Primary source

Document 1: The English chronicler Henry Knighton wrote about the effects of the Black Death in England in 1348-50 as follows:

In this year there was a general mortality among men throughout the world. It began first in India, and then appeared in Tharsis, then among the Saracens, and at last among the Christians and Jews, so that in the space of one year, namely, from Easter to Easter, 8000 legions of men, according to widely prevalent rumours in the Court of Rome, died in those remote regions, besides Christians. ….And the price of everything was cheap, because of the fear of death; there were very few who took any care for their wealth, or for anything else. For a man could buy a horse for half a mark, which before was worth forty shillings, a large fat ox for four shillings, a cow for twelve pence, … a lamb for two pence, a fat pig for five pence, a stone of wool for nine pence. And the sheep and cattle wandered about through the fields and among the crops, and there was no one to go after them or to collect them. They perished in countless numbers everywhere, in secluded ditches and hedges, for lack of watering, since there was such a lack of servants, that no one knew what he should do. In the following autumn, one could not hire a reaper at a lower wage that eight pence with food, or a mower at less than twelve pence with food. Because of this, much grain rotted in the fields for lack of harvesting, but in the year of the plague, as was said above, among other things there was so great an abundance of all kinds of grain that no one seemed to have concerned himself about it…

…. [After the Plague] Meanwhile, the king ordered that in every county of the kingdom, reapers and other laborers should not receive more than they were accustomed to receive, under the penalty provided in the statute, and he renewed the statute from this time. The laborers, however, were so arrogant and hostile that they did not heed the king’s command, but if anyone wished to hire them, he had to pay them what they wanted, and either lose his fruits and crops or satisfy the arrogant and greedy desire of the laborers as they wished. When it was made known to the king that they had not obeyed his mandate, and had paid higher wages to the laborers, he imposed heavy fines … … Then the king had many laborers arrested, and put them in prison. Many such hid themselves and ran away to the forests and woods for a while and those who were captured were heavily fined. After the aforesaid pestilence, many buildings, both large and small, in all cities, towns, and villages had collapsed, and had completely fallen to the ground in the absence of inhabitants. Likewise, many small villages and hamlets were completely deserted; there was not one house left in them, but all those who had lived in them were dead. It is likely that many such hamlets will never again be inhabited. In the following summer [1350], there was so great a lack of servants to do anything that, as one believed, there had hardly been so great a dearth in past times. For all the beasts and cattle that a man possessed wandered about without a shepherd, and everything a man had was without a caretaker. And so all necessities became so dear that anything that in the past had been worth a penny was now worth four of five pence. Moreover, both the magnates of the kingdom and the other lesser lords who had tenants, remitted something from the rents, lest the tenants should leave, because of the lack of servants and the dearth of things. Some remitted half the rent, some more and others less, some remitted it for two years, some for three, and others for one year, according as they were able to come to an agreement with their tenants. Similarly, those who received day-work from their tenants throughout the year, as is usual from serfs, had to release them and to remit such services. They either had to excuse them entirely or had to fix them in a laxer manner at a small rent, lest very great and irreparable damage be done to the buildings, and the land everywhere remain completely uncultivated. And all foodstuffs and all necessities became exceedingly dear.

Knighton, Henry,  Chronicles, trans. Edith Rickert, in Rickert (comp.), Clair C. Olson and Martin M. Crow (eds.),  Chaucer's World, Oxford University Press, 1948

Primary Source 2: Hieronymus Brunschwig, Buch der Cirurgia on Plague in Florence, 1497. Brunschwig was a German Surgeon and Alchemist who wrote of the Plague in his surgical handbook.

It started in the East, either because of the influence of heavenly bodies or because of God’s just wrath as a punishment to mortals for our wicked deeds, and it killed an infinite number of people. Without pause it spread from one place and it stretched its miserable length over the West. And against the pestilence no human wisdom or foresight was of any avail; quantities of filth were removed from the city by officials charged with this task; the entry of any sick person into the city was prohibited; and many directives were issued concerning the maintenance of good health. … [I]t began in both men and women with certain swellings either in the groin or under the armpits, some of which grew to the size of a normal apple and others to the size of an egg (more or less), and the people called them gavoccioli. And from the two parts of the body already mentioned, within a brief space of time, the said deadly gavoccioli began to spread indiscriminately over every part of the body; and after this, the symptoms of the illness changed to black or livid spots appearing on the arms and thighs, and on every part of the body, some large ones and sometimes many little ones scattered all around. … And the evil of the plague went even further: not only did talking to or being around the sick bring infection and a common death, but also touching the clothes of the sick or anything touched or used by them seemed to communicate this very disease to the person involved.

