| Image: Wikimedia Commons |
Writing in An Uncommon History of Common Things, Bethanne Patrick and John Thompson attribute the custom to the bubonic plague that swept through Rome in anno domini590, during the reign of Pope Gregory I. As sneezing was an early sign of infection, Gregory (who more usefully bequeathed to history the Gregorian Chant) commanded that anyone who sneezed should immediately be blessed with the phrase “God bless you” to ward off the deadly disease. Within two centuries the benediction was institutionalised throughout Western Europe as the appropriate response to a sneeze. Over time the phrase contracted to the “bless you” still in common use today.
So why do we still utter this ancient catchphrase, when the likelihood that a person who sneezes is in the grip of the atra mors—the black death—is nil? Habit. Or, more specifically, a piece of programming residing in our psyche is activated by the sound of a sneeze and dutifully trots out the protective counter-phrase decreed by Pope Gregory. In today’s world this is, quite frankly, idiotic. Yet we continue to do so, generally unquestioningly, and almost in spite of ourselves should we stop to consider it. This begs the question: what else do we do so unconsciously we’re not even aware of it? Just as those who lived in fear of the plague were unaware that the sneeze itself was the means of transmission, we are equally oblivious to how much medieval programming still clunks and rattles around in the modern psyche. It’s easy to forget that we do not know what we do not know.
RELATED POSTS
RELATED POSTS
- Mental health and the madness of modern society
- To repress or not to repress, that is the question
- The sickness of doctors
- Thigh gap or self-love gap?
