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Gamma World

Gamma World is a post-apocalyptic science fantasy role-playing game in which player characters explore Earth centuries after the collapse of civilization, searching for artifacts from the time before "The Great Upheaval". The game was originally designed by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet, and first published by TSR in 1978. It borrows heavily from Ward's earlier role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha.

Setting
Gamma World takes place in the mid-25th century, more than a century after a second nuclear war had destroyed human civilization. The war that destroyed civilization in Gamma World is only vaguely described in most editions of the game, and what details are provided change from version to version: Later versions altered the reason for the collapse. All editions, however, agree that the cataclysm destroyed all government and society beyond a village scale, plunging the world into a Dark Age. In many editions of the game, technology is at best quasi-medieval (in the first edition, the crossbow is described as "the ultimate weapon" for most Gamma World societies). Some, such as the 2003 and, to a lesser degree the 2010 edition, feature advanced technology that is well known and often easily available. In contrast, super-science artifacts in earlier editions were risky to use due to the average Gamma World character not knowing how to properly operate such devices, or possibly even what the device is at all. The post-apocalyptic inhabitants of Earth now refer to their planet as "Gamma World" (or "Gamma Terra" in later editions).
 * The first two editions explained that ever-increasing material prosperity and leisure had led to ever-more radical and violent social movements, culminating in a final war in the years AD 2309–2322, and ascribe the final annihilation to a terrorist group called "The Apocalypse" and the ensuing retaliation by surviving factions.
 * The 2000 Alternity version is due to alien arrival and nuclear response.
 * The 2003 d20 Modern iteration is due to rampant use of nanotechnology and AI.
 * The 2010 edition attributes the destruction of civilization to the activation of the Large Hadron Collider, which caused multiple realities to exchange features in an event known as "The Big Mistake".

Gamma World is a chaotic, dangerous environment that little resembles pre-apocalyptic Earth. The weapons unleashed during the final war were strong enough to alter coastlines, level cities, and leave large areas of land lethally radioactive. These future weapons bathed the surviving life of Earth in unspecified forms of radiation and biochemical agents, producing widespread, permanent mutations among humans, animals, and plants. As a result, fantastic mutations such as extra limbs, super strength, and psychic powers are relatively common. (Random tables of such improbable mutations are a hallmark of every edition of Gamma World.) Many animals and plants are sentient, semi-civilized species competing with surviving humans. Both humans and non-humans have lost most knowledge of the pre-war humans, whom Gamma World's inhabitants refer to as "the Ancients". The only group with significant knowledge of the Ancients are isolated robots and other artificial intelligences that survived the war—though these machines tend to be damaged, in ill repair, or hostile to organic beings.

Gamma World player characters include unmutated humans (referred to as "Pure Strain Humans" in most editions), mutated humans, sentient animals or plants, and androids. Characters explore ruins and strange post-apocalyptic societies to gain knowledge of the Ancients and social status for themselves. Common adventure themes involve protecting fragile post-apocalypse societies, retrieving Ancient "artifacts" (science fiction gadgetry such as power armor, laser pistols, and anti-grav sleds), or mere survival against the multifarious dangers of the future (such as gun-toting mutant rabbits, rampaging ancient death machines, or other Gamma Worlders bent on mayhem).

A recurrent source of conflict on Gamma World is the rivalry among the "Cryptic Alliances", semi-secret societies whose ideological agendas—usually verging on monomania—often bring them into conflict with the rest of the Gamma World. For example, the Pure Strain Human "Knights of Genetic Purity" seek to exterminate all mutants, while the all-mutant "Iron Society" wants to eliminate unmutated humans. Other rivalries involve attitudes towards Ancient technology, with some Alliances (such as "The Restorationists") seeking to rebuild Ancient society, while others (such as "The Seekers") want to destroy remaining artifacts.

System
Throughout the game's many editions, Gamma World has almost always remained strongly compatible with the then-current edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Attribute generation is much the same for instance with a range of 3 to 18, randomly generated by rolling three six-sided dice. The attributes themselves are the same, but with occasional name changes such as Physical Strength instead of Strength and Mental Strength instead of Wisdom. This allows Gamma World and D&D characters to potentially cross over genres.

Character generation is mostly random, and features one of the game's most distinctive mechanics, the mutation tables. Players who choose to play mutants roll dice to randomly determine their characters' mutations. All versions of Gamma World eschew a realistic portrayal of genetic mutation to one degree or another, instead giving characters fantastic abilities like psychic powers, laser beams, force fields, life draining and others. Other mutations are extensions or extremes of naturally existing features transposed from different species, such as electrical generation, infravision, quills, extra limbs, dual brains, carapaces, gills, etc. These were offset with defects that also ranged from the fantastical—such as skin that dissolves in water, or a scent that attracts monsters—to the mundane, such as seizures, madness and phobias.

Characters in most versions of Gamma World earn experience points during their adventures, which cause the character's Rank (in some editions, Level) to increase. Unlike D&D, however, the first two editions of Gamma World do not use a concept of true level or character class, and increases in Rank do not affect the character's skills or combat abilities. In fact, in the first three editions of the game, character rank is primarily a measure of the character's social prestige.

The game mechanics used for resolving character actions, on the other hand, greatly varied between Gamma World editions. The first two editions, like the early editions of D&D, depend heavily on matrix-based mechanics, where two factors (one representing the actor or attacker, and one representing the opponent) are cross-referenced on a chart. For some actions, such as attacks, the number located on the matrix represents a number the acting player must roll. For other actions (such as determining the result of radiation exposure), the matrix result indicates a non-negotiable result. Gamma World's first two editions had a variety of specialized matrices for different situations (again, closely resembling D&D).

The third edition rules replace specialized matrices with the Action Control Table (ACT), a single, color-coded chart that allowed players to determine whether a character action succeeded, and the degree of success, with a single roll. (The ACT concept is drawn from the Marvel Super Heroes game published by TSR shortly before development of Gamma World ' s third edition.) The ACT requires the referee to cross-reference the difficulty of a character action with the ability score used to complete that action, determining which column of the ACT is used for that action. The character's player then rolls percentile dice; the result is compared to appropriate column, determining a degree of success or failure and eliminating the need for second result roll (e.g. the damage roll that many games require after a successful combat action).

The fourth edition was directly compatible with 2nd Edition AD&D with some minor differences in mechanics. The fifth and sixth editions though would relegate Gamma World to that of a Campaign Setting and require the core books to play. 5th uses the Alternity system which is mostly represented in the book but required the core rules in order to resolve some factors. 6th Edition though was fully incomplete on its own and required the d20 Modern rulebook in order to play the game.

The seventh version uses a streamlined version of D&D 4th edition mechanics. Character generation choice though was nearly fully removed. Instead of choosing a character class, a player had to roll a twenty-sided die two times and consult an accompanying character origin table. For example, a player might obtain the result "Radioactive Yeti" and gain the powers associated with the "Radioactive" and "Yeti" origins. Attributes, mutations, and skills were also randomly assigned. Two decks of cards comprising the core of a Collectible Card Game are included with the game. One deck represented random Alpha Mutations, which could be drawn to gain temporary powers, and the other contained various Omega Tech, powerful technological devices that could possibly backfire on those that used them. Some 4th edition rules enhancements for the setting include new damage types such as "Radiation", Gamma World-specific skills, and increased lethality. Despite these differences, it is possible to use characters and monsters from a D&D game in Gamma World and vice versa.

First Edition (1978)
The original Gamma World boxed set (containing a 56-page rulebook, a map of a devastated North America, and dice) was released in 1978. TSR went on to publish three accessories for the 1st edition of the game:

 * GW1, Legion of Gold by Gary Gygax, Luke Gygax, and Paul Reiche III
 * GW2, Famine in Far-Go by Michael Price
 * Gamma World Referee's Screen

Grenadier Miniatures also supported the game, with a line of licensed miniatures.

At least one other TSR product was announced -- Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega, an adaptation of Metamorphosis Alpha's campaign setting to Gamma World's rules (Anon 1981). Work on the adaptation was halted when a 2nd edition of Gamma World was announced. This was later released as Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega using the Amazing Engine Rules.

Second Edition (1983)
The second edition Gamma World boxed set (with rules designed by Ward, Jaquet, and David James Ritchie) was released in 1983. Two modules and two accessories were released for this version:

 * GW3, The Cleansing War of Garik Blackhand by Michael Pierre Price and Garry Spiegle
 * GW4, The Mind Masters by Philip Taterczynski
 * GWAC1, Gamma World Referee's Screen and Mini-Module
 * GWAC2, Gamma World Character Sheets

TSR also produced four packs of Gamma World miniatures. TSR started production on a third adventure module, which was to be assigned the identification code GW5 and had the working title Rapture of the Deep. This module was not published. However, a 'ghost' Second Edition GW5 Rapture of the Deep module was produced in 2007.