… Everyone felt he was doomed to die and, as a result, abandoned his property, so that most of the houses had become common property, and any stranger who came upon them used them as if he were their rightful owner. In addition to this bestial behavior, they always managed to avoid the sick as best they could. And in this great affliction and misery of our city the revered authority of the laws, both divine and human, had fallen and almost completely disappeared, for, like other men, the ministers and executors of the laws were either dead or sick or so short of help that it was impossible for them to fulfill their duties; as a result, everyone was free to do as he pleased. … Thus, for countless multitude of men and women who fell sick there remained no support except the charity of their friends (and these were few) or the avarice of servants, who worked for inflated salaries … And since the sick were abandoned by their neighbors, their parents, and their friends and there was a scarcity of servants, a practice that was almost unheard of before spread through the city: when a woman fell sick, no matter how attractive or beautiful or noble she I might be, she did not mind having a manservant (whoever he might be, no matter how young or old he was), and she had no shame whatsoever in revealing any part of her body to him—the way she would have done to a woman—when the necessity of her sickness required her to do so. This practice was, perhaps, in the days that followed the pestilence, the cause of looser morals in the women who survived the plague. …:

Hieronymus Brunschwig, Buch der Cirurgia (1497; reprinted Oberkirch, Germany: A. Köhler, 1971), 11. San Diego State University Library and Information Access, Special Collections and University Archives

Document 3: The great Muslim historian, Ibn Khaldun lost both of his parents to the Great Death. He describes the effect of the plague in this excerpt:

Civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out. It overtook the dynasties at the time of their senility, when they had reached the limit of their duration. It lessened their power and curtailed their influence. It weakened their authority. Their situation approached the point of annihilation and dissolution. Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind. Cities and buildings were laid waste, roads and way signs were obliterated, settlements and mansions became empty, and dynasties and tribes grew weak. The entire inhabited world changed. The East, it seems, was similarly visited, though in accordance with and in proportion to [the East's more affluent] civilization.

Source: Robert Gottfried.  The Black Death. New York: Free Press, 1983:41

Document 4: Chronicle of Novgorod (in Modern Russia), 1417

At that time the men of Novgorod took peace with the Nemtsy. The same summer and winter there was a fearful plague among the people in Novgorod, and in Ladoga, in Russa, Porkhov, Pskov Tver, Dmitrov, and in Torzhok, and throughout their districts and villages. And how can I relate the fearful and terrible misery that there was during the whole plague? What grief the living had for the dead, for the deaths increased so in towns and villages that the living had barely time to make the dead tidy for burial; so many died every day, that they had not time to bury them; and many houses were closed unoccupied. First of all it would hit one as if with a lance, choking, and then a swelling would appear, or spitting of blood with shivering, and fire would burn one in all the joints of the body; and then the illness would overwhelm one’ and many after lying in that illness died. But to many Christian; God was merciful: they left this life entering the angelic order after receiving holy unction from the Vladyka. And two Posadniks died in the same order: Ivan Olexandrovich and Boris Vasilievich. And Vladyka Simeon with all the seven congregations, with the Christians and with crosses went round the whole of Great Novgorod praying God and His Immaculate Mother to withhold the wrath 0; God: and the Christians on horseback and afoot drew logs from the forest and built a church to St. Anastasia which was consecrated the same day by the Vladyka Simeon who performed a holy liturgy; with the remainder of the logs, they erected a church to St. Ilya in Prussian Street. And the people of Novi-torg put up a church to St. Afanasi likewise in a single day, and performed a liturgy.

Document 5. Nicephorus Gregoras, Roman History (Byzantium), 1350s.

