Online Medieval Sources Bibliography

An Annotated Bibliography of Printed and Online Primary Sources for the Middle Ages

Source Details

Horrox, Rosemary, trans., The Black Death (Manchester Medieval Sources Series, Manchester: Manchester University Press)

Text name(s): Historia de Morbo; Decameron; Anonimalle Chronicle; Polychronicon; Eulogium; Historia Anglicana; Historia Roffensis; Scotichronicon; Terribilis; Salus Populi; Recordare Domini; On the Pestilence; Piers Plowman; De Judicio Solis; Sicut Judeis; Letters on Familiar Matters; A Survey of London; Effrenta; The Pardoner's Tale; Ars moriendi; Vox Clamantis

Number of pages of primary source text: 353

Author(s): 

Dates: 1348 - 1393

Archival Reference: 

Original Language(s): 

  • English - Middle English
  • Latin

Translation: 

  • Translated into English.

Translation Comments: The editor does not include the languages from which she translated; the portion of "The Pardoner's Tale" appears in Middle English with a following modern English translation.

Geopolitical Region(s): 

  • Scotland
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Ireland
  • France
  • Europe
  • England
  • British Isles
  • Austria

County/Region: Florence; Padua; Sicily; Avignon; Tournai; Bristol; Dorset; London; Lincolnshire; York; Rochester; Exeter; Pistoria; Milan; Lausanne; Savoy; Strassburg; Malling; Walsham le Willows; Lancashire

Record Types: 

  • Sermons
  • Theology - Devotional
  • Liturgy
  • Chronicle, Annals
  • Account Roll
  • Account Roll - Bailiff/Reeve
  • Literature - Verse
  • Court Roll - Sessions of the Peace
  • Court Roll
  • Treatise - Scientific/Medical
  • Law - Local Ordinances
  • Treatise - Instruction/Advice
  • Letter

Subject Headings: 

  • Travel / Pilgrimage
  • Science / Technology
  • Plague and Disease
  • Medicine
  • Jews / Judaism
  • Historiography
  • Family / Children
  • Diplomacy

Apparatus: 

Comments: These documents offer accounts of the plague and its spread, and give witness to contemporary responses to the sickness, possible explanations for it, and its consequences. The seven parts of the book are the plague in continental Europe, the plague in the British Isles, the religious response, scientific explanations, human agency, the repercussions of the plague, and consequences. The source is a collection of primary sources related to the plague and is divided thematically as follows: Part One: Narrative Accounts

  • I: The Plague in Continental Europe: sources that detail the arrival of the plague in Florence, Padua, Sicily, Avignon, Tournai, central France, and the rest of central Europe.
  • II: The Plague in the British Isles: sources detail the arrival of the plague in Bristol, Dorset, London, York, Lincolnshire, Rochester, Ireland, and Scotland. Also contains the accounts of the plague of John of Reading, Henry Knighton, Geoffrey le Baker and Thomas Walsingham.
    Part Two: Explanations and Responses
  • III: The Religious Response: prayers, sermons, and warnings by the clergy. Also contains sources about the failings of the clergy, the sins of the English, sins of society, and the improper conduct that caused God to be angry with humanity and send the plague.
  • IV: Scientific Explanations: medieval medical sources that detail the various scientific and medical treatments that were used to treat the plague.
  • V: Human Agency: sources about Jews being accused of causing the plague by poisoning the wells and water.
    Part Three: Consequences
  • VI: The Impact of the Plague: labor ordinances, treatises, and account rolls which detail the labor shortage and governmental issues following the plague. Contains sources related to the ordinance of laborers, the falls in revenue, decayed rents, the deaths of government officials, the deaths of clergy members, and the burial problems.
  • VII: Repercussions: sources that discuss the land values, government statutes, wage issues, rebellious serfs, sumptuary legislation, priests wages, diminished vills, land values before and after the plague, appropriation of parishes, and amendments to the statutes of government.
Printed Source Information
  • The primary sources are short excerpts of longer sources and each source is cited before its printed translation in the present edition.
  • Printed source contains and index and a list of related further reading in the back of the book.
  • Although the source does not focus on Britain solely, the sources printed here are predominantly concerned with the British experience of the Plague. Horrox notes in her introduction that she does not make any attempt to document the movement of the plague across Asia and the Middle and Near East although those sources would have added a valuable dimension to the Western perspective
  • All but three of the translations in the present edition were done by Rosemary Horrox herself. Dr. Susan Tilby translated the extract from the Grandes Chroniques [8], G.H. McWilliam translated the extract from Boccaccio’s _Decameron [2] and his extract was taken from the Penguin Classics edition, and the passage from the Book of the Servant [75] was done by Professor Clarke of Glasgow University in 1952.

Introduction Summary: 

The introduction (13 pp) gives a brief history of the plague’s arrival in Europe and the statistics related to the death toll. Horrox then details the nature of the plague’s spread and investigates the belief that the plague was brought by rats into the West and discusses the differences between our modern plague outbreaks and the physical symptoms that were exhibited in the Middle Ages by those struck with the plague. The waves of the plague and the mortality rates of each are then discussed. Horrox ends the introduction with a discussion of some of the common themes that can be observed within the sources translated in the present edition.

Cataloger: HMG

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