Third Edition (1986)
The 3rd edition of Gamma World was another boxed set, credited to James M. Ward. It introduced the Action Control Table, a color-coded table used to resolve nearly all actions in the game. (Color-coded tables were something of a trend at TSR in the mid-1980s. After 1984's Marvel Super Heroes proved the viability of the concept, TSR revised Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret to use similar tables.) Unfortunately for TSR, this version of the rules became notorious for the number of editorial mistakes, including cross-references to rules that didn't appear in the boxed set. The errors were serious enough that TSR published a Gamma World Rules Supplement containing the "missing" rules. The Rules Supplement was sent to gamers who requested it by mail, and included in reprintings of the boxed set.

The five modules TSR published for Gamma World's 3rd edition introduced the setting's first multi-module metaplot, which involved rebuilding an ancient 'sky chariot':

 * GW6, Alpha Factor by Kim Eastland
 * GW7, Beta Principle by Bruce Nesmith
 * GW8, Gamma Base by Kim Eastland
 * GW9, Delta Fragment by Kim Eastland
 * GW10, Epsilon Cyborgs by Kim Eastland

TSR dropped the 3rd edition of Gamma World from its product line before the multi-module storyline could be completed. In 2003 an unofficial conclusion to the series was published under the title GW11 Omega Project.

Despite its editorial issues, the 3rd edition rules were well-received enough to win the 1986/1987 Gamer's Choice Award for "Best Science-Fiction Roleplaying Game".

Scott Taylor of Black Gate in 2015 rated the GW6-GW10 series as #7 in "The Top 10 Campaign Adventure Module Series of All Time, saying "if you are ever in the mood to crack out Gamma World, or just have a great campaign setting for any post-apocalyptic campaign, this super series could be for you."

Fourth Edition (1992)
The 4th edition of Gamma World was a 192-page softcover book, written by Bruce Nesmith and James M. Ward, published in May 1992 by TSR. This version of the game abandoned the 3rd edition's Action Control Table for mechanics resembling 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. TSR published five accessories for the 4th edition:

 * GWA1, Treasures of the Ancients by Dale "Slade" Henson (ISBN 1-56076-577-1)
 * GWA2, The Overlord of Bonparr by Jack A. Barker (ISBN 1-56076-599-2)
 * GWQ1, Mutant Master by Bruce Nesmith (ISBN 1-56076-411-2)
 * GWQ2, All Animals Are Equal by Dale "Slade" Henson (ISBN 1-56076-638-7)
 * GWQ3, Home Before the Sky Falls by Tim Beach, Paul Riegel, Drew Bittner, and Kim Eastland (ISBN 1-56076-674-3)

TSR's Gamma World development team announced at Gen Con 1993 that no further products would be released for the 4th edition. They also announced that TSR had restarted development of Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega, but that the manuscript would be completed using the Amazing Engine rules.

Fifth Edition (2000)
The 5th version of Gamma World was a supplement for the science-fiction game Alternity. (In a nod to Gamma World's reputation for being repeatedly revised, the book's back cover states "That's right, it's the return of the Gamma World".) The Gamma World Campaign Setting (ISBN 0-7869-1629-X) was a 192-page softcover book written by Andy Collins and Jeff Grubb, published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), only a month after WOTC announced its cancellation of the Alternity line. This version of Gamma World is unique as the only one not to have accessories or supplements.

Omega World (2002)
In September 2002, Omega World, a d20 System mini-game based on Gamma World and written by Jonathan Tweet, was published in Dungeon 94/Polyhedron 153. Tweet does not plan any expansions for the game, although it received a warm reception from Gamma World fans and players new to the concept alike.

Sixth Edition (2003)
In November 2002, Sword & Sorcery Studios (SSS) announced that it had licensed the Gamma World setting from WOTC in order to produce a sixth version of the game. SSS's version of the game, which reached the market in 2003, used the d20 Modern system, and mimicked D&D's "three core book" model with three hardcover manuals:

 * Gamma World Player's Handbook by Bruce Baugh, Ian Eller, Mikko Rautalahti, and Geoff Skellams
 * Gamma World Game Master's Guide by Bruce Baugh, Werner Hager, Lizard, and Doug Oglesby
 * Gamma World Machines and Mutants by David Bolack, Gareth Hanrahan, Patrick O'Duffy, and Chuck Wendig

Sword & Sorcery Studios also published three paperback supplements for the d20 version of Gamma World:

 * Gamma World Beyond the Horizon by Ellen Kiley
 * Gamma World Cryptic Alliances and Unknown Enemies by Owen K.C. Stephens, Alejandro Melchor, and Geoff Skellams
 * Gamma World Out of the Vaults by James Maliszewski, John Snead, and Ellen P. Kiley

This new version of the game presented a more sober and serious approach to the concept of a post-nuclear world, at odds with the more light-hearted and adventurous approach taken by previous editions; it was also the first edition of the game to include fantastical nanotechnology on a large scale. In August 2005, White Wolf announced that it was reverting the rights to publish Gamma World products back to Wizards of the Coast, putting the game out of print again. Several critics and fans considered Tweet's Omega World to be a superior d20 System treatment of the Gamma World concept.

Seventh Edition (2010)
At the Dungeons & Dragons Experience fan convention in early 2010, Wizards of the Coast announced a new version titled D&D Gamma World, eventually released in October of that year. The game is compatible with the D&D 4th Edition rules and the System Reference Document, but is not considered a separate D&D setting.

The basic box included 80 non-random cards. In addition, random "boosters" of "Alpha Mutation" and "Omega Tech" cards for players are sold separately in packs of eight.

This edition of Gamma World includes the following three boxed sets (one core set and two expansion kits):
 * D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game by Richard Baker and Bruce R. Cordell
 * D&D Gamma World Expansion Kit: Famine in Far-go by Robert J. Schwalb
 * D&D Gamma World Expansion Kit: Legion of Gold by Richard Baker and Bruce Cordell

Additional content was released for the 7th Edition of Gamma World at Game Day 2010 and at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo, Trouble in Freesboro and Pax Extraterrestria respectively. In addition, a Christmas themed adventure and vehicular combat rules were released online.

Additionally, two novels were published in the setting. Sooner Dead by Mel Odom was published February 1, 2011, and Red Sails in the Fallout by Paul Kidd, published July 5, 2011.

Reception
In Issue 41 of Moves, Steve List reviewed the first edition and commented, "Gamma World is not a game for those who take their science fiction, science, or technology seriously, but it is a good set of rules for role-playing, provided an energetic referee can be found to run the show."

Don Turnbull reviewed the first edition of Gamma World for White Dwarf #10, giving it an overall rating of 9 out of 10, and stated that "Gamma World is good quality - let there be no mistake. This has not been thrown together in haste by earnest amateurs over glasses of cheap booze. It is a thoroughly professional job which deserves a place on the shelf (and the playing table) of anyone remotely interested in the science fiction game-setting."

In the 1979 book The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games, John Jackson reviewed the first edition, and noted that "Gama World could draw on a hundred science-fiction novels for material. It seems to be better organized than its cousin [Metamorphosis Alpha''], and the campaign map of an altered America is almost worth the cost of the game itself."

Ronald Pehr reviewed the first edition of Gamma World in The Space Gamer No. 32 and commented "If you liked its progenitors, Gamma World is an interesting variant. Beginning players should find it easy to learn, and referees are challenged to create a playable, balanced world. It's somewhat expensive and the sudden-death power of futuristic weaponry and the lack of character 'levels' may put you off, but if the basic premise is appealing you'll probably enjoy Gamma World."

In the July 1980 issue of Fantastic Science Fiction, Greg Costikyan called the rules of the first edition "reasonably well written, if poorly organized; they are sufficient to base a campaign upon." However, Costikyan was appalled by the lack of hard science, calling the game "idiotic pseudo-science". Costikyan concluded, "I'm surprised that even TSR would attempt to foist junk like Gamma World off on an unsuspecting public."

In the 1980 book The Complete Book of Wargames, game designer Jon Freeman reviewed the first edition and commented, "This is in every sense an improved version of Metamorphosis Alpha. Rules have been tightened and elaborated, and the organization is clearly superior." Freeman concluded, "While it's not quite as open-ended in scope as Dungeons & Dragons, it has plenty of potential. It's hardly flawless, but Gamma World is one of the best things TSR has produced."