During that time a serious and pestilential disease invaded humanity. Starting from Scythia and Maeotis and the mouth of the Tanais, just as spring began, it lasted for that whole year, passing through and destroy-ing, to be exact, only the continental coast, towns as well as country areas, ours and those that are adjacent to ours, up to Gadera and the columns of Hercules. During the second year it invaded the Aegean Islands. Then it affected the Rhodians, as well as the Cypriots and those colonizing the other islands. The calamity attacked Men as well as women, rich and poor, old and young. To put matters simply, it did not spare those of any age or fortune. Several homes were emptied of all their inhabitants in one day or sometimes in two. No one could help anyone else, not even the neighbors, or the family, or blood relations. The calamity did not destroy only men but also many animals living with and domesticated by men. I speak of dogs and horses and all the species of birds, even the rats that happened to live within the walls of the houses. The prominent signs of this disease, signs indicating early death, were tumorous outgrowths at the roots of thighs and arms and simultaneously bleeding ulcerations, which, sometimes the same day, carried the infected rapidly out of this present life, sitting or walking. During that time, Andronicus, the youngest of the [emperor’s] sons, died.

Christos S. Bartsocas, “Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions of the ‘Black Death,’” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 21 (1966): 3

Document 6. Jacob Königshofen, “The Cremation of the Strasbourg Jewry,” 1415. Königshofen was a German chronicler from Strasbourg.

In the year 1349 there occurred the greatest epidemic that ever happened. Death went from one end of the earth to the other, on that side and this side of the sea…. This epidemic also came to Strasbourg in the summer of the above-mentioned year, and it is estimated that about sixteen thousand people died. In the matter of this plague the Jews throughout the world were reviled and accused in all lands of having caused it through the poison which they are said to have put into the water and the wells—that is what they were accused of—and for this reason the Jews were burnt all the way from the Mediterranean into Germany, but not in Avignon, for the pope protected them there. Nevertheless they tortured a number of Jews in Berne and Zofingen who then admitted that they had put poison into many wells, and they also found the poison in the wells. Thereupon they burnt the Jews in many towns and wrote of this affair to Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel in order that they too should burn their Jews. But the leaders in these three cities in whose hands the government lay did not believe that anything ought to be done to the Jews. However in Basel the citizens marched to the city-hall and compelled the council to take an oath that they would burn the Jews, and that they would allow no Jew to enter the city for the next two hundred years. Thereupon the Jews were arrested in all these places and a conference was arranged to meet [in] … Alsace, February 8, 1349. The Bishop of Strasbourg, all the feudal lords of Alsace, and representatives of the three above mentioned cities came there. The deputies of the city of Strasbourg were asked what they were going to do with their Jews. They answered and said that they knew no evil of them. Then they [the deputies] asked the Strasbourgers why they had closed the wells and put away the buckets, and there was a great indignation and clamor against the deputies from Strasbourg. So finally the Bishop and the lords and the Imperial Cities agreed to do away with the Jews. The result was that they were burnt in many cities, and wherever they were expelled they were caught by the peasants and stabbed to death or drowned….On Saturday—that was St. Valentine's Day—they burnt the Jews on a wooden platform in their cemetery. There were about two thousand people of them. Those who wanted to baptize themselves were spared. Many small children were taken out of the fire and baptized against the will of their fathers and mothers. And everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled, and the Jews had to surrender all pledges and notes that they had taken for debts. The council, however, took the cash that the Jews possessed and divided it among the working-men proportionately. The money was indeed the thing that killed the Jews. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt. After this wealth was divided among the artisans some gave their share to the Cathedral or to the Church on the advice of their confessors. Thus were the Jews burnt at Strasbourg, and in the same year in all the cities of the Rhine, whether Free Cities or Imperial Cities or cities belonging to the lords. In some towns they burnt the Jews after a trial, in others, without a trial. In some cities the Jews themselves set fire to their houses and cremated themselves. It was decided in Strasbourg that no Jew should enter the city for a hundred years, but before twenty years had passed, the council and magistrates agreed that they ought to admit the Jews again into the city for twenty years. And so the Jews came back again to Strasbourg in the year 1368…

"Jacob von Königshofen." Middle Ages Reference Library, edited by Judy Galens and Judson Knight, vol. 4: Primary Sources, UXL, 2001, pp. 43-51.

Document 7. Jean de Venette, Chronicle, 1368. Vennette was a French Friar.

