Encyclopedia of the Black Death

This encyclopedia provides 300 interdisciplinary, cross-referenced entries that document the effect of the plague on Western society across the four centuries of the second plague pandemic, balancing medical history and technical matters with historical, cultural, social, and political factors.
Encyclopedia of the Black Death is the first A-Z encyclopedia to cover the second plague pandemic, balancing medical history and technical matters with historical, cultural, social, and political factors and effects in Europe and the Islamic world from 1347-1770. It also bookends the period with entries on Biblical plagues and the Plague of Justinian, as well as modern-era material regarding related topics, such as the work of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the Third Plague Pandemic of the mid-1800s, and plague in the United States.
Unlike previous encyclopedic works about this subject that deal broadly with infectious disease and its social or historical contexts, including the author's own, this interdisciplinary work synthesizes much of the research on the plague and related medical history published in the last decade in accessible, compellingly written entries. Controversial subject areas such as whether "plague" was bubonic plague and the geographic source of plague are treated in a balanced and unbiased manner.

Joseph P. Byrne is a historian and professor of honors humanities at Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA.

List of Entries by Broad Topic
Introduction
Timeline
Abandonment
AIDS and Plague
al-Asqalani, Ibn Hajar (1372-1449)
Alchemy
Allah
Almanacs
al-Manbiji, Muhammad (d. 1383)
al-Maqrizi, Muhammad (al-Makrizi; 1363/4-1442)
Amulets, Talismans, and Magic
Anatomy and Dissection
Animals
Anticlericalism
Anti-Semitism and Anti-Jewish Violence before the Black Death
Apocalypse and Apocalypticism
Apothecaries
Arabic-Persian Medicine and Practitioners
Armenian Bole
Armies
Arrows
Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying)
Art, Effects of Plague on
Articella
Astrology
Athens, Plague of
Avicenna (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina; 980-1037)
Barcelona, Spain
Bells
Bertrand, Jean-Baptiste (1670-1752)
Bezoar Stones
Bible
Biblical Plagues
Bills of Health
Bills of Mortality
Bimaristans (also Maristans)
Bishops and Popes
Black Death (1347-1352)
Black Death: Debate over the Medical Nature of
Black Death: Origins and Early Spread
Black Death, Plague, and Pestilence(Terms)
Bleeding/Phlebotomy
Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375)
Books of Hours
Borromeo, Federigo (1564-1631)
Borromeo, St. Charles (SanCarlo; 1538-1484)
Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)
Broadsheets, Broadsides, and Pamphlets
Bubonic Plague
Bubonic Plague in North America
Bullein, William (d. 1576)
Caffa (Kaffa, Feodosiya), Ukraine
Cairo, Egypt
Canutus (Kanutus) Plague Tract
Causes of Plague: Historical Theories
Cellites and Alexians
Charlatans and Quacks
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340/43-1400)
Chauliac, Guy de (Guido de Cauliaco; c. 1300-1367)
Children
China
Chinese Traditional Medicine
Christ
Chronicles and Annals
Churches, Plague
Ciompi Revolt
Clement VI, Pope (1291/92-1352; r. 1342-1352)
Clothing
Compendium of Paris
Confraternities
Consilia and Plague Tracts
Constantinople/Istanbul
Contagion Theory
Cordons Sanitaires
Corpse Carriers
Corpses
Couvin, Simon de (Symon de Covino; c. 1320-1367)
Crime and Punishment
Dancing Mania
Danse Macabre
Death, Depictions of
Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731)
Dekker, Thomas (1570?-1632)
De Mertens, Charles (1737-1788)
Demographic and Economic Effects of Plague: The Islamic World
Demographic Effects of Plague: Europe 1347-1400
Demographic Effects of Plague: Europe 1400-1500
Demographic Effects of Plague: Europe 1500-1722
Demography
Demons, Satan, and the Devil
Diagnosing Plague
Dietary Regimens
Diseases, Opportunistic and Subsidiary
Disinfection and Fumigation
DNA and the Second Plague Pandemic
Donne, John (1572-1631)
Doors
Dublin, Ireland
Earthquakes
Economic Effects of Plague in Europe
Empirics
End of Second Plague Pandemic: Theories
Epidemic and Pandemic
Ex voto
Expulsion of Victims
Eyam, England (1666)
Famine
Fernel, Jean (c. 1497-1558)
Feudalism and Manorialism
Ficino, Marsiglio (1433-1499)
Flagellants
Fleas
Flight
Florence, Italy
Fracastoro, Girolamo (1478-1553)
Friars (Mendicants)
