Daily Life during the Black Death

Daily life in the age of the Black Death was anything but normal.

During the second pandemic of bubonic plague, from 1348 to 1722, Europeans were regularly assaulted by deadly epidemics.

When plague hit a community, every aspect of life was turned upside down, from relations within families to the whole social, political and economic structure.

Theatres emptied, graveyards filled, and the streets were filled by corpse-bearers' wagons. And yet the society that suffered the plague was able to produce the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and early Enlightenment. "Daily Life During the Black Death" opens with an outline of the course of the pandemic, the causes and nature of bubonic plague, and the recent revisionist views of what the Black Death really was.

The author presents the phenomenon of plague thematically by focusing on the places where people lived and worked: the home, the church and cemetery, the village, the pest houses, the streets and roads.

The book then investigates contemporary theories of the causes of plague, doctors' futile attempts to treat victims, the authorities' vain attempts to prevent the pestilence, and its social impact. The narrative includes vivid examples from across Europe throughout the period, and presents the words of witnesses and victims themselves wherever possible.