In Issue 11 of the French games magazine Jeu et Stratégie, Michel Brassinne found the game mechanics only ordinary, but noted "the mutation table is a gem worth its weight in gold, it is indeed sometimes hilarious." Brassinne pointed out that because of similarities in rules, this game could theoretically be combined with other TSR games such as AD&D, but he warned, "be careful, because this is not a walk of pleasure — I experienced it with characters from D&D and I can assure you that I will not do it again soon." Brassinne concluded, "Given dice, cards, modules, pencils and time, the result will be long, exciting sleepless nights."

Chris Baylis reviewed the second edition for Imagine magazine, and stated that "For a post nuclear holocaust role-playing game, Gamma World game has just about all the right ingredients, in the correct proportions. It is a very good introduction into the fantasy world of role-playing, and should seriously rival all other RPGs."

In the August 1984 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, Dana Lombardy called the redesign of the 2nd edition "so extensive it should be considered a new game ... Gamma World offers one of the more bizarre and hostile environments to role-play in." Lombardy did note that "the technology is disjointed. You can have a dog-man with a spear fighting alongside a robot with a laser, allied against humanoids with pistols and swords." Lombardy concluded, "If you prefer more straightforward science fiction with known and approximately equal abilities and weapons, then Gamma World may not be for you. It's a topsy-turvy world, where the average pure-strain human is hard-pressed to exist among plants and animals mutated by humanity's wars. But if you like a challenge, and want to role-play something really different — Gamma World could be it."

In Issue 37 of the French games magazine Casus Belli, Denis Beck found many improvements in the third edition, writing, "Even if Gamma World sometimes reminds us of a transposition of AD&D into the future, this new version — where we do not find the many problems that handicapped the previous editions — really looks good alongside other post-apocalypse games." Beck concluded, "It may not be the game of the year, but fans of The Great Upheaval will find plenty to enjoy here."

In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan reviewed the 3rd edition and commented "Though Gamma World may sound like a loony-bin version of Twilight: 2000, it makes for some exciting adventures as the PCs explore a high-tech wonderland of mysterious landmarks and artifacts". Swan concluded by giving the game a rating of 3 out of 4, saying, "It's a bang-up job [...] that is, if you don't take your nuclear holocausts too seriously."

Scott Taylor for Black Gate in 2013 rated Gamma World as #8 in the top ten role-playing games of all time, saying "There seems to be an innate fascination with the end of the world, be it from a global thermal nuclear war, zombie outbreak, alien invasion, or super-bug and Gamma World finds a way to bring the fantastic to this type of setting. It has survived seven editions and three companies, but still, Gamma World remains a fun and functional game in the current RPG marketplace."

Other reviews and commentary

 * White Wolf #36 (1993)

Cancelled video game
In 2011, a video game adaptation was announced at E3 called Gamma World: Alpha Mutation for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. It was to be developed by Bedlam Games and published by Atari. Unfortunately, due to unknown reasons, it was cancelled.

Legacy
The Swedish role playing game Mutant, released in 1984 by Äventyrsspel, was first pitched to its future writer as "Gamma World, set in Sweden".

The post-apocalyptic premise of the 1997 computer game Fallout was inspired by Gamma World. Game creator Tim Cain said it was not the most balanced RPG but it had a good spirit to it.

Gamma World was cited as a source of inspiration for the procedurally generated word-building in Caves of Qud.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gamma World


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Grimoire

A grimoire (also known as a "book of spells", "magic book", or a "spellbook") is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons. In many cases, the books themselves are believed to be imbued with magical powers. The only contents found in a grimoire would be information on spells, rituals, the preparation of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondences. In this manner, while all books on magic could be thought of as grimoires, not all magical books should be thought of as grimoires.

While the term grimoire is originally European—and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, have used grimoires—the historian Owen Davies has noted that similar books can be found all around the world, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra. He also noted that in this sense, the world's first grimoires were created in Europe and the ancient Near East.

Etymology
The etymology of grimoire is unclear. It is most commonly believed that the term grimoire originated from the Old French word grammaire 'grammar', which had initially been used to refer to all books written in Latin. By the 18th century, the term had gained its now common usage in France and had begun to be used to refer purely to books of magic. Owen Davies presumed this was because "many of them continued to circulate in Latin manuscripts".

However, the term grimoire later developed into a figure of speech among the French indicating something that was hard to understand. In the 19th century, with the increasing interest in occultism among the British following the publication of Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801), the term entered English in reference to books of magic.

Ancient period

The earliest known written magical incantations come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where they have been found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets that archaeologists excavated from the city of Uruk and dated to between the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The ancient Egyptians also employed magical incantations, which have been found inscribed on amulets and other items. The Egyptian magical system, known as heka, was greatly altered and expanded after the Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great, invaded Egypt in 332 BC.

Under the next three centuries of Hellenistic Egypt, the Coptic writing system evolved, and the Library of Alexandria was opened. This likely had an influence upon books of magic, with the trend on known incantations switching from simple health and protection charms to more specific things, such as financial success and sexual fulfillment. Around this time the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus developed as a conflation of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes; this figure was associated with writing and magic and, therefore, of books on magic.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that books on magic were invented by the Persians. The 1st-century AD writer Pliny the Elder stated that magic had been first discovered by the ancient philosopher Zoroaster around the year 647 BC but that it was only written down in the 5th century BC by the magician Osthanes. His claims are not, however, supported by modern historians.

The ancient Jewish people were often viewed as being knowledgeable in magic, which, according to legend, they had learned from Moses, who had learned it in Egypt. Among many ancient writers, Moses was seen as an Egyptian rather than a Jew. Two manuscripts likely dating to the 4th century, both of which purport to be the legendary eighth Book of Moses (the first five being the initial books in the Biblical Old Testament), present him as a polytheist who explained how to conjure gods and subdue demons.

Meanwhile, there is definite evidence of grimoires being used by certain—particularly Gnostic—sects of early Christianity. In the Book of Enoch found within the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, there is information on astrology and the angels. In possible connection with the Book of Enoch, the idea of Enoch and his great-grandson Noah having some involvement with books of magic given to them by angels continued through to the medieval period.

Israelite King Solomon was a Biblical figure associated with magic and sorcery in the ancient world. The 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus mentioned a book circulating under the name of Solomon that contained incantations for summoning demons and described how a Jew called Eleazar used it to cure cases of possession. The book may have been the Testament of Solomon but was more probably a different work. The pseudepigraphic Testament of Solomon is one of the oldest magical texts. It is a Greek manuscript attributed to Solomon and was likely written in either Babylonia or Egypt sometime in the first five centuries AD; over 1,000 years after Solomon's death.

The work tells of the building of The Temple and relates that construction was hampered by demons until the archangel Michael gave the King a magical ring. The ring, engraved with the Seal of Solomon, had the power to bind demons from doing harm. Solomon used it to lock demons in jars and commanded others to do his bidding, although eventually, according to the Testament, he was tempted into worshiping "false gods", such as Moloch, Baal, and Rapha. Subsequently, after losing favour with God, King Solomon wrote the work as a warning and a guide to the reader.

When Christianity became the dominant faith of the Roman Empire, the early Church frowned upon the propagation of books on magic, connecting it with paganism, and burned books of magic. The New Testament records that after the unsuccessful exorcism by the seven sons of Sceva became known, many converts decided to burn their own magic and pagan books in the city of Ephesus; this advice was adopted on a large scale after the Christian ascent to power.

Medieval period
In the Medieval period, the production of grimoires continued in Christendom, as well as amongst Jews and the followers of the newly founded Islamic faith. As the historian Owen Davies noted, "while the [Christian] Church was ultimately successful in defeating pagan worship it never managed to demarcate clearly and maintain a line of practice between religious devotion and magic." The use of such books on magic continued. In Christianised Europe, the Church divided books of magic into two kinds: those that dealt with "natural magic" and those that dealt in "demonic magic".

The former was acceptable because it was viewed as merely taking note of the powers in nature that were created by God; for instance, the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks, which contained simple spells for medicinal purposes, were tolerated. Demonic magic was not acceptable, because it was believed that such magic did not come from God, but from the Devil and his demons. These grimoires dealt in such topics as necromancy, divination and demonology. Despite this, "there is ample evidence that the mediaeval clergy were the main practitioners of magic and therefore the owners, transcribers, and circulators of grimoires," while several grimoires were attributed to Popes.

One such Arabic grimoire devoted to astral magic, the 10th-century Ghâyat al-Hakîm, was later translated into Latin and circulated in Europe during the 13th century under the name of the Picatrix. However, not all such grimoires of this era were based upon Arabic sources. The 13th-century Sworn Book of Honorius, for instance, was (like the ancient Testament of Solomon before it) largely based on the supposed teachings of the Biblical king Solomon and included ideas such as prayers and a ritual circle, with the mystical purpose of having visions of God, Hell, and Purgatory and gaining much wisdom and knowledge as a result. Another was the Hebrew Sefer Raziel Ha-Malakh, translated in Europe as the Liber Razielis Archangeli.

