid to cure
diseases.
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