Comets and plagues – Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Empire Chapter 43 Part 2

Comets and plagues - Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Empire Chapter 43 Part 2
A comet lighting up the sky was a portent
 

We are at the end of chapter 43 and we find Gibbon in full on enlightenment mode. The reign of Justinian happened to coincide with a couple of comets, some significant earthquakes and a major plague. Previous ages would have agreed with the Byzantines themselves and taken these as communications from God but Gibbon is a modern man and instead gives us the science. The plague was probably the biggest event in history since the fall of the western empire and had profound effects many of which are still being unpicked today.

Lost Kingdoms by Norman Davies – Aragon


The kingdom of Aragon was a major naval power in the Middle Ages. Its sailors skills at seacraft gave it power – and that power was used to carve out a maritime empire in the western Mediterranean.   Indeed its influence was felt in the eastern half of that sea as well. At its height it comprised in addition to its heartland on the southern side of the Pyrenees: Catalonia, Sardinia, Corsica, Athens, Sicily, Naples and the bit of Italy near to Naples and the Balearic Islands. Naples was no mean possession at the time. It was the largest port in the Western Mediterranean. There were several notable people of aragonese extraction who important figures in the late Middle Ages.