A later book also claiming to have been written by Solomon was originally written in Greek during the 15th century, where it was known as the Magical Treatise of Solomon or the Little Key of the Whole Art of Hygromancy, Found by Several Craftsmen and by the Holy Prophet Solomon. In the 16th century, this work had been translated into Latin and Italian, being renamed the Clavicula Salomonis, or the Key of Solomon.

In Christendom during the medieval age, grimoires were written that were attributed to other ancient figures, thereby supposedly giving them a sense of authenticity because of their antiquity. The German abbot and occultist Trithemius (1462–1516) supposedly had a Book of Simon the Magician, based upon the New Testament figure of Simon Magus.

Similarly, it was commonly believed by medieval people that other ancient figures, such as the poet Virgil, astronomer Ptolemy, and philosopher Aristotle, had been involved in magic, and grimoires claiming to have been written by them were circulated. However, there were those who did not believe this; for instance, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon (c. 1214–94) stated that books falsely claiming to be by ancient authors "ought to be prohibited by law."

Early modern period
As the early modern period commenced in the late 15th century, many changes began to shock Europe that would have an effect on the production of grimoires. Historian Owen Davies classed the most important of these as the Protestant Reformation, and subsequent Catholic Counter-Reformation; The Witch-hunts, and the advent of printing. The Renaissance saw the continuation of interest in magic that had been found in the Medieval period, and in this period, there was an increased interest in Hermeticism among occultists and ceremonial magicians in Europe, largely fueled by the 1471 translation of the ancient Corpus hermeticum into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99).

Alongside this, there was a rise in interest in the Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah, which was spread across the continent by Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin. The most important magician of the Renaissance was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), who widely studied occult topics and earlier grimoires and eventually published his own, the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, in 1533. A similar figure was the Swiss magician known as Paracelsus (1493–1541), who published Of the Supreme Mysteries of Nature, in which he emphasised the distinction between good and bad magic. A third such individual was Johann Georg Faust, upon whom several pieces of later literature were written, such as Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, that portrayed him as consulting with demons.

The idea of demonology had remained strong in the Renaissance, and several demonological grimoires were published, including The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, which falsely claimed to having been authored by Cornelius Agrippa, and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which listed 69 demons. To counter this, the Roman Catholic Church authorised the production of many works of exorcism, the rituals of which were often very similar to those of demonic conjuration. Alongside these demonological works, grimoires on natural magic continued to be produced, including Magia Naturalis, written by Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615).

Iceland held magical traditions in regional work as well, most remarkably the Galdrabók, where numerous symbols of mystic origin are dedicated to the practitioner. These pieces give a perfect fusion of Germanic pagan and Christian influence, seeking splendid help from the Norse gods and referring to the titles of demons.

The advent of printing in Europe meant that books could be mass-produced for the first time and could reach an ever-growing literate audience. Among the earliest books to be printed were magical texts. The nóminas were one example, consisting of prayers to the saints used as talismans. It was particularly in Protestant countries, such as Switzerland and the German states, which were not under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, where such grimoires were published.

Despite the advent of print, however, handwritten grimoires remained highly valued, as they were believed to contain inherent magical powers, and they continued to be produced. With increasing availability, people lower down the social scale and women began to have access to books on magic; this was often incorporated into the popular folk magic of the average people and, in particular, that of the cunning folk, who were professionally involved in folk magic. These works left Europe and were imported to the parts of Latin America controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the parts of North America controlled by the British and French empires.

Throughout this period, the Inquisition, a Roman Catholic organisation, had organised the mass suppression of peoples and beliefs that they considered heretical. In many cases, grimoires were found in the heretics' possessions and destroyed. In 1599, the church published the Indexes of Prohibited Books, in which many grimoires were listed as forbidden, including several mediaeval ones, such as the Key of Solomon, which were still popular.

In Christendom, there also began to develop a widespread fear of witchcraft, which was believed to be Satanic in nature. The subsequent hysteria, known as The Witch-hunts, caused the death of around 40,000 people, most of whom were women. Sometimes, those found with grimoires—particularly demonological ones—were prosecuted and dealt with as witches but, in most cases, those accused had no access to such books. Iceland—which had a relatively high literacy rate—proved an exception to this, with a third of the 134 witch trials held involving people who had owned grimoires. By the end of the Early Modern period, and the beginning of the Enlightenment, many European governments brought in laws prohibiting many superstitious beliefs in an attempt to bring an end to the Witch Hunts; this would invariably affect the release of grimoires.

Meanwhile, Hermeticism and the Kabbalah would influence the creation of a mystical philosophy known as Rosicrucianism, which first appeared in the early 17th century, when two pamphlets detailing the existence of the mysterious Rosicrucian group were published in Germany. These claimed that Rosicrucianism had originated with a Medieval figure known as Christian Rosenkreuz, who had founded the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross; however, there was no evidence for the existence of Rosenkreuz or the Brotherhood.

18th and 19th centuries
The 18th century saw the rise of the Enlightenment, a movement devoted to science and rationalism, predominantly amongst the ruling classes. However, amongst much of Europe, belief in magic and witchcraft persisted, as did the witch trials in certain areas. Governments tried to crack down on magicians and fortune tellers, particularly in France, where the police viewed them as social pests who took money from the gullible, often in a search for treasure. In doing so, they confiscated many grimoires.

Beginning in the 17th century, a new, ephemeral form of printed literature developed in France; the Bibliothèque bleue. Many grimoires published through this circulated among a growing percentage of the populace; in particular, the Grand Albert, the Petit Albert (1782), the Grimoire du Pape Honorius, and the Enchiridion Leonis Papae. The Petit Albert contained a wide variety of magic; for instance, dealing in simple charms for ailments, along with more complex things, such as the instructions for making a Hand of Glory.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, following the French Revolution of 1789, a hugely influential grimoire was published under the title of the Grand Grimoire, which was considered particularly powerful, because it involved conjuring and making a pact with the devil's chief minister, Lucifugé Rofocale, to gain wealth from him. A new version of this grimoire was later published under the title of the Dragon rouge and was available for sale in many Parisian bookstores. Similar books published in France at this time included the Black Pullet and the Grimoirium Verum. The Black Pullet, probably authored in late-18th-century Rome or France, differs from the typical grimoires in that it does not claim to be a manuscript from antiquity, but told by a man who was a member of Napoleon's armed expeditionary forces in Egypt.

The widespread availability of printed grimoires in France—despite the opposition of both the rationalists and the church—soon spread to neighbouring countries, such as Spain and Germany. In Switzerland, Geneva was commonly associated with the occult at the time, particularly by Catholics, because it had been a stronghold of Protestantism. Many of those interested in the esoteric traveled from Roman Catholic nations to Switzerland to purchase grimoires or to study with occultists. Soon, grimoires appeared that involved Catholic saints; one example that appeared during the 19th century, and became relatively popular—particularly in Spain—was the Libro de San Cipriano, or The Book of St. Ciprian, which falsely claimed to date from c. 1000. As with most grimoires of this period, it dealt with (among other things) how to discover treasure.

In Germany, with the increased interest in folklore during the 19th century, many historians took an interest in magic and in grimoires. Several published extracts of such grimoires in their own books on the history of magic, thereby helping to further propagate them. Perhaps the most notable of these was the Protestant pastor Georg Conrad Horst (1779–1832) who, from 1821 to 1826, published a six-volume collection of magical texts in which he studied grimoires as a peculiarity of the Medieval mindset.

Another scholar of the time interested in grimoires, the antiquarian bookseller Johann Scheible first published the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses; two influential magical texts that claimed to have been written by the ancient Jewish figure Moses. The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were among the works which later spread to the countries of Scandinavia, where—in Danish and Swedish—grimoires were known as black books and were commonly found among members of the army.

In Britain, new grimoires continued to be produced throughout the 18th century, such as Ebenezer Sibly's A New and Complete Illustration of the Celestial Science of Astrology. In the last decades of that century, London experienced a revival of interest in the occult which was further propagated by Francis Barrett's publication of The Magus in 1801. The Magus contained many things taken from older grimoires—particularly those of Cornelius Agrippa—and, while not achieving initial popularity upon release, it gradually became an influential text.

