The first time the word quarantine appeared in English related to Jesus fasting for 40 days. It was used by William Wey, an English priest who went on three pilgrimages between 1456 and 1462. He actual visited Compostella, Rome and the Holy Land and gave practical information for future pilgrims about such matters as exchange rates as well as buying food and wine. In his Itineraries he describes the “wildernice of quarantine where Christ with fasting his body did pine”.
In the 1500s and 1600s, the word has more specific meanings, but always relates to a period of 40 days. Initially it is a legal term relating to the period in which a woman whose husband has died is to receive her share of the estate, but at the same time live in the main house of her dead husband. It can also refer to a period of penance.
Its current meaning arrives in English only in 1649 in The Moderate Intelligencer. This was a British news journal with a focus on international affairs and one of the first news sources in the world relying on foreign correspondents. It is thus logical that it picked up news about ships in the South of France “which were upon the point of finishing their quarantine” in the South of France. This idea of being kept in isolation for a period of time until it had been established any infection had died down however long it took became the current meaning. There was no more reference to 40 days and Jesus.
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