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The Black Death [Enter]
Translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox

From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between one third and one half of the population dead. This collection of sources traces through contemporary writings the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with particular emphasis on its spread across England from 1348 to 1349.

Rosemary Horrox surveys contemporary responses to the plague. The almost universal belief that it was an expression of divine anger at the sins of humankind did not preclude the attempts to explain the epidemic in scientific and medical terms; or to look for human scapegoats. The final third of the sources chart the social and psychological impact of the plague, and its effects on the late-medieval economy. The sources illustrate the fear that spread with the disease and the diverse ways that such terror influenced social behaviour.

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CONTENTS:
PART ONE: NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS
I: The plague in Continental Europe
 1. The arrival of the plague
 2. The plague in Florence
 3. The plague in Padua
 4. The plague in Sicily
 5. The plague in Avignon
 6. The plague seen from Tournai
 7. The plague in France according to Jean de Venette
 8. The plague in France according to the Great Chronicle
 9. The plague in central Europe

II: The plague in the British Isles
 10. The arrival of the plague in Bristol 
 11. The arrival of the plague near Bristol
 12. The arrival of the plague in Dorset 
 13. The plague spreads
 14. The plague spreads to London
 15. The plague in York
 16. The plague according to Thomas Walsingham
 17. The plague seen from Lincolnshire
 18. The plague at Meaux Abbey
 19. The plague seen from Rochester
 20. The plague according to John of Reading
 21. The plague according to Henry Knighton
 22. The plague according to Geoffrey le Baker
 23. The plague in Ireland
 24. The plague in Scotland
 25. The second pestilence, 1361
 26. The third pestilence, 1369
 27. The fourth pestilence, 1374-79
 28. The fifth pestilence, 1390-93

PART TWO: EXPLANATIONS AND RESPONSES
III: The religious response
 29. Intercessionary processions (1)
 30. Intercessionary processions (2)
 31. The importance of prayer
 32. The response of Exeter
 33. A voice of Rama
 34. Edward III to the bishops, 5 September 1349
 35. Causes for gratitude
 36. Processions against the plague
 37. A call for prayers in 1375
 38. Masses to be said in time of plague
 39. A prayer against pestilence to the Virgin Mary
 40. A prayer made to St Sebastian against the mortality
 41. The sins of the times
 42. The failings of the clergy
 43. Divine disapproval of tournaments
 44. Indecent clothing as a cause of the 1348-49 epidemic
 45. Indecent clothing as a cause of later outbreaks
 46. The disobedience of children
 47. The Sermon of Reason
 48. The sins of the English
 49. Be watchful
 50. Pilgrimage to Merevale, 1361
 51. A wholesome medicine against the plague
 52. The flagellants
 53. The flagellants in England
 54. Rumours of Antichrist
 55. Millenarianism in Germany

IV: Scientific explanations
 56. Reports on the Paris medical facility, October 1348
 57. Simon de Covino, De Judicio Solis
 58. The astrological causes of the plague, Geoffrey de Meaux
 59. The dangers of corrupt air
 60. Earthquakes as the cause of the plague
 61. The transmission of the plague
 62. The treatise of John of Burgundy, 1365
 63. A fifteenth-century treatise on the pestilence
 64. Ordinances against the spread of the plague, Pistoria, 1348
 65. Plague regulations of the Bernabo Visconti, Lord of Milan
 66. London butchery regulations, 1371
 67. Parliamentary statute of 1388

V: Human agency
 68. Well-poisoning
 69. The persecution of the Jews
 70. Measures taken against the Jews in Lausanne
 71. Examinations of Jews captured in Savoy
 72. Letter from Cologne to Strassburg
 73. Mandate of Clement VI concerning the Jews
 74. Accusations of well-poisoning against the poor
 75. An accusation of well-poisoning

PART THREE: CONSEQUENCES
VI: The impact of the plague
 76. Petrarch on the death of friends
 77. The death of Princess Joan
 78. The Wakebridge family
 79. The death of Abbot Michael of St Albans
 80. Deaths among the nuns of Malling
 81. Deaths in Walsham le Willows
 82. The plague in Lancashire
 83. A new burial ground in London
 84. Burial problems in Worcester
 85. A new burial ground in Newark
 86. Consecration of the new burial grounds in Yorkshire
 87. A shortage of priests to hear confessions
 88. A papal licence for extra ordinations
 89. The shortage of secular clergy
 90. A failed chantry endowment
 91. The deaths of officials
 92. A wrong readdressed
 93. An immediate fall in revenue
 94. Decayed rent
 95. Unwillingness to take on vacant properties
 96. The renegotiation of labour services
 97. A reduction in labour services
 98. The ordinance of labourers
 99. An episcopal response to the ordinance

VII: Repercussions
 100. Land values before and after the plague
 101. An increase in value
 102. Diminished wills
 103. An early enclosure
 104. Appropriations of parishes
 105. An amalgamation of parishes
 106. Amendments to a chantry foundation, 1351
 107. Amendment of statutes governing a chantry, 1365
 108. Effrenata
 109. Unwillingness to take on parochial responsibilities
 110. William Langland on gadding clergy
 111. Simon Sudbury increases priests' wages
 112. The statute of labourers, 1351
 113. A case under the ordinance of labourers
 114. Cases brought under the statute of labourers
 115. A selection of cases from Lincolnshire
 116. Cases from the justices in Kesteven, 1371
 117. Additions to the statute of tenants
 118. Difficulties in finding tenants
 119. Rebellious serfs in Wawne
 120. The sin of pride
 121. Sumptuary legislation, 1363
 122. The unprepared dead
 123. The prepared dead
 124. 'It is good to think on death'
 125. The fate of the sinful

Suggestions for further reading

For links to other sources for the study of the Black Death visit the Manchester Medievalportal.