One of Barrett's pupils, John Parkin, created his own handwritten grimoire The Grand Oracle of Heaven, or, The Art of Divine Magic, although it was never published, largely because Britain was at war with France, and grimoires were commonly associated with the French. The only writer to publish British grimoires widely in the early 19th century was Robert Cross Smith, who released The Philosophical Merlin (1822) and The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (1825), but neither sold well.

In the late 19th century, several of these texts (including The Book of Abramelin and the Key of Solomon) were reclaimed by para-Masonic magical organisations, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis.

20th and 21st centuries
The Secret Grimoire of Turiel claims to have been written in the 16th century, but no copy older than 1927 has been produced.

A modern grimoire, the Simon Necronomicon, takes its name from a fictional book of magic in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft which was inspired by Babylonian mythology and the Ars Goetia—one of the five books that make up The Lesser Key of Solomon—concerning the summoning of demons. The Azoëtia of Andrew D. Chumbley has been described by Gavin Semple as a modern grimoire.

The neopagan religion of Wicca publicly appeared in the 1940s, and Gerald Gardner introduced the Book of Shadows as a Wiccan grimoire.

The term grimoire commonly serves as an alternative name for a spell book or tome of magical knowledge in fantasy fiction and role-playing games. The most famous fictional grimoire is the Necronomicon, a creation of H. P. Lovecraft.

title: Grimoire


text:
Grand Guignol

Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in naturalistic horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today's splatter films.

Theatre
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was founded in 1897 by Oscar Méténier, who planned it as a space for naturalist performance. With 293 seats, the venue was the smallest in Paris.

A former chapel, the theatre's previous life was evident in the boxes – which looked like confessionals – and in the angels over the orchestra. Although the architecture created frustrating obstacles, the design that was initially a predicament ultimately became beneficial to the marketing of the theatre. The opaque furniture and gothic structures placed sporadically on the walls of the building exude a feeling of eeriness from the moment of entrance. People came to this theatre for an experience, not only to see a show. The audience at "Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol" endured the terror of the shows because they wanted to be filled with strong "feelings" of something. Many attended the shows to get a feeling of sexual arousal. Underneath the balcony were boxes (originally built for nuns to watch church services) that were available for theatre-goers to rent during performances because they would get so aroused by the action happening on stage. It has been said that audience members would get so boisterous in the boxes, that actors would sometimes break character and yell something such as "Keep it down in there!" Conversely, there were audience members who could not physically handle the brutality of the actions taking place on stage. Frequently, the "special effects" would be too realistic and often an audience member would faint or vomit during performances. Theater director Max Maurey used the goriness to his advantage by hiring doctors to be at performances as a marketing ploy.

The theatre owed its name to Guignol, a traditional Lyonnaise puppet character, joining political commentary with the style of Punch and Judy.

The theatre's peak was between World War I and World War II, when it was frequented by royalty and celebrities in evening dress.

Important people
Oscar Méténier was the Grand Guignol's founder and original director. Under his direction, the theatre produced plays about a class of people who were not considered appropriate subjects in other venues: prostitutes, criminals, street urchins and others at the lower end of Paris's social echelon.

André Antoine was the founder of the Théâtre Libre and a collaborator of Méténier. His theatre gave Méténier a basic model to use for The Grand Guignol Theatre.

Max Maurey served as director from 1898 to 1914. Maurey shifted the theatre's emphasis to the horror plays it would become famous for and judged the success of a performance by the number of patrons who passed out from shock; the average was two faintings each evening. Maurey discovered André de Lorde, who would become the most important playwright for the theatre.

De Lorde was the theatre's principal playwright from 1901 to 1926. He wrote at least 100 plays for the Grand Guignol, such as The Old Woman, The Ultimate Torture, A Crime in the Mad House and more. He collaborated with experimental psychologist Alfred Binet to create plays about insanity, one of the theatre's favourite and frequently recurring themes.

Camille Choisy served as director from 1914 to 1930. He contributed his expertise in special effects and scenery to the theatre's distinctive style.

Paula Maxa was one of the Grand Guignol's best-known performers. From 1917 to the 1930s, she performed most frequently as a victim and was known as "the most assassinated woman in the world." During her career at the Grand Guignol, Maxa's characters were murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times.

Jack Jouvin served as director from 1930 to 1937. He shifted the theatre's subject matter, focusing performances not on gory horror but psychological drama. Under his leadership, the theatre's popularity waned and, after World War II, it was not well-attended.

Charles Nonon was the theatre's last director.

Plays

In a typical Grand Guignol performance patrons would see five or six short plays, all in a style that attempted to be brutally true to the theatre's naturalistic ideals. The most popular and best-known were the horror plays, which featured a distinctly bleak worldview and gory special effects, particularly in their climaxes. The horrors depicted at Grand Guignol were generally not supernatural; rather these plays often explored altered states like insanity, hypnosis, or panic. To heighten the effect, the horror plays were often alternated with comedies, a lineup referred to as "hot and cold showers."

Examples of Grand Guignol horror shows included:

 * Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde: When a doctor finds his wife's lover in his operating room, he performs a graphic brain surgery, rendering the adulterer a hallucinating semi-zombie. Now insane, the lover/patient hammers a chisel into the doctor's brain.
 * Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a pretty young fellow inmate out of jealousy.
 * L'Horrible Passion, by André de Lorde: A nanny strangles the children in her care.
 * Le Baiser dans la Nuit, by Maurice Level: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, and he obtains his revenge.

Closure
Audiences waned in the years following World War II, and the Grand Guignol closed its doors in 1962. Management attributed the closure in part to the fact that the theatre's faux horrors had been eclipsed by the actual events of the Holocaust two decades earlier. "We could never equal Buchenwald," said its final director, Charles Nonon. "Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality."

The Grand Guignol building still exists. It is occupied by the International Visual Theatre, a company devoted to presenting plays in sign language.

Thematic and structural analysis
While the original Grand Guignol attempted to present naturalistic horror, the performances would seem melodramatic and heightened to today's audiences. For this reason, the term is often applied to films and plays of a stylized nature with heightened acting, melodrama and theatrical effects such as Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow, Quills, and the Hammer Horror films that went before them. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?; Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte; What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?; What's the Matter with Helen?; Night Watch and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? form a sub-branch of the genre called Grande Dame Guignol for its use of aging A-list actresses in sensational horror films.

Audiences had strong reactions to the new disturbing themes the horror plays presented. One of the most prevalent themes staged at the Grand-Guignol was the demoralization and corruption of science. The "evil doctor" was a recurring trope in the horror shows performed. The popular show The System of Doctor Goudron and Professor Plume by André de Lorde displays a depiction of a doctor typical of the theater. Dr. Goudron is portrayed as manic, insane, unreliable. He is seen "pac[ing] nervously" and "jumping on [a] desk and gesticulating". Later Lorde depicts the scientist as violent, with Goudron attempting to carve out an eye and then bite the hands of guards. During the time, curiosity and skepticism ravaged science and medicine. The depiction of scientists at the Grand-Guignol reflected the public attitude of fear and disdain. Medical science held a reputation of "terror and peculiar infamy". Middle-class Parisian society believed science existed in a world of frivolity and falsehood, whereas art existed in a world of honesty. Poet Matthew Arnold is an exemplary lens to use in order to understand these sympathies.

The themes the Grand-Guignol introduced into the horror genre affected how the genre exists today. The Grand-Guignol's introduction of naturalism into horror "unmasked brutality of contemporary culture". Previously, horror served as escapism, dealing with the supernatural and unrelatable. After the theater introduced relatable topics into the genre, the audience could visualize the plots taking place and thus experienced greater fear - the Grand-Guignol transformed the horror plot into something the audience could feel personally. Horror became a vehicle for ideas and philosophy where deep "insights gave way to spectacle, and spectacle to violence and gore, until in the end little was left but the gore". Today the horror genre begins with "optimism and hope", which "wither before random, chaotic, and inevitable violence".

Legacy and revivals
Grand Guignol flourished briefly in London in the early 1920s under the direction of Jose Levy, where it attracted the talents of Sybil Thorndike, Noël Coward, and Richard Hughes (whose one-act play The Sisters' Tragedy outshone even Coward's), and a series of short English "Grand Guignol" films (using original screenplays, not play adaptations) was made at the same time, directed by Fred Paul. Several of the films exist at the BFI National Archive.

The Grand Guignol was revived once again in London in 1945, under the direction of Frederick Witney, where it ran for two seasons at the Granville Theatre. These included premiers of Witney's own work as well as adaptations of French originals.

In recent years, English director-writer, Richard Mazda, has re-introduced New York audiences to the Grand Guignol. His acting troupe, The Queens Players, have produced six mainstage productions of Grand Guignol plays, and Mazda is writing new plays in the classic Guignol style. The sixth production, Theatre of Fear, included De Lorde's famous adaptation of Poe's The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (Le Systéme du Dr Goudron et Pr Plume) as well as two original plays, Double Crossed and The Good Death alongside The Tell Tale Heart.

