People began to fall ill quickly and the mortality rate rose steadily. In an attempt to save themselves from the Black Death, some people tried to watch their diet and seclude themselves. Others gave into temptation and threw caution to the wind. Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about life during the Black Death saying, “The scourge implanted so great a terror in the hearts of men and women that brothers abandoned brothers, uncles their nephews, sisters their brothers, and in many cases wives deserted their husbands.” What Boccaccio wrote that was even worse than was, “Fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their own children, as though they did not belong to them.” Children of all ages, young and older, were being left by their parents. Some parents left for fear of catching the illness from the children, some because they did not want to get their children sick, and some left because they were just so afraid. If the kids did not die from the Black Death, it was probably common that they died of …show more content…
It was more common for grandparents to leave more for their granddaughters in their will than parents to their daughters. An example of this is revealed to us in a will written for an elite wife during the Black Death. Phylippa, the wife of the butcher Philippinus Laurentii, left 40 lire to her two granddaughters and nothing to her grandsons. In her will she states, “ She leaves her daughter, Chadiana, 25 lire, which she can have after the death of her father, ordering Chadiana and the grandchildren Nicolaus and his siblings to be quiet and content with the legacies.” The legacies left to her grandsons are all that they have been granted by being named the universal heirs of both their mother and father. The will of Philippinus Laurentii, husband of Phylippa, also demonstrates this. In the will of Philippinus its states, “He leaves 50 lire for Zoleta, Cola, Bencevenis, and Nicolaus, his grandchildren and children of his deceased daughter and Francischinus de Medicis.” Grandparents left their grandchildren more in their will than they did for their children to make up for the little amount that the parents of the grandchildren left for