History 137: The Black Death: Medieval and Modern Perspectives

Fall Semester 2005: Mon/Wed 3-4:20pm

“I, seeing so many evils and the whole world, as it were, placed within

the grasp of the evil one, being myself as if among the dead, waiting for

death to visit me, have put into writing truthfully all the things that I have

heard. And I leave parchment to finish the work, if perchance any man

survive and any of the face of Adam escape this pestilence….”

- Friar John Clyn, Ireland, 1349

Instructor: Katherine Smith

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Course Description: The Black Death, the great plague that devastated Europe from 1348 to 1350, continues to captivate the modern popular imagination. At the same time, this calamity remains one of the most poorly understood events in pre-modern European history. In recent years the Black Death has been the subject of renewed historical and scientific inquiry, much of which has questioned traditional interpretations of the etiology of the disease (was it really bubonic plague at all?) and its short- and long-term effects on the society, economy, and family structure of late medieval Europe (did it mark the “end” of the Middle Ages?). We will read a variety of primary sources in translation in order to reconstruct medieval people’s reactions to the plague, as well as contemporary beliefs about the causes, remedies, and implications of the disease. The class will also engage with recent historical debates surrounding the Black Death, and consider representations of the plague in modern literature and film.

Course Objectives: In the course of the semester all students will have the opportunity to

  • improve their oral presentation skills by participating in and leading class discussions
  • construct and support original arguments based the primary source materials modern scholars use to study pre-modern history, including narrative and non-narrative written sources, visual and material evidence
  • engage with a variety of historical methodologies and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses orally and in writing
  • become familiar with late medieval European culture and the contemporary scholarly debates surrounding the Black Death

Course Format: Students are expected to keep up with assigned readings and come to class prepared to participate in discussions. Classes will generally begin with a brief lecture designed to give an overview of the day’s topic and clear up any areas of confusion, but the bulk of class time will be devoted to discussion, in which all members of the class will be expected to participate.

Leading Discussion: After the first week, we will assign at least one discussion leader for each class. The leader(s) for each meeting will take responsibility for identifying major themes in the readings, compiling questions designed to open up areas of discussion, and bringing in some additional piece of material (this might be a handout with an image, map, quotation, etc.) for the rest of the class to consider. As discussion leader, you will not be expected to talk for the entire class period; rather, it will be your responsibility to facilitate discussion among your peers (a task in which I will help you if you get stuck).

Evaluation: Class attendance and participation (engaging with the material, asking questions, responding to the observations of the instructor and other students) will constitute 15% of the final grade. Serving as discussion leader, which all students must do once, will count for an additional 5% of the final grade.

In addition, all students will complete four written assignments designed to hone their analytical skills. Two of the papers will be “close readings” of selected primary sources, worth 15% each. The other two papers will be evaluations of modern scholarly arguments chosen from among the assigned readings, again worth 15% each. Finally, students will be expected to take four short in-class quizzes over the course of the semester, each worth 5% for a total of 20%. Each quiz will consist of several questions about ideas discussed in recent reading assignments, and will not take more than 20-30 minutes to complete.

Breakdown of Final Grades: Attendance and Participation: 15%

Leading Discussion: 5%

Two “Close Readings” of Sources: 30% (15% each)

Two Evaluations of Scholarly Arguments: 30% (15% each)

Four Quizzes: 20% (5% each)

Grading Scale:Written assignments, discussion leading, and class attendance and participation will all be graded on a scale from A+ to F. For the numerical equivalents of each grade, see the list below.

A+:97-100A: 93-96A-: 90-92

B+: 87-89B:83-86B-:80-82

C+: 77-79C:73-76C-:70-72

D+:67-69D:63-66D-:60-62

F:below 60

Texts: The books listed below are available for purchase at the university bookstore. Readings marked with an (*) will be found on library reserve at Collins Library under “Smith,” and additional readings are available online as noted.