In the month of August, 1348, after Vespers when the sun was beginning to set, a big and very bright star appeared above Paris, toward the west. It did not seem, as stars usually do, to be very high above our hemisphere but rather very near. As the sun set and night came on, this star did not seem to me or to many other friars who were watching it to move from one place. At length, when night had come, this big star, to the amazement of all of us who were watching, broke into many different rays and, as it shed these rays over Paris toward the east, totally disappeared and was completely annihilated. Whether it was a comet or not, whether it was composed of airy exhalations and was finally resolved into vapor, I leave to the decision of astronomers. It is, however, possible that it was a presage of the amazing pestilence to come, which, in fact, followed very shortly in Paris and throughout France and elsewhere, as I shall tell…

Some said that this pestilence was caused by infection of the air and waters, since there was at this time no famine nor lack of food supplies, but on the contrary great abundance. As a result of this theory of infected water and air as the source of the plague the Jews were suddenly and violently charged with infecting wells and water and corrupting the air. The whole world rose up against them cruelly on this account. In Germany and other parts of the world where Jews lived, they were massacred and slaughtered by Christians, and many thousands were burned everywhere, indiscriminately. The unshaken, if fatuous, constantly of the men and their wives was remarkable. For mothers hurled their children first into the fire that they might not be baptized and then leaped in after them to burn with their husbands and children. It is said that many bad Christians were found who in like manner put poison into wells. But in truth, such poisonings, granted that they actually were perpetrated, could not have caused so great a plague nor have infected so many people. There were other causes; for example, the will of God and the corrupt humors and evil inherent in air and earth. Perhaps the poisonings, if they actually took place in some localities, reinforced these causes. The plague lasted in France for the greater part of the years 1348 and 1349 and then ceased. Many country villages and many houses in good towns remained empty and deserted. Many houses, including some splendid dwellings, very soon fell into ruins. Even in Paris several houses were thus ruined, though fewer here than elsewhere.

After this cessation of the epidemic, pestilence, or plague, the men and women who survived married each other. There was no sterility among the women, but on the contrary fertility beyond the ordinary. Pregnant women were seen on every side. . . . But woe is me! the world was not changed for the better but for the worse by this renewal of population. For men were more avaricious and grasping than before, even though they had far greater possessions. They were more covetous and disturbed each other more frequently with suits, brawls, disputes, and pleas. Nor by the mortality resulting from this terrible plague inflicted by God was peace between kings and lords established. On the contrary, the enemies of the king of France and of the Church or stronger and wickeder than before and stirred up wars on sea and on land. Greater evils than before [swarmed] everywhere in the world. And this fact was very remarkable. Although there was an abundance of all goods, yet everything was twice as dear, whether it were utensils, victuals, or merchandise, hired helpers or peasants and serfs, except for some hereditary domains which remained abundantly stocked with everything. Charity began to cool, and iniquity with ignorance and stand to abound, for a few could be found in the good towns and castles who knew how or were willing to instruct children in the rudiments of grammar.

[Source: Richard A. Newhall, ed., Jean Birdsall, trans., The Chronicle of Jean de Venette (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), pp. 48-51.]

Document 8. Plague Ordinances of Pistoia Italy, 1348

In the name of Christ Amen. Herein are written certain ordinances and provisions made and agreed upon by certain wise men of the People of the city of Pistoia elected and commissioned by the lords Anziani and the Standardbearer of Justice of the said city concerning the preserving, strengthening and protecting the health of humans from various and diverse pestilences which otherwise can befall the human body. And written by me Simone Buonacorsi notary. . . in the year from the Nativity of the Lord MCCCXLVIII, the first Indiction.

First. So that no contaminated matter which presently persists in the areas surrounding the city of Pistoia can enter into the bodies of the citizens of Pistoia, these wise men provided and ordered that no citizen of Pistoia or dweller in the district or the county of Pistoia . . . shall in any way dare or presume to go to Pisa or Lucca or to the county or district of either. And that no one can or ought to come from either of them or their districts ... to the said city of Pistoia or its district or county on penalty of £ 50 ... And that gatekeeper of the city of Pistoia guarding the gates of the said city shall not permit those coming or returning to the said city of Pistoia from the said cities of Pisa or Lucca, their districts or counties to enter the said gates on penalty of £ 10 ... It is licit, however, for citizens now living in Pistoia to go to Pisa and Lucca, their districts and counties and then return if they have first obtained a license from the Council of the People ....

