Beit AviHai Lecture Series: Plagues in Historical Perspective

2005

2019

2013

The Medieval Globe, 2014

In the past decade and a half, the findings of molecular microbiology have effected a transformation in our understanding the Black Death and its history. The question 'What was it?' has been decisively resolved in favor of the pathogen Yersinia pestis. Microbiological research has also been decisive in pointing toward the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau as the probable site of the organism's geographic origin and, more tentatively, in suggesting some chronological parameters in which key phases of that evolution occurred. These developments have laid out a challenge for medievalists, who now need to test whether these new biological narratives can better inform our understandings of the Black Death (1346-1353) and the Second Plague Pandemic more broadly defined. It also lays out a challenge for anyone who wants to apply knowledge of the Black Death to the understanding of contemporary epidemics and (re)emerging diseases. This inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe brings together scholars from many disciplines, to begin to assess how new work in the genetics, entomology, and epidemiology of Yersinia pestis, as well as new insights from archeological research, can combine with humanistic methods to allow a rethinking of the Second Plague Pandemic and its historical significance. The contributors collectively demonstrate that this phenomenon was geographically broad, chronologically deep, and ecologically complex: that it likely involved most of Eurasia and North Africa (and possibly parts beyond); that it likely extended from the 13th to the 19th centuries; and that it almost certainly involved many more intermediate hosts than the rats normally considered in plague histories. They also demonstrate that humanistic analysis has never been more crucial to reconstructing the history of the impact of this disease: genetics may be uniquely qualified to trace the history of the pathogen, but the insights of history—both traditional modes (political, religious, cultural) and newer ones (environmental, climatic, post-colonial)— allow us to see how a single-celled organism became a force shaping nearly half the globe. This issue serves as a state-of-the-field summation for medievalists and for researchers studying the world’s most lethal diseases and their modern implications. It will also provide a methodological model for global historians of any period. It is available open-access at the following link: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/. The following link leads to the video of a symposium that was held at the University of Illinois in January 2015 to discuss the implications of the volume: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/The+Black+Death+and+BeyondA+New+Research+at+the+Intersection+of+Science+and+the+Humanities/1_g1tg61l5.

The Black Death was a cataclysmic depopulation event that marked a low ebb in the turbulent Late Middle Ages. The virulence of the Black Death wiped out entire towns in some cases and destabilized Europe’s social, political, and economic structure. So lasting were its effects that it lives on in popular culture today, most notably in the “Ring Around the Rosie” nursery rhyme. The Mongol conquests of the 1200s and early-1300s facilitated a high volume period of transcontinental trade along the Silk Road between Europe and the East. Yersinia pestis, the bacillus most likely responsible for the Black Death, traveled through rat colonies on the steppes via fleas to unsuspecting merchants and travelers on the Silk Road. Periodic famine, nearly constant warfare, and economic problems battered Europe before the plague’s arrival, and deplorable living conditions allowed an abundant population of rats to sustain the Black Death during its westward spread. Europe was ripe for catastrophe, and the Black Death exploited the triumphs and tragedies of the Late Middle Ages to deliver one of the worst catastrophes in human history.

NOTE: This course was last taught in 2017. Much new work has come out on the history of plague and the late medieval pandemic since then, some of it overturning long-held truisms. Please consult my "Plague Studies" tab and the general bibliography, "The Mother of All Pandemics" for the most recent work in the field. Herewith is the final version of my syllabus for my undergraduate course, "The Black Death: Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World." The course actually teaches the whole global history of plague, from the earliest period it effected human societies (currently, the Bronze Age) up to its global presence in the world today. The course combines the latest scientific knowledge on plague, including molecular retrievals of *Yersinia pestis* from historical remains, with traditional historical documentation to understand the full impact of the pandemic waves of plague. Further details on my teaching method can be found in this blog post from 2015: https://mip-archumanitiespress.org/blog/2015/08/27/teaching-the-new-paradigm-in-black-death-studies/. The volume, *Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death*, inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe 1, no. 1-2 (Fall 2014), is available open-access here: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1.

History Compass, 2009

2011

I wrote this paper in 2011 for a "foundations" seminar in my first year of my doctoral program at Drew University, NJ.

This paper aims to look at the history of the bubonic plague in the 14 th century through historical, archaeological and medical means. From its beginnings on the Mongolian steppes the plague has always been interlinked with man and his love of commerce, indeed it is this very trade that help spread the plague during the 14 th century. Once the plague interacted with man it spread like wildfire causing the death of nearly a third of all Europeans and bringing about a new and distinct paradigm with ramifications that would shape modern Europe, that of social mobility and the rise of the working class.