- John Aberth, From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages (Routledge, 2001) $17

- Samuel Cohn, The Black Death Tranformed (Arnold Publishers, 2002) $22

- David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (Harvard UP, 1997) $13

- Rosemary Horrox, ed.., The Black Death (Manchester UP, 1994) $28

- Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine (Chicago UP, 1990) $22

Horrox’s Black Death is a collection of primary sources (sources written in the period under study in the course) that is intended to introduce you to the wide range of materials employed by historians of pre-modern European cultures. When reading primary sources in the Horrox reader, always ask yourself the following questions:

-Who wrote this? What kind of person was the author (social class, gender, etc.)?

-For what audience was this piece intended? How did the author tailor the content and style of their text to this audience?

-What was the author’s purpose in writing this piece?

-What can this text tell us about the larger cultural tradition(s) and time period in which it was written?

I will expect that you will have answered these questions for all of the assigned primary sources when you come to class.

The books by Aberth, Cohn, Herlihy, and Siraisi are secondary sources – that is, they represent a range of modern (as opposed to medieval) perspectives on the Black Death and its aftereffects that are based on the authors’ own readings of medieval sources. When you are reading these or any of the other secondary sources assigned for the class, you should spend some time considering the following questions:

-What is the author’s main argument, or thesis?

-How well does the author support this argument? Does she or he seem to have a good grasp of the topic?

-Is this piece revisionist (that is, does it challenge some earlier body of scholarship or suggest a new way of interpreting evidence)? How?

-What kinds of primary sources does the author employ in their analysis?

It is always a good idea to take notes in a notebook or a designated folder on your computer. I urge you to take notes rather than underlining or highlighting; forcing yourself to synthesize and write down notes on key ideas or events will implant the material in your mind and make it easier to remember it down the road when it comes time to prepare for tests and do written assignments. Writing down questions or comments that occur to do in the course of doing the reading will also provide you with material for class discussions.

Schedule of Classes

Tues Aug 30: The Black Death as an Historical Problem: What Studying the Plague Can Tell Us About Medieval and Modern Culture

History, Historians, and Disease

Thurs Sept 1: Cohn, Black Death Transformed, pp. 1-54

Tues Sept 6: Alfred Bollet, M.D., Plagues and Poxes: The Impact of Human History on Epidemic Disease,” introduction and chapter 1 (pp. 1-30). (On reserve: photocopy)

- Michael McCormick, “Rats, Communications, and Plague: Toward an Ecological History.”Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34 (2003): 1-25. (via JSTOR)

Europe on the Eve of the Plague: Famine and War in the Early Fourteenth Century

Thurs Sept 8: Aberth, Brink of the Apocalypse, “Famine” and “War”

Tues Sept 13: Johannes of Trowkelowe, “On the Famine of 1315,” online at (

- Barbara Harvey, “Introduction: the ‘Crisis’ of the Early Fourteenth Century,” in Before the Black Death: The Crisis of the Early Fourteenth Century, ed. Bruce Campbell (Manchester, 1991), pp. 1-24. (On reserve: HC254.B44).

*Methodology Paper One Due in Class*

Medieval Medicine and Theories of Disease

Thurs Sept 15: Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, chapters 1-3.

Tues Sept 20: Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, chapters 4-5.

- Guido Ruggiero, “The Strange Death of Margarita Marcellini:Male, Signs, and the Everyday World of Pre-modern Medicine,”American Historical Review 106 (2001): 1141-58. (via JSTOR)

The Plague Arrives, 1347-1348

Thurs Sept 22: Horrox, Black Death, documents 1-2, 5, and 10.

Tues Sept 27: Aberth, Brink of the Apocalypse, “Plague” (pp. 107-178)

*Quiz 1*

Week 6: The Spread of the Black Death, 1348-1350

Thurs Sept 29: Horrox, Black Death, documents 7, 14, 18, and 25

Tues Oct 4: Aberth, Brink of the Apocalypse, “Death” (pp. 179-258)

Causes of the Plague: Medieval Opinions

Thurs Oct 6: Horrox, Black Death, documents 41-46.

- John Henderson, “The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses” in Death in Towns,ed. Steven Bassett (Leicester, 1992), pp. 136-150. (On reserve: GT3243.A2 D38)

Tues Oct 11: Horrox, Black Death, documents 56-60.