Funerals, Catholic
Funerals, Muslim
Funerals, Protestant
Galen and Galenism (129CE-c.216)
Gentile da Foligno (c. 1275-1348)
Germ Theory
God the Father
Gold
Governments, Civil
Graunt, John (1620-1674)
Gravediggers
Gregory the Great, Pope (r.590-604)
Grindal, Edmund (1519-1583)
Guilds
Health Boards, Magistracies, and Commissions
Heaven and Hell
Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547; r. 1509-1547)
Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 360 bce) and the Hippocratic Corpus
Hodges, Nathaniel (1629-1688)
Hospitals
Humoral Theory
Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
I promessi sposi (1827)
Ibn al-Khatib, Lisad-ad Din (1313-1374)
Ibn Battuta, Abu Abdullah (1304-1368)
Ibn Khatimah, Abu Jafar Ahmed (1323?-1369)
Individualism and Individual Liberties
Ingrassia, Giovanni Filippo (Gianfilippo; 1510-1580)
Islam and Medicine
Islamic Civil Responses
Islamic Religious Responses
Islip, Simon (d. 1366)
Issyk Kul, Kyrgystan
Jacquerie
James I and VI Stuart, King (1566-1625)
Jewish Treasure Hoards
Jews
Jinn
Job
John of Burgundy (c. 1338-1390; also Johannes de Burgundia, Burdeus, La Barba, Burgoyne)
Jonson, Ben (1572-1637)
Justinian, Plague of (First PlaguePandemic)
Kircher, Athanasius (1602-1680)
Kitasato, Shibasaburo (1852-1931)
Koch, Robert (1843-1910)
Labourers, Ordinance and Statute of
Langland, William (c.1325-after 1388)
Languages: Vernacular and Latin
Lazarettos and Pest Houses
Lazarus
Leechbooks
Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) and Leprosarium
Li Muisis, Gilles (Le Muisit; 1271/72-1353)
Little Ice Age
Lollards
London, England
London, Great Plague of (1665-1666)
London's East Smithfield Plague Cemetery
Luther, Martin (1483-1546)
Lydgate, John (c. 1370-1450)
Malthusianism
Marseille, France
Mass Graves and Plague Cemeteries
Mead, Richard (1673-1754)
Mecca
Medical Education (1300-1500, Medieval Europe)
Medical Education (1500-1700, Early Modern Europe)
Medical Humanism
Merchants
Mercuriale, Girolamo (1530-1606)
Metaphors for Plague
Miasma Theory
Milan, Italy
Mongols
Monks, Nuns, and Monasteries
Moral Legislation
Morality Literature, Christian
Morbidity, Mortality, and Virulence
Moscow, Russia
Muhammad the Prophet (570-632)
Naples, Italy
Narwhal/Unicorn Horn Powder
Nashe, Thomas (1567-1601)
Nobility
Notaries
Nurses
Paracelsus (1493-1541) and Paracelsianism
Parets, Miquel (1610-1661)
Paris, France
Parish
Pasteur, Louis (1822-1895)
Pastors, Preachers, and Ministers
Peasants
Peasants' Revolt, English
Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703)
Petrarch, Francesco (1304-1374)
Physicians
Physicians, Court
Physicians, Town
Pilgrims and Pilgrimage
Plague in Europe, 1360-1500
Plague in Europe, 1500-1725
Plague Memorials
Plague Orders and National Authorities
Plague Saints
Plague Stone
"Plagues" in the West, 900-1345
Pneumonic Plague
Poetry, European
Poetry, Islamic
Poisoning and Plague Spreading
Poverty and Plague
Prayer and Fasting
Priests
Printing
Prisoners
Processions
Prophylaxes
Prostitutes
Public Health
Public Sanitation
Purgatives
Purgatory
Quarantine
Rats and Other Plague Carriers
Reformation and Protestantism
Remedies, External
Remedies, Internal
Repopulation
Rome, Italy
St. Januarius (San Gennaro; d.c.305)
St. Michael the Archangel
St. Nicholas of Tolentino (1245-1305)
St. Roche
St. Rosalia
St. Sebastian
Scientific Revolution
Searchers
Second Plague Pandemic (1340s-1840s)
Septicemic Plague
Servants, Household
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Shutting In
Signs of Plague
Simond, Paul-Louis (1858-1947)
Sin
Social Construction of Disease
Sumptuary Laws
Surgeons/Barbers
Sydenham, Thomas (1625-1689)
Syrups and Electuaries
Ta'un
Taxes and Public Finance
Tears against the Plague
Theriac and Mithridatum
Third Plague Pandemic
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)
"Three Living Meet Three Dead"
Toads
Tobacco
Transi Tombs
Triumph of Death
Tumbrels
Urine and Uroscopy
Valesco de Tarenta (d.after1426)
Van Diemerbroeck, Isbrand (Ysbrand, IJsbrand; 1609-1674)
Van Helmont, Joan Baptista (Johannes; Jan; 1579-1644)
Venice, Italy
Vesalius, Andreas (1514-1564)
Vienna, Austria
Vinario, Raimondo Chalmel de (Magister Raimundus; Chalmelli; Chalin; d. after 1382)
Virgin Mary
Virgin Soil Disease
Wands
Wills and Testaments
Witches and Witchcraft
Wither, George (1588-1667)
Women Medical Practitioners
Yeoman Farmers and Gentry
Yersin, Alexandre (1863-1943)
Yersinia pestis
Zodiac Man
Glossary
Bibliography
Index