II. Item. The foresaid wise men provided and ordered that no person whether citizen, inhabitant of the district or county of the city of Pistoia or foreigner shall dare or presume in any way to bring ... to the city of Pistoia, its district or county, any used cloth, either linen or woolen, for use as clothing for men or women or for bedclothes on penalty of £ 200. ... Citizens of Pistoia, its district and county returning to the city, district or county will be allowed to bring with them the linen or woolen cloths they are wearing and those for personal use carried in luggage or a small bundle weighing 30 pounds or less. ... And if any quantity of cloth of the said type or quality has been carried into the said city, county or district, the carrier shall be held to and must remove and export it from the said city, county and district within three days of the adoption of the present ordinance under the foresaid penalty for each carrier or carriers and for each violation.

III. Item. They provided and ordered that the bodies of the dead, after they had died, can not be nor ought to be removed from the place in which they are found unless first such a body has been placed in a wooden casket covered by a lid secured with nails, so that no stench can issue forth from it; nor can it be covered except by a canopy, blanket or drape under a penalty for £ 50 of pennies paid by the heirs of the dead person.....

IV. Item. In order to avoid the foul stench which the bodies of the dead give off they have provided and ordered that any ditch in which a dead body is to be buried must be dug under ground to a depth of 2 1/2 braccia by the measure of the city of Pistoia.

VI. Item. They have provided and ordered that any person who will have come for the burial or to bury any dead person can not and may not be in the presence of the body itself nor with the relatives of such a dead person except for the procession to the church where it will be buried. Nor shall such persons return to the house where the defunct person lived or enter into that house or any other house on the said occasion on penalty of £ 10

XIV. Item. They have provided and ordered that butchers and retail vendors of meat, individually and in common, can not, nor ought to hold or maintain near a tavern or other place where they sell meats, or near a shop or beside or behind a shop any stable, pen or any other thing which will give off a putrid smell; nor can they slaughter meat animals nor hang them after slaughter in any stable or other place in which there is any stench on a penalty of £ 10.

XXII. Item. So that stench and putrefaction shall not be harmful to men, henceforth tanning of hides can not and must not be done within the walls of the city of Pistoia on penalty of £ 25....

Document 9. Marchione di Coppo Stefani was born in Florence in 1336. He wrote his Florentine Chronicle in the late 1370s and early 1380s.

In the said year, when the mortality stopped, women and men in Florence were unmindful of [traditional modesty concerning] their dress. And ordinances were passed concerning this giving authority to the Judge of the Grascia to enforce these ordinances. The tailors made such boundless demands for payment that they could not be satisfied. Authority was granted [to the judge] that he should handle all matters himself. Servants were so unhappy about the very high prices [they paid] that it was necessary to make great efforts to restrain [the price rises]. The workers on the land in the countryside wanted rent contracts such that you could say that all they harvested would be theirs. And they learned to demand oxen from the landlord but at the landlord's risk [and liability for any harm done to the animal]. And then they helped others for pay by the job or by the day. And they also learned to deny [liability for] loans and [rental] payments. Concerning this serious ordinances were instituted; and [hiring] laborers became much more expensive. You could say that the farms were theirs; and they wanted the oxen, seed, loans quickly and on good terms. It was necessary to put a brake on weddings as well because when they gathered for the betrothal each party brought too many people in order to increase the pomp. And thus the wedding was made up of so many trappings. How many days were necessary and how many women took part in a woman's wedding. And they passed many other ordinances concerning [these issues].

Stefani, Marchione di Coppo. Cronaca fiorentina. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Vol. 30. , ed. Niccolo Rodolico. Citta di Castello: 1903-13.

Document 10: lbn al-Wardi's "An Essay on the Report of the Pestilence." lbn al-Wardi was an Arab writer, and philosopher who described the plague on the city of Alfepo in Syria. In 1349, al-Wardi died from the plague.

The plague frightened and killed. It began in the land of darkness. Oh, what a visitor! It has been current for fifteen years. China was not preserved from it. The plague infected the Indians in India. It weighed

upon the Sind. It seized with its hand and effected even the Persians, ... and gnawed away at the Crimea ... The plague destroyed mankind in Cairo ... It stilled all movement in Alexandria. Then, the plague turned to Upper Egypt. .. The plague attacked Gaza ... The plague trapped Sidon and descended unexpectedly upon Beirut. Next, it directed its shooting arrows to Damascus. There the plague sat like a lion on a throne and swayed with power, killing daily one thousand or more and destroying the population. Oh God, it is acting by Your command. Lift this from us. It happens

where You wish; keep the plague from us ... The plague caused the people of Aleppo the same disturbance. Oh, if you could see the nobles of Aleppo studying their incomprehensible books of medicine. They follow its remedies by eating dried and sour foods. The buboes which disturb men's healthy lives are smeared with Armenian clay. Each man treated their health to make life more comfortable. They perfumed their homes with ambergris (a fragrant rock) and camphor (fragrant wax), cyperus (a flower), and sandal. They wore ruby rings and put onions, vinegar, and sardines together

with the daily meal. We ask God's forgiveness for our bad souls; the plague is surely part of His punishment. We take refuge (shelter) from His wrath in His pleasure and from His chastisement (scolding) in His restoring. Some said: the air's corruption kills. I said: the love of corruption kills.