The 1963 mondo film Ecco (Original title: Il mondo di notte numero 3, directed by Gianni Proia) includes a scene which may have been filmed at the Grand Guignol theatre during its final years.

The Swiss theatre company Compagnie Pied de Biche has revisited the Grand Guignol genre in contemporary contexts since 2008. The company staged in 2010 a diptych Impact & Dr. Incubis, based on original texts by Nicolas Yazgi and directed by Frédéric Ozier. More than literal adaptations, the plays address violence, death, crime and fear in contemporary contexts, while revisiting many trope of the original Grand Guignol corpus, often with humour.

Recently formed London-based Grand Guignol company Theatre of the Damned, brought their first production to the Camden Fringe in 2010 and produced the award nominated Grand Guignol in November of that year. In 2011, they staged Revenge of the Grand Guignol at the Courtyard Theatre, London, as part of the London Horror Festival.

Between 2011 and 2016, Baltimore-based Yellow Sign Theatre performed Grand Guignol productions (including a heavily updated version of Le Systéme du Dr Goudron et Pr Plume) as well as integrating Guignol elements into other performance forms.

In November 2014, 86 years after the last show of Alfredo Sainati's La Compagnia del Grand-Guignol, founded in 1908 and which had been the only example of Grand Guignol in Italy, the Convivio d'Arte Company presented in Milan Grand Guignol de Milan: Le Cabaret des Vampires. The show was an original tribute to Grand Guignol, a horror vaudeville with various horror and grotesque performances such as monologues, live music and burlesque, with a satirical black humour conduction.

title: Grand Guignol


text:
Great Plague of London

The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that originated in Central Asia in 1331 (the first year of the Black Death), and included related diseases such as pneumonic plague and septicemic plague, which lasted until 1750.

The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people—almost a quarter of London's population—in 18 months. The plague was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium, which is usually transmitted to a human by the bite of a flea or louse.

The 1665–66 epidemic was on a much smaller scale than the earlier Black Death pandemic. It became known afterwards as the "great" plague mainly because it was the last widespread outbreak of bubonic plague in England during the 400-year Second Pandemic.

London in 1665
The plague was endemic in 17th-century London, as it was in other European cities at the time. The disease periodically erupted into massive epidemics. There were 30,000 deaths due to the plague in 1603, 35,000 in 1625, 10,000 in 1636, and smaller numbers in other years.

In late 1664, a bright comet was seen in the sky, and the people of London became fearful, wondering what evil event it portended. London at that time was a city of about 448 acres surrounded by a city wall that had originally been built to keep out raiding bands, and, in the south, by the River Thames. There were gates in the wall at Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate, and the Thames was crossable at London Bridge. In the poorer parts of the city, filled with overcrowded tenements and garrets, hygiene was impossible to maintain. There was no sanitation, and open drains flowed along the centre of winding streets. The cobbles were slippery with animal droppings, rubbish and the slops thrown out of the houses; they were muddy and buzzing with flies in summer, and awash with sewage in winter. The City Corporation employed "rakers" to remove the worst of the filth, and it was transported to mounds outside the walls, where it accumulated and continued to decompose. The stench was overwhelming, and people walked around with handkerchiefs or nosegays pressed against their nostrils.

Some of the city's necessities, such as coal, arrived by barge, but most came by road. Carts, carriages, horses and pedestrians were crowded together, and the gateways in the wall formed bottlenecks through which it was difficult to progress. The nineteen-arch London Bridge was even more congested. Those who were better-off used hackney carriages and sedan chairs to get to their destinations without getting filthy. The poor walked, and might be drenched by water tossed up by wheeled vehicles, slops thrown into the street, or water pouring off overhanging roofs. Another hazard was the choking black smoke belching forth from soap factories, breweries, iron smelters and about 15,000 households that were burning coal to heat their homes.

Outside the city walls, shanty towns with wooden shacks and no sanitation had sprung up, providing homes for the craftsmen and tradespeople who had flocked to the already overcrowded city. The government had tried to limit the development of these "suburbs", but had failed: Over a quarter of a million people lived in them. When Royalists had fled the country during the Commonwealth, they had left many fine town houses vacant, and some immigrants to London had crowded into them, converting them into tenements that housed different families in every room. These properties were soon vandalised and became rat-infested.

The City of London proper was administered by the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and the common councillors, but some parts of the greater metropolitan area were not legally part of the city. Some of these areas, both inside the City walls and outside its boundaries, had long been organised into districts of various sizes, called "liberties", that had historically been granted rights to self-government. (Many had originally been associated with the religious institutions that were abolished in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, whereupon their historic rights and property had been transferred to secular owners.)

By 1665, the walled City was surrounded by a ring of liberties which had come under its authority, and these had come to be referred to collectively as 'the City and Liberties'. However, this area was surrounded by additional suburbs with other independent administrations. For example, Westminster was an independent town with its own liberties, joined to London by urban development, and the Tower of London was an independent liberty. Areas that were not part of any of these various independent administrations came under the authority of the county of Middlesex if they were north of the river, and under the authority of Surrey if they were south of the river.

At that time, bubonic plague was a much feared disease, but its cause was not understood. Many mistakenly blamed emanations from the earth, "pestilential effluvia", unusual weather, sickness in livestock, abnormal behaviour of animals or an increase in the numbers of moles, frogs, mice or flies. It was not until 1894 that its causal agent, the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was identified by Alexandre Yersin, and its transmission by rat fleas became known. Although the Great Plague in London was long assumed to be bubonic plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, this was only confirmed (by DNA analysis) in 2016. It is now believed that human body lice also played a key role in causing infections, perhaps more so than rats.

The recording of deaths
In order to judge the severity of an epidemic, it is first necessary to know how big the population was in which it occurred. There was no official census of the population to provide this figure, and the best contemporary count comes from the work of John Graunt (1620–1674), who was one of the earliest Fellows of the Royal Society and one of the first demographers, bringing a scientific approach to the collection of statistics. In 1662, he estimated that 384,000 people lived in the City of London, the Liberties, Westminster and the out-parishes, based on figures in the Bills of Mortality published each week in the capital. These different districts with different administrations constituted the officially recognized extent of London as a whole. In 1665, he revised his estimate to "not above 460,000". Other contemporaries put the figure higher (the French Ambassador, for example, suggested 600,000), but with no mathematical basis to support their estimates. The next largest city in the kingdom was Norwich, with a population of 30,000.

There was no duty to report a death to anyone in authority. Instead, each parish appointed two or more "searchers of the dead", whose duty was to inspect a corpse and determine the cause of death. A searcher was entitled to charge a small fee from relatives for each death they reported, and so habitually the parish would appoint someone to the post who would otherwise be destitute and would be receiving support from the parish poor rate. Typically, this meant searchers would be old women who were illiterate, might know little about identifying diseases and who would be open to dishonesty. Searchers would typically learn about a death either from the local sexton who had been asked to dig a grave or from the tolling of a church bell. Anyone who did not report a death to their local church, such as Quakers, Anabaptists, other non-Anglican Christians or Jews, frequently did not get included in the official records. Searchers during times of plague were required to live apart from the community, avoid other people and carry a white stick to warn of their occupation when outdoors, and stay indoors except when performing their duties, to avoid spreading the diseases. Searchers reported to the Parish Clerk, who made a return each week to the Company of Parish Clerks in Brode Lane. Figures were then passed to the Lord Mayor and then to the Minister of State once plague became a matter of national concern. The reported figures were used to compile the Bills of Mortality, which listed total deaths in each parish and whether by the plague. The system of Searchers to report the cause of death continued until 1836.

Graunt recorded the incompetence of the Searchers at identifying true causes of death, remarking on the frequent recording of 'consumption' rather than other diseases which were recognized then by physicians. He suggested a cup of ale and a doubling of their fee to two groats rather than one was sufficient for Searchers to change the cause of death to one more convenient for the householders. No one wished to be known as having had a death by plague in their household, and Parish Clerks, too, connived in covering up cases of plague in their official returns. Analysis of the Bills of Mortality during the months plague took hold shows a rise in deaths other than by plague well above the average death rate, a tell-tale sign of misrepresentation of the true cause of death. As plague spread, a system of quarantine was introduced, whereby any house where someone had died from plague would be locked up and no one allowed to enter or leave for 40 days. This frequently led to the deaths of the other inhabitants, by neglect if not from the plague, and provided ample incentive not to report the disease. The official returns record 68,596 cases of plague, but a reasonable estimate suggests this figure is 30,000 short of the true total. A plague house was marked with a red cross on the door with the words "Lord have mercy upon us", and a watchman stood guard outside.

