How did people in the 14th Century understand the Black Death?

NAME: ________________________________________________ SSH 105: World History to 1500 Final Research Paper Stage 2 Due on November 6th at 3pm Please answer the questions below in the space provided, using the two 14th-century primary source readings that you were given.

Central Question: How did people in the 14th Century understand the Black Death?

Sourcing and Contextualization Doc A: Paris Medical Faculty

Doc B: Ibn al-Wardi

1. Who wrote this document?

It was written by the Medical Faculty at the University of Paris.

It was written by Ibn al-Wardi.

2. When and where was this document written?

October 1348 in Paris

1348, Syria

3. Why was this document written?

To inform people of the Black Death. The Medical Faculty was also interested in showing people how to avoid contracting the plague.

To inform people about the origins of the Black Death. The author also wanted to inform people about the movement of the disease.

4. Do you think people in 1348 trusted and believed these authors?

Yes. I believe people trusted the Medical faculty. Even so, it should be noted that, due to the influence of the Catholic church, there may have been skepticism because the Medical Faculty was essentially a scientific institution.

As the author had achieved a certain level of legitimacy, I believe the people trusted his assertions. Notably, the author was not implying that he had medical knowledge of the plague. He was only offering his ideas about its origins and how the disease spread from one geographical area to

another.

Close Reading and Corroboration Doc A: Paris Medical Faculty

Doc B: Ibn al-Wardi

5. Where did the plague originate?

The Medical Faculty stated that The plague originated from the Land of Darkness and the plague had originated from continued to spread because it could not be contained India. in one country. Here, it is unclear whether the term ‘land of darkness’ was literal or figurative.

6. What or who caused the plague?

According to the medical faculty, something in the atmosphere affected the sun's rays. The result of this was the pollution of the ocean, the killing of fish, and the creation of vapor, which then carried the plague to human beings.

7. Doc A: What should people have done to try to prevent or cure the plague?

According to the author, the plague was spreading under God’s command. He was of the opinion that the plague was punishment for the widespread nature of human corruption.

Doc B: How did people try to prevent or cure the plague?

To protect themselves, people should have found ways of keeping themselves from bad air; by burning things such as chamomile; by keeping a simple diet; by avoiding eating cold and moist food; and by avoiding participating in extreme acts of leisure and pleasure.

To protect themselves, people were advised to start reading medical books to get advice; eating dried fruit and sour foods; rubbing clay on the buboes, and wearing items such as rings.

Final Questions 1) How do these documents illustrate how people understood the "Black Death"?

The documents demonstrated that, ultimately, very few people actually understood what was happening. On the one hand, those in Paris understood the plague to be a disease which came from other places. In other words, it was foreign. In Syria, on the other hand, there was the sense that the Black Death was connected to questions of spirituality and religion. However, in both documents, people had the sense that the Black Death had been imported. In other words, it had originated from elsewhere and was therefore an imposition.

2) List 2-3 questions you still have about the "Black Death" or how people understood it?  How were people in the medieval age able to reconcile their belief in the Catholic Church with the assertions made by entities who worked within the scientific tradition?  In Syria, how was the population able to align their belief in otherworldly influences with the fact that, in order to understand the disease, the population would have to rely on medical knowledge?

3) What types of documents might you examine to try and answer these questions?

To answer these questions, any primary documents that were penned by common people during the Middle Age would be important in attempting to decipher the mind frame of the populations from the two regions even as they tried to understand the Black Death.

Works Cited Dols, M. W. (2019). The black death in the Middle East. Princeton University Press.

Porter, S. (2018). Black Death: A New History of the Bubonic Plagues. Amberley Publishing Limited.