The Black Death and the Transformation of Medieval Europe
$ 45.5
Description
The term "Black Death" is conventionally used for the catastrophic plague pandemic that struck Europe, the Mediterranean, and parts of western Asia in the mid fourteenth century, especially between 1347 and 1352. The disease itself is commonly associated with Yersinia pestis, but medieval observers understood it through the intellectual and religious categories available to them: corruption of air, divine punishment, astrology, poison, sin, social disorder, and providence. The narrative that follows avoids a single-cause explanation. The pandemic was a biological event, but it was also a social event. Trade routes, war, urban density, grain markets, religious authority, legal systems, household structures, labor relations, and political legitimacy all shaped the way the crisis was experienced and remembered.