Shona Wray, “Boccaccio and the Doctors: Medicine and Compassion in the Face of Plague,”Journal of Medieval History (2004): 301-22. (On reserve: photocopies)

*Primary Source Paper One Due in Class*

Week 8: Causes of the Plague: Modern Opinions

Thurs Oct 13: Cohn, Black DeathTransformed, chapters 4 and 5.

Tues Oct 18: Cohn, Black DeathTransformed, chapters 6 and 9.

Reactions to the Plague: New Forms of Extreme Piety

Thurs Oct 20: Horrox, Black Death, documents 29-30, 52-53.

- Richard Kieckhefer, “Radical Tendencies in the Flagellant Movement of the mid-Fourteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1974): 157-176. (via JSTOR)

*Quiz 2*

Tues Oct 25: Horrox, Black Death, documents 41, 49, 54-55.

- Lerner, Robert. “The Black Death and Western European Eschatological Mentalities,” American Historical Review 86 (1981): 533-552. (via JSTOR)

Plague and Persecution

Thurs Oct 27: Fourth Lateran Council on the Jews ( and A Ritual Murder Accusation at Blois (

- Malcolm Barber, "Lepers, Jews and Moslems: The Plot to Overthrow Christendom in 1321," History 66 (1981): 1-17. (On reserve: photocopy)

Tues Nov 1: Horrox, Black Death, documents 68-70, 74

- David Nirenberg, “The Black Death and Beyond,” in Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996), pp. 231-49. (On reserve: D164.N57)

*Methodology Paper Two Due in Class*

The Late Medieval Culture of Death

Thurs Nov 3: Horrox, Black Death, documents 120-22

- Caciola, Nancy. "Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture" in Past and Present 152 (1996): 3-45. (via JSTOR)

Tues Nov 8: Horrox, Black Death, documents 123-25

- Paul Binski, “The Macabre,” in Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation. (London, 1996), pp. 123-63. (On reserve: BT825.B474)

Long-Term Effects of the Plague: Economic and Demographic Changes

Thurs Nov 10: Horrox, Black Death, documents 89, 91, and 94

- J.M.W. Bean, “The Black Death: The Crisis and its Social and Economic Consequences,” in The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth Century Plague, ed. Daniel Williman (New York, 1982), pp. 23-38. (On Reserve: RC171.S8)

*Quiz 3*

Tues Nov 15: Horrox, Black Death, documents 96, 98, 112, 114

- Anthony Musson, “New Labour Laws, New Remedies? Legal Reaction to the Black Death ‘crisis’” in Fourteenth-Century England,ed. Nigel Saul (Suffolk, 2000), pp. 73-88.

(On reserve: photocopy)

Challenges to the Medieval Order

Thurs Nov 17: Horrox, Black Death, doc. 119; Jean Froissart on the Jacquerie of 1358

(at

- D.M. Besson, “The Jacquerie: class war or co-opted rebellion?,” Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985): 43-59. (via JSTOR)

Tues Nov 22: Jean Froissart on the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381

(at

- J. A. Raftis, "Social Change versus Revolution: New Interpretations of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381," in Social Unrest in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Francis X. Newman (Binghamton, NY, 1986). (On reserve: HN11 .S73)

*Primary Source Paper Two Due in Class*

The Black Death as the End of the Middle Ages?

Tues Nov 29: Herlihy, Black Death and the Transformation of the West, chapters 2 and 3.

Thurs Dec 1: J. Hatcher, “England in the aftermath of the Black Death,” Past and Present, 144 (1994): 3-35.

*Quiz 4*

The Black Death in Modern Culture

Tues Dec 6: Choose one of the following recent novels about the Black Death:

-Ann Benson, The Plague Tales (Dell, 1997).

-Connie Willis, Doomsday Book (Spectra, 1992).

-Wiliam Owen Roberts, Pestilence (FourWalls, 1991).

-Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Corner that Held Them (Virago, 1996).

+ Everyone will watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957, 92 min.) (On videotape reserve: PT9320 .S4 1957)

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