The letters of Magdalena and Balthasar give us a glance into the lives of a merchandiser twosome in 16th century Nuremberg, Germany. Renaissance Nuremberg was a metropolis much like Florence, full of civilization and based on a strong merchandiser economic system. The lone difference was that while Florence was predominately Catholic, Nuremberg’s occupants were Protestant.
In this metropolis, the pestilence ended the lives of 1000s and this twosome was alive to see the enduring it created. This caused two reactions in them. One was that of fright; a fright that they excessively would decease from the pestilence and so they are both really careful with their wellness. The second was a vision of a God that could both punish and salvage them from damnation. In the letters of this book we discover how a Protestant twosome in Renaissance Germany dealt with the unwellnes and enduring that their loving God had bestowed upon them.
Between 1560 and 1584, Nuremberg lost 1000s of its occupants to an epidemic that was brushing Europe. This was the ground for the twosome’s preoccupation with cathartic wellness attention methods such as periodic hemorrhages, salve solutions, and bathing and imbibing spring Waters such as those of Lucca, Italy. In the debut of this book, Ozment states that Magdalena and Balthasar are “fans of cathartic medical specialty, in hunt of effectual prophylaxis against the ragging maladies and diseases of their age . Due to this fright of illness and decease, Magdalena and Balthsar are fiends of the medical redress of the clip.
Through these letters we can see that faith played a major function in the lives of the twosome. As we read in the debut, they seem to hold a “love-hate relationship with God, their Afflicter and Redeemer”. Throughout their letters we will detect the strong beliefs that this twosome had in the “medical specialty” of their clip and the God that they both feared and loved.
Magdalena is the 1 who was exposed most to this impairment that was happening in Nuremberg. Numerous times she ruefully mentioned the intelligence of a lost friend or relation in her letters to Balthasar. Once while Balthasar was in Altdorf Magdalena wrote, “I must describe to you a decease among our friends in every missive I write; I wish it were non so” . Even though this is a happy clip in their lives because she has merely found out that they will hold a kid, they are non certain whether this is a approval or a expletive, for now there is one more of them at hazard. And later we learn that this epidemic did non know apart the old or immature and even small Balthasar dies at the immature age of 10.
While off in Ausburg, Balthasar receives intelligence that small Balthasar was really ill. Magdalena wrote, “I long for you under this cross which God has made us bear by afflicting small Balthasar.” She goes on to state, “May ageless God add his grace to the medical specialty, so that small Balthasar will hold recovered by the clip you return.” . This is a perfect illustration of the vision the twosome had of God. Even though He was the merciless God that had bestowed such a atrocious illness on their male child, He was besides the all- powerful God that could take it and reconstruct the wellness of their lone boy. This is the love-hate relationship that Ozment references in his debut. The twosome loved God and invariably praise him throughout their correspondence but they ne’er fail to acknowledge that He is the 1 who has created such agony for them.
In a missive to Balthasar while off in Frankfurt Magdalena writes how small Balthasar decidedly has a malformation in his cervix. She says that she has merely taken him to the physician and he believes there is nil that will bring around him, the lone thing that will assist is some ointment and she goes on to state, “May God aid do it work!” . Statements like this show to us trust that Magdalena and Balthasar had in both God and medical specialty.
In a missive from Balthasar to Magdalena, he says how much Lucca, the metropolis he so frequently visited for trading goods, has changed. He describes the conditions in the metropolis to be atrocious, the conditions is hapless and there is non plenty to eat. “That such a great dearth exists throughout the whole of Italy is an obvious penalty from God.” He subsequently goes on to state “May our Lord have mercy on the hapless and send shortly a gracious betterment! Amen.” . Here once more we see how Balthasar understands that the epidemic is a penalty from God for their wickedness yet He is besides the lone 1 that can assist them.
Magdalena and Balthasar’s attitude towards faith can outdo be seen in this advertizement from a doctor in Nuremberg in 1562. The booklet was entitled “A Brief Introduction on How One Should Behave in Time of Plague.” This publication discussed the medical every bit good as religious safeguards that one should take during this clip of illness. “God gracefully wants to salvage and protect us in this unsafe clip of pestilence both by his sanctum angels and by his mending gifts of medical specialty, which he has created for our good harmonizing to his Godhead will and pleasure” . This twosome along with all of Nuremberg believed this as philosophy. The Lord had punished them with the pestilence but He had besides blessed them with medical specialty and doctors and a combination of both was the lone redemption they had from this merciless pestilence.
