A German physician and historian of disease reconstructs the pandemic of the 1340s: its symptoms, the natural disasters believed to herald it, its path from Asia across Europe and the staggering mortality, illustrated with Boccaccio’s description of Florence. Later chapters turn to its moral effects, from the processions of the flagellants to the massacre of Jews accused of poisoning wells.
A pioneering work of medical history, still a vivid introduction to the medieval plague, in Babington’s translation. Download the free EPUB.