The Plague of 1636 in the Burggrafenamt

Appendix.

History. 2/2

(Conclusion.)

While the two municipalities still spared harbored comforting expectations owing to their location, climate, and strict regulations, in late spring 1636 the local women noticed that yellow and greenish spots remained on the white laundry hung out to dry; the atmosphere was sultry, the sun shone constantly as if through a veil, the breath of plague had already imparted itself to the air, and now the epidemic joined its ghastly hands from Vinschgau and Etschland across Naturns and Partschins. On Corpus Christi 1636, the first traces appeared in the latter municipality. The parish church was thereupon closed until the Feast of All Saints. The number of victims cannot be given, because the parish priest, Johann Heß, kept no death register during his entire tenure from 1635 to 1648. However, it is known that every house had its dead, with the exception of the Greit mountain farm, whose owner, Hans Kollmann, maintained a constant juniper wood fire in the parlor, thereby preserving himself and all his household from infection.

In Meran in the year 1636, only nine deaths from the plague were recorded, and these between June 5 and August 20; probably those who succumbed to the epidemic outside the town, in the hospital and pest-house, were not included. It gradually subsided with the onset of winter 1636, and in the year 1637 it had completely disappeared. From that time onward, this scourge was felt no more.