Preventive measures
Reports of plague around Europe began to reach England in the 1660s, causing the Privy Council to consider what steps might be taken to prevent it crossing to England. Quarantining (isolation) of ships had been used during previous outbreaks and was again introduced for ships coming to London in November 1663, following outbreaks in Amsterdam and Hamburg. Two naval ships were assigned to intercept any vessels entering the Thames estuary. Ships from infected ports were required to moor at Hole Haven on Canvey Island for a trentine – period of 30 days – before being allowed to travel up-river. Ships from ports free of plague or completing their isolation period were given a certificate of health and allowed to travel on. A second inspection line was established between the forts on opposite banks of the Thames at Tilbury and Gravesend with instructions to pass only ships with a certificate.

The isolation period was increased to forty days – a quarantine – in May 1664 as the continental plague worsened, and the areas subject to quarantine changed with the news of the spread of plague to include all of Holland, Zeeland and Friesland (all regions of the Dutch Republic); restrictions on Hamburg were removed in November. Quarantine measures against ships coming from the Dutch Republic were put in place in 29 other ports from May, starting with Great Yarmouth. The Dutch ambassador objected at the constraint of trade with his country, but England responded that it had been one of the last countries introducing such restrictions. Regulations were enforced quite strictly, so that people or houses where voyagers had come ashore without serving their quarantine were also subjected to 40 days of quarantine.

Outbreak
Plague was one of the hazards of life in Britain from its dramatic appearance in 1348 with the Black Death. The Bills of Mortality began to be published regularly in 1603, in which year 33,347 deaths were recorded from plague. Between then and 1665, only four years had no recorded cases. In 1563, a thousand people were reportedly dying in London each week. In 1593, there were 15,003 deaths, 1625 saw 41,313 dead, between 1640 and 1646 came 11,000 deaths, culminating in 3,597 for 1647. The 1625 outbreak was recorded at the time as the 'Great Plague', until deaths from the plague of 1665 surpassed it. These official figures are likely to under-report actual numbers.

Early days
Plague was sufficiently uncommon that medical practitioners might have had no personal experience of seeing the disease; medical training varied from those who had attended the college of physicians, to apothecaries who also acted as doctors, to charlatans. Other diseases abounded, such as an outbreak of smallpox the year before, and these uncertainties all added to difficulties identifying the true start of the epidemic. Contemporary accounts suggest cases of plague occurred through the winter of 1664–65, some of which were fatal but a number of which did not display the virulence of the later epidemic. The winter was cold, the ground frozen from December to March, river traffic on the Thames twice blocked by ice, and it may be that the cold weather held back its spread.

This outbreak of bubonic plague in England is thought to have spread from the Netherlands, where the disease had been occurring intermittently since 1599. It is unclear exactly where the disease first struck but the initial contagion may have arrived with Dutch trading ships carrying bales of cotton from Amsterdam, which was ravaged by the disease in 1663–64, with a mortality given of 50,000. The first areas to be struck are believed to be the dock areas just outside London, and the parish of St Giles. In both of these localities, poor workers were crowded into ill-kept structures. Two suspicious deaths were recorded in St Giles parish in 1664 and another in February 1665. These did not appear as plague deaths on the Bills of Mortality, so no control measures were taken by the authorities, but the total number of people dying in London during the first four months of 1665 showed a marked increase. By the end of April, only four plague deaths had been recorded, two in the parish of St. Giles, but total deaths per week had risen from around 290 to 398.

There had been three official cases in April, a level of plague which in earlier years had not induced any official response, but the Privy Council now acted to introduce household quarantine. Justices of the Peace in Middlesex were instructed to investigate any suspected cases and to shut up the house if it was confirmed. Shortly after, a similar order was issued by the King's Bench to the City and Liberties. A riot broke out in St. Giles when the first house was sealed up; the crowd broke down the door and released the inhabitants. Rioters caught were punished severely. Instructions were given to build pest-houses, which were essentially isolation hospitals built away from other people where the sick could be cared for (or stay until they died). This official activity suggests that despite the few recorded cases, the government was already aware that this was a serious outbreak of plague. With the arrival of warmer weather, the disease began to take a firmer hold. In the week 2–9 May, there were three recorded deaths in the parish of St Giles, four in neighbouring St Clement Danes and one each in St Andrew Holborn and St Mary Woolchurch Haw. Only the last was actually inside the city walls. A Privy Council committee was formed to investigate methods to best prevent the spread of plague, and measures were introduced to close some of the ale houses in affected areas and limit the number of lodgers allowed in a household. In the city, the Lord Mayor issued a proclamation that all householders must diligently clean the streets outside their property, which was a householder's responsibility, not a state one (the city employed scavengers and rakers to remove the worst of the mess). Matters just became worse, and Aldermen were instructed to find and punish those failing their duty. As cases in St. Giles began to rise, an attempt was made to quarantine the area and constables were instructed to inspect everyone wishing to travel and contain inside vagrants or suspect persons.

People began to be alarmed. Samuel Pepys, who had an important position at the Admiralty, stayed in London and provided a contemporary account of the plague through his diary. On 30 April he wrote: "Great fears of the sickness here in the City it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all!" Another source of information on the time is A Journal of the Plague Year, which was written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1722. He had been only five when the plague struck but made use of his family's recollections (his uncle was a saddler in East London and his father a butcher in Cripplegate), interviews with survivors and sight of such official records as were available.

The onset of the disease was recalled two years later by Puritan minister Thomas Vincent:"It was in the month of May that the Plague was first taken notice of; our Bill of Mortality did let us know but of three which died of the disease in the whole year before; but in the beginning of May the bill tells us of nine...fear quickly begins to creep upon peoples hearts; great thoughts and discourse there is in Town about the Plague, and they cast in their minds whether they should go if the Plague should increase. Yet when the next weeks Bill signifieth to them the disease from nine to three their minds are something appeased; discourse of that subject cools; fears are hushed, and hopes take place, that the black cloud did but threaten, and give a few drops; but the wind would drive it away. But when in the next Bill the number of the dead by the Plague is mounted from three to fourteen, and in the next to seventeen, and in the next to forty-three, and the disease begins so much to increase, and disperse. Now secure sinners begin to be startled, and those who would have slept at quiet still in their nests, are unwillingly awakened."

Exodus from the city
By July 1665, plague was rampant in the City of London. The rich ran away, including King Charles II of England, his family and his court, who left the city for Salisbury, moving on to Oxford in September when some cases of plague occurred in Salisbury. The aldermen and most of the other city authorities opted to stay at their posts. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Lawrence, also decided to stay in the city. Businesses were closed when merchants and professionals fled. Defoe wrote "Nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away". As the plague raged throughout the summer, only a small number of clergymen, physicians and apothecaries remained to cope with an increasingly large number of victims. Ellen Cotes, author of London's Dreadful Visitation, expressed the hope that "Neither the Physicians of our Souls or Bodies may hereafter in such great numbers forsake us".

The poorer people were also alarmed by the contagion and some left the city, but it was not easy for them to abandon their accommodation and livelihoods for an uncertain future elsewhere. Before exiting through the city gates, they were required to possess a certificate of good health signed by the Lord Mayor and these became increasingly difficult to obtain. As time went by and the numbers of plague victims rose, people living in the villages outside London began to resent this exodus and were no longer prepared to accept townsfolk from London, with or without a certificate. The refugees were turned back, were not allowed to pass through towns and had to travel across country, and were forced to live rough on what they could steal or scavenge from the fields. Many died in wretched circumstances of starvation and dehydration in the hot summer that was to follow.

Height of the epidemic
In the last week of July, the London Bill of Mortality showed 3,014 deaths, of which 2,020 had died from the plague. The number of deaths as a result of plague may have been underestimated, as deaths in other years in the same period were much lower, at around 300. As the number of victims affected mounted up, burial grounds became overfull, and pits were dug to accommodate the dead. Drivers of dead-carts travelled the streets calling "Bring out your dead" and carted away piles of bodies. The authorities became concerned that the number of deaths might cause public alarm and ordered that body removal and interment should take place only at night. As time went on, there were too many victims, and too few drivers, to remove the bodies which began to be stacked up against the walls of houses. Daytime collection was resumed and the plague pits became mounds of decomposing corpses. In the parish of Aldgate, a great hole was dug near the churchyard, fifty feet long and twenty feet wide. Digging was continued by labourers at one end while the dead-carts tipped in corpses at the other. When there was no room for further extension it was dug deeper until ground water was reached at twenty feet. When finally covered with earth it housed 1,114 corpses.

