The plague took the lives of million of Europeans from the 14th until the 17th century. In England, its destruction stayed mainly in the south of England concentrating around the poor quarters of London. But for one small village in England’s rural north, the plague would be devastating and historic. The case of the small village of Eyam in Derbyshire is famed throughout England and serves in the modern age of an example of the importance of self quarantine in the face of deadly disease.
During that time, the small village of Eyam with a population of approximately 700 people lost 260 of its inhabitants to the plague. The plague affected 76 different families and wiped out a few of them forever. Many households had only a single survivor who lived to tell the tale of those terrible months. 
Though it today boasts a population of only 20,000, at its peak during the 14th century, the Bohemian town of Kutna Hora was the region’s second largest city next to the relative metropolis of Prague, some fifty miles away. In the subsequent centuries, that began to change as the city’s silver deposits ran dry and the consequences of the Thirty Years War decimated its populace.
While visitors the world over still visit Kutna Hora to marvel at one of Eastern Europe’s most lauded Gothic edifices, the Cathedral of St. Barbara, the town’s name has become virtually synonymous with its most well-known tourist attraction: the Chapel of All Saints adjoining the 14th century church, Nanebevzeti Panna Marie (“Church of the Assumption of the Virgin”) – which actually lies in the neighboring village of Sedlec, rather that Kutna Hora itself.
The gruesome saga of the Sedlec chapel begins in the 12th century, when Church orthodoxy scattered earth from Golgotha over their graveyard. Soon, throngs of nobility, anxious to secure burial beneath dirt culled from the site of Christ’s crucifixion, pushed the cemetery’s capacity to its limits. Burials continued abreast over the next three hundred years – through plague outbreaks and the Hussite wars - until the Church grounds grew to contain more than 40,000 graves.
In 1870, fearing unsanitary conditions (not to mention a lack of income from fresh burials), Church authorities commissioned local woodcarver Frantisek Rint to “do something creative” with the remains interred in the cemetery. Rising to the ghoulish challenge, Rint soon set about transforming the traditional chapel into an ossuary (known in the Czech language as a “kostnice”) – one that would come to be decorated with thousands upon thousands of human bones.
Using the remains of his countryman as his sole building material, Rint constructed four giant bells in each of the chapel’s four corners, an oversized coat of arms in tribute to Bohemia’s ruling aristocratic family, the Schwarzenbergs, and, at its center, a candle-bearing chandelier made out of every bone in the human body. Proud of his work to the last, Rist left his signature – in bone, of course – upon the steps of the chapel’s entrance.
Much like the catacombs of Paris, Kutna Hora’s Chapel of All Saints has come to be regarded as something of a masterful, albeit grisly, footnote in Europe’s grand architectural history. Despite its reputation as a ghastly tourist attraction, big business hasn’t been deterred from associating their name with the Czech township. Today, one of Kutna Hora’s largest employers happens to tobacco giant, Phillip Morris, which there operates one of its principal European processing facilities.
Tags: 14th Century, 1870, 40000 graves, Black Death, bohemia, Bootleg kits, Cathedral of St. Barbara, cemetery, Chapel of All Saints, church of human bones, Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, Cigar Barrel Humidors, Czech Republic history, Frantisek Rint, Golgotha, history of Czechoslovakia, History Store, human bone candelabra, kutna hora, medieval ossuary, Metal Model kits, Oak Barrels, ossuary at Nanebevzeti Panna Marie, Prague, Schwarzenbergs, sedlec kostnice, the plague
The term “Renaissance”, or rebirth, was coined by historians in the mid 19th century to describe the period in Western European history that was characterized by a resurgence of ideas, philosophies, and culture from the classical period. A golden age of cultural, intellectual and ideological movements occurred between roughly the early 14th to the late 16th century in Europe that drew on many elements of classical Greek and Roman history. From the decadence of the Middle Ages and the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church increasingly exerted a dominant influence on European life and became the defacto broker of power in Europe. So it was that within this cultural setting, the dominant ideas of the Renaissance emerged from the collection of city-states in Italy and proliferated throughout Europe via the well connected commercial routes of the time.
Florence, in particular, was emerging as a powerful city-state through its commercial strength as a textile producer and banking center. Its burgeoning economy and growing mercantile class made it a focal point for the cultural transformations that would be associated with the Renaissance. The fall of the Byzantine Empire also fueled change in Western Europe as exiled Greek scholars established themselves in the west, bringing with them copies of classical philosophical texts, literature, and salvaged art works and opening to the Europeans a door to the riches of the classical Greek and Roman periods that had been lost through the centuries of internal tribal warfare and barbaric invasions.
Money from the new middle classes went towards commissioning artists and architects to create masterpieces in quantity and scale unmatched till then. Artists such as Giotto, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Lippi, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Lotto, da Vinci, Michelangelo, to name a few, elevated art to a new level and form of cultural expression. The Renaissance began to flourish in the kingdoms to the north of Florence as well, with new ideas and momentum of change spreading along trade routes. Venetian Italy and the regions of the Netherlands also were transformed by new ideas, aesthetics, and commerce.
The word diamond is derived from the Greek word ‘adamao’ meaning to ‘overcome’ or ‘tame’ and the word ‘adamas’ was used by the Greeks in reference to what was considered the hardest substance known to man. In fashion history, the diamond has taken its place as a symbol of luxury as much as of strength and perseverance and has become both a symbol of unique beauty as well as a common expression of certain universal ideas.
The use of diamonds as ornament as well as tools date back considerably earlier and further East. In Indian Sanskrit religious texts dating to the 4th century B.C.E. reference is made to diamonds and the octahedron ideal that would reflect light in such a manner as to simulate a lightning bolt. Remnants of diamond drilling and engraving tools have also been found, dating to as early as the 8th century C.E. and give proof to an appreciation for the natural qualities of the diamond as well as to the evolution of a technology to manipulate its natural form.
By the early 1500’s fashions in Western Europe had developed to the extent that extreme trends abounded both in clothing and in shoe styles. The pointed-toe poulaines, with points sometimes reaching such lengths that the tips were tied to the wearer’s knees with a strap, were one such shoe form and the chopines, or platform shoe, was another. The sole of the chopine was extremely exaggerated in height and would raise the wearer in status and stature with platforms made from wood or cork.
The origin of chopines is somewhat disputed, with notions that it originated as a European trend through Venice, which was geographically more exposed to eastern influences (and much of the embellished forms of European dress between the 14th and 16th centuries arose from this exposure) or that it stemmed from the Iberian peninsula, where cork was abundant. Whichever may be the case, it is certain that Venetians adopted the chopine with much enthusiasm as can be seen in multiple art historical examples as well as surviving examples of the shoe.
Venetian women were known for their sophisticated and luxurious costume as Venice was a thriving center for a growing mercantile class that bridged the cultures of east and west through trade and commerce. Interestingly, not only did Venetian woman of the patrician class display the commercial riches of the time period but so did the Venetian courtesan, who in many ways held a unique position in society. Venetian courtesans established themselves in society as a class apart from other women but in a manner that often elevated them in their associations with the male elite: they were often educated and cultured and carried themselves in such a manner that would scarcely differentiate them from the nobility.