Source: lbn al-Wardi, As Essay on the Report of the Pestilence, 1348.

Document 11: English Statute of Laborer’s issued by Edward III in 1351.

The King to the sheriff of Kent, greeting:

Because a great part of the people, and especially the workmen and servants, have lately died in the pestilence, many seeing the necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and others preferring to begin idleness rather than by labor to get their living; we, considering the grievous incommodities which of the lack especially of ploughmen and such laborers may hereafter come, have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and the nobles and learned men assisting us, with their unanimous counsel ordained:

That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of sixty years, not living in merchandize, nor exercising any craft, nor having all his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about whose tillage he may occupy himself, and not serving any other; if he'd be required to serve in suitable service, his estate considered, he shall be bound to serve him which shall so require him; and take only the wages, livery, meed, or salary which were accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve, the twentieth year of our reign of England, or five and six other common years next before.

If any reaper, mower, or other workman or servants, of what estate or condition that he be, retained in any man's service, do depart from the said service without reasonable cause or license, before the term agreed, he shall have pain of imprisonment; and no one, under the same penalty, shall presume to receive or retain such a one in his service. No one, moreover, shall pay or promise to pay to any one more wages, liveries, meed, or salary than was accustomed, as is before said. . . .

Source: Edward P. Cheyney, ed., "England in the time of Wycliffe," in  Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, vol II, no. 5 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1898), pp. 3-4

Document 12: Anonimalle Chronicle: English Peasants' Revolt 1381

Then be King caused a proclamation to be made that all the commons of the country who were still in London should come to Smithfield, to meet in their, and so they did.

At this moment the Mayor of London, William Walworth, came up, and the King bade him go to the commons, and make their chieftain come to him. And when he was summoned by the Mayor, by the name of Wat Tyler [Leader of the Revolt] of Maidstone, he came to the King with great confidence, mounted on a little horse, that the commons might see him… when he had dismounted he half bent his knee, and then took the King by the hand, and shook his arm forcibly and roughly, saying to him, "Brother, be of good comfort and joyful, for you shall have, in the fortnight that is to, praise from the commons even more than you have yet had, and we shall be good companions." And the King said to Walter, "Why will you not go back to your own country?" But the other answered, with a great oath, that neither he nor his fellows would depart until they had cut their charter such as they wished to have it, and had certain points rehearsed and added to their charter which they wished to demand. And he said in a threatening fashion that the lords of the realm would rue it bitterly if these points were not settled to their pleasure. Then the King asked him what were the points which he wished to have revised, and he should have them freely, without contradiction, written out and sealed. Thereupon the said Walter rehearsed the points which were to be demanded; and he asked that there should be no law within the realm save the law of Winchester, and that from henceforth there should be no outlawry in any process of law, and that no lord should have lordship save civilly, and that there should be equality among all people save only the King, and that the goods of Holy Church should not remain in the hands of the religious, nor of parsons and vicars, and other churchmen; but that clergy already in possession should have a sufficient sustenance from the endowments, and the rest of the goods should be divided among the people of the parish. And he demanded that there should be only one bishop in England and only one prelate, and all the lands and tenements now held by them should be confiscated, and divided among the commons, only reserving for them a reasonable sustenance. And he demanded that there should be no more villeins in England, and no serfdom or villeinage, but that all men should be free and of one condition.

Charles Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), pp. 200-203, 205

Document 13. “The Report of the Paris Medical Faculty," issued in October 1348.