Plague doctors traversed the streets diagnosing victims, many of them without formal medical training. Several public health efforts were attempted. Physicians were hired by city officials and burial details were carefully organized, but panic spread through the city and, out of the fear of contagion, bodies were hastily buried in overcrowded pits. The means of transmission of the disease were not known but thinking they might be linked to the animals, the City Corporation ordered a cull of dogs and cats. This decision may have affected the length of the epidemic since those animals could have helped keep in check the rat population carrying the fleas which transmitted the disease. Thinking bad air was involved in transmission, the authorities ordered giant bonfires to be burned in the streets and house fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Tobacco was thought to be a prophylactic and it was later said that no London tobacconist had died from the plague during the epidemic. Trade and business had dried up, and the streets were empty of people except for the dead-carts and the dying victims, as witnessed and recorded by Samuel Pepys in his diary: "Lord! How empty the streets are and how melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores… in Westminster, there is never a physician and but one apothecary left, all being dead." That people did not starve was down to the foresight of Sir John Lawrence and the Corporation of London who arranged for a commission of one farthing to be paid above the normal price for every quarter of corn landed in the Port of London. Another food source was the villages around London which, denied of their usual sales in the capital, left vegetables in specified market areas, negotiated their sale by shouting, and collected their payment after the money had been left submerged in a bucket of vinegar to "disinfect" the coins.

Records state that plague deaths in London and the suburbs crept up over the summer from 2,000 people per week to over 7,000 per week in September. These figures are likely to be a considerable underestimate. Many of the sextons and parish clerks who kept the records themselves died. Quakers refused to co-operate and many of the poor were just dumped into mass graves unrecorded. It is not clear how many people caught the disease and made a recovery because only deaths were recorded and many records were destroyed in the Great Fire of London the following year. In the few districts where intact records remain, plague deaths varied between 30% and over 50% of the total population.

Vincent wrote:"it was very dismal to behold the red crosses, and read in great letters 'LORD, HAVE MERCY UPON US' on the doors, and watchmen standing before them with halberds...people passing by them so gingerly, and with such fearful looks as if they had been lined with enemies in ambush to destroy them...a man at the corner of Artillery-wall, that as I judge, through the dizziness of his head with the disease, which seized upon him there, had dasht his face against the wall; and when I came by, he lay hanging with his bloody face over the rails, and bleeding upon the ground...I went and spoke to him; he could make no answer, but rattled in the throat, and as I was informed, within half an hour died in the place. It would be endless to speak of what we have seen and heard, of some in their frenzy, rising out of their beds, and leaping about their rooms; others crying and roaring at their windows; some coming forth almost naked, and running into the streets...scarcely a day passed over my head for, I think, a month or more together, but I should hear of the death of some one or more that I knew. The first day that they were smitten, the next day some hopes of recovery, and the third day, that they were dead."

The outbreak was concentrated in London, but it affected other areas as well. Perhaps the best known example occurred in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire. The plague allegedly arrived with a merchant carrying a parcel of cloth sent from London. The villagers imposed a quarantine on themselves to stop the further spread of the disease. This prevented the disease from moving into surrounding areas, but around 33% of the village's inhabitants died over a period of fourteen months. Other places hit hard included Derby and Norwich. In Bristol strenuous efforts by the City Council seems to have limited the death rate to c.0.6 per cent during an outbreak lasting from April to September 1666.

Aftermath
By late autumn, the death toll in London and the suburbs began to slow until, in February 1666, it was considered safe enough for the King and his entourage to come back to the city. With the return of the monarch, others began to return: The gentry returned in their carriages accompanied by carts piled high with their belongings. The judges moved back from Windsor to sit in Westminster Hall; Parliament, which had been prorogued in April 1665, did not reconvene until September 1666. Trade recommenced and businesses and workshops opened up. London was the goal of a new wave of people who flocked to the city in expectation of making their fortunes. Writing at the end of March 1666, Lord Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor, stated "... the streets were as full, the Exchange as much crowded, the people in all places as numerous as they had ever been seen ...".

Plague cases continued to occur sporadically at a modest rate until mid-1666. That September, the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the City of London, and some people believed that the fire put an end to the epidemic. It is now thought that the plague had largely subsided before the fire took place. Most of the later cases of plague were found in the suburbs, and it was the City of London that was destroyed by the fire.

According to the Bills of Mortality, there were in total 68,596 deaths in London from the plague in 1665. Lord Clarendon estimated that the true number of mortalities was probably twice that figure. 1666 saw further deaths in other cities but on a lesser scale. Dr Thomas Gumble, chaplain to the Duke of Albemarle, both of whom had stayed in London for the whole of the epidemic, estimated that the total death count for the country from plague during 1665 and 1666 was about 200,000. Among the more notable death victims were Samuel Fisher, John Godwin, John Lewger and George Starkey.

The Great Plague of 1665/1666 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Great Britain. The last recorded death from plague came in 1679, and it was removed as a specific category in the Bills of Mortality after 1703. It spread to other towns in East Anglia and the southeast of England but fewer than ten per cent of parishes outside London had a higher than average death rate during those years. Urban areas were more affected than rural ones; Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Southampton and Winchester were badly affected, while the west of England and areas of the English Midlands escaped altogether.

The population of England in 1650 was approximately 5.25 million, which declined to about 4.9 million by 1680, recovering to just over 5 million by 1700. Other diseases, such as smallpox, took a high toll on the population without the contribution by plague. The higher death rate in cities, both generally and specifically from the plague, was made up by continuous immigration, from small towns to larger ones and from the countryside to the towns.

There were no contemporary censuses of London's population, but available records suggest that the population returned to its previous level within a couple of years. Burials in 1667 had returned to 1663 levels, Hearth Tax returns had recovered, and John Graunt contemporarily analysed baptism records and concluded they represented a recovered population. Part of this could be accounted for by the return of wealthy households, merchants and manufacturing industries, all of which needed to replace losses among their staff and took steps to bring in necessary people. Colchester had suffered more severe depopulation, but manufacturing records for cloth suggested that production had recovered or even increased by 1669, and the total population had nearly returned to pre-plague levels by 1674. Other towns did less well: Ipswich was affected less than Colchester, but in 1674, its population had dropped by 18%, more than could be accounted for by the plague deaths alone.

As a proportion of the population who died, the London death toll was less severe than in some other towns. The total of deaths in London was greater than in any previous outbreak for 100 years, though as a proportion of the population, the epidemics in 1563, 1603 and 1625 were comparable or greater. Perhaps around 2.5% of the English population died.

Impact
The plague in London largely affected the poor, as the rich were able to leave the city by either retiring to their country estates or residing with kin in other parts of the country. The subsequent Great Fire of London ruined many city merchants and property owners. As a result of these events, London was largely rebuilt and Parliament enacted the Rebuilding of London Act 1666. The street plan of the capital remained relatively unchanged, but some improvements were made: streets were widened, pavements were created, open sewers abolished, wooden buildings and overhanging gables forbidden, and the design and construction of buildings controlled. The use of brick or stone was mandatory and many gracious buildings were constructed. Not only was the capital rejuvenated, but it became a healthier environment in which to live. Londoners had a greater sense of community after they had overcome the great adversities of 1665 and 1666.

Rebuilding took over ten years and was supervised by Robert Hooke as Surveyor of London. The architect Sir Christopher Wren was involved in the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral and more than fifty London churches. King Charles II did much to foster the rebuilding work. He was a patron of the arts and sciences and founded the Royal Observatory and supported the Royal Society, a scientific group whose early members included Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton. In fact, out of the fire and pestilence flowed a renaissance in the arts and sciences in England.

Plague pits have been archaeologically excavated during underground construction work. Between 2011 and 2015, 3,500 burials from the 'New Churchyard' or 'Bethlam burial ground' were discovered during the construction of the Crossrail railway at Liverpool Street. Yersinia pestis DNA was found in the teeth of individuals found buried in pits at the site, confirming they had died of bubonic plague.

title: Great Plague of London


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User:Gareth Owen/How to destroy Wikipedia

Claim to be an anarchist and then spend the rest of the time telling other people what to do.

 * I don't think there's a contradiction here. Anarchism is believing that there shouldn't exist a mechanism/mechanisms for forcing one's will on other people.

See also: How to be completely oblivious to irony

See also (not a Wikipedia entry). Irony depends on a contradiction (American Heritage Dictionary says "An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning".

If I wrote "Claim to be a hunter and then spend the rest of the time shooting things", there'd be no contradiction/contrast and no irony here. I was attempting to point this out.

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