We, the Members of the College of Physicians of Paris, … intend to make known the causes of this pestilence. … We, therefore, declare as follows: It is known that in India, and the vicinity of the Great Sea, the constellations which combated the rays of the sun … exerted their power especially against the sea … and the waters of the ocean arose in the form of vapor, thereby the waters were, in some parts, so corrupted that the fish which they contained died. This vapor spread itself through the air in many places on earth. … [O]n all the islands and adjoining countries to which the corrupted sea-wind extends … [if] the inhabitants of those parts do not [take the following advice,] we announce to them inevitable death—except the grace of Christ preserve their lives. Every one of you should protect himself from the air; wormwood and chamomile should also be burnt in great quantity in the market places, in other densely inhabited localities, and in the houses. … The diet should be simple. … Cold, moist, watery food is in general prejudicial. Going out at night, and even until three o’clock in the morning, is dangerous, on account of the dew. Rainwater must not be employed in cooking, and everyone should guard against exposure to wet weather … injurious are fasting and … anxiety of mind, anger, and immoderate drinking. … Bathing is injurious. Men must preserve chastity as they value their lives. Everyone should impress this on his recollection, but especially those who reside on the coast, or upon an island into which the noxious wind has penetrated.

Source: George Deaux, The Black Death: 1347 (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1969), 52-3

Document 14: Processions at Damascus: Ibn Battuta, Travels (before 1368)

I witnessed at the time of the Great Plague at Damascus in the latter part of the month of Second Rabi‘ of the year 49 [July 1348] a remarkable instance of the veneration of the people of Damascus for this mosque. Arghun-Shah, king of the emirs and the Sultan’s viceroy, ordered a crier to proclaim through Damascus that the people should fast for three days and that no one should cook in the bazaar during the daytime anything to be eaten (for most of the people there eat no food but what has been prepared in the bazaar). So the people fasted for three successive days, the last of which was a Thursday. At the end of this period the emirs, sharifs, qadis, doctors of the Law, and all other classes of the people in their several degrees, assembled in the Great Mosque, until it was filled to overflowing with them, and spent the Thursday night there in prayers and liturgies and sup-plications. Then, after performing the dawn prayer [on the Friday morning], they all went out together on foot carrying Qur’ans in their hands—the emirs too bare-footed. The entire population of the city joined in the exodus, male and female, small and large; the Jews went out with their book of the Law and the Christians with their Gospel, their women and children with them; the whole concourse of them in tears and humble supplica-tions, imploring the favor of God through His Books and His Prophets. They made their way to the Mosque of the Footprints and remained there in supplication and invocation until near midday, then returned to the city and held the Friday service. God Most High lightened their affliction; the number of deaths in a single day reached a maximum of two thousand, whereas the number rose in Cairo and Old Cairo to twenty-four thousand in a day.

Document 15: Ibn al-Khatib, a polymath historian who served as vizier at the Nasrid court in Granda “On plague”

If one asks "How can you admit the assertion, there is infection, when the revealed word (ash-shar) denies this?," we answer that infection exists, is confirmed by experience, research, insight and observation, and through constantly recurring accounts. These are the elements of proof.

It becomes clear to anyone who has diagnosed or treated the disease that most of the individuals who have had contact with a plague victim will die, whereas the man who has had no exposure will remain healthy. A garment or vessel may carry infection into a house; even an earring (al-halak) can prove fatal to the man who has put it in his ear. The disease can make its first appearance in a single house of a given town, then spread from that focus to other persons-neighbors, relatives, visitors. The disease can break out in a coastal town that had been free of the disease until a plague victim landed there, coming across the sea from a town where plague is raging. The date at which plague appears in the town coincides with [i.e. occurs a few days after] the debarkation of this carrier. Many people remained in good health who kept themselves in isolation from the outside world, for example the pious Ibn Abi-Madyan. He believed in contagion; therefor he laid by a store of provisions and bricked up his house, sequestering his large family. The town was severely stricken, but no one in his household took ill. There are many accounts of communities remote from highways and commerce that remained unscathed. There is also the remarkable example of the prisoners in the Arsenal at Seville who were unaffected even though the city itself was hard hit. Other reports tell us that itinerant nomads who live in tents in North Africa remained free of disease because the air is not shut in, and the corruption from it is only mildly infectious.

But it belongs to principles which one may not ignore that a proof taken from tradition (Hadith), if observation and inspection are contrary, must be interpreted allegorically. In this matter it is essential that it should be interpreted in accordance with those who hold the theory of contagion.

Ibn, al-Khatib A .: Tahsil al-gharad alqasid fi tafsil al-marad al-wafid. Escorial Ms. No 1785, folR. 49a-1 15b.