Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe, c1340. An illustration from the ‘Romance of Alexander’ in the Bodleian Library, Oxford Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264 83r
The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel the Elder
The Triumph of Death - The Collection - Museo Nacional del Prado (museodelprado.es)
Burying bodies in Tournai. At the peak of the mass mortality, urban space for the numerous plague deaths was becoming scarce everywhere, as this dramatic depiction of Tournai in 1349 shows. © KIK-IRPA, Brussels
The plague brings out the most base cruelty in people: in 1349 innocent Jews are burned as scapegoats in Tournai, and the members of society's upper echelons look on with satisfactions. © KIK-IRPA, Brussels
Catherine of Siena who, according to legend, overcame the plague several times, around 1461 with the nimbus of a saint, Detroit Institute of Arts
The ideas of Aristotle and Plato, shown in Raphael's The School of Athens, were partly lost to Western Europeans for centuries.
A Medieval famine scene. Credit: The Print Collector / Alamy Stock Photo.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375): LII-Fuite de Clélia, jeune Romaine (CLOELIA, a Roman maiden), Le Livre des cleres et nobles femmes
Patients being treated in an image from a c.1450 copy of The Canon of Medicine, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Firenze.
A multiplication table decorated with fish and animals in colours and gold (British Library, Harley MS 549 fol. 14r)
An image of Socrates painted by Arabs during the Middle Ages. Well over a century old. Source
An image from Froissart’s Chronicle of Richard II meeting the Peasants Revolt. Jean Froissart, Chroniques
Detail, Herman, Paul and Jean de Limburg, January, from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1413-16, ink on vellum (Musée Condé, Chantilly). Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Herman, Paul and Jean de Limbourg, February, from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1413-16, ink on vellum (Musée Condé, Chantilly).Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Domesday Book is the oldest government record held in The National Archives. In fact, there are two Domesday Books – Little Domesday and Great Domesday, which together contain a great deal of information about England in the 11th century. In 1086, King William I (the Conqueror) wanted to find out about all the land in his new kingdom: who owned which property, who else lived there, how much the land was worth and therefore how much tax he could charge, so he sent official government inspectors around England to ask questions in local courts.
Peasant household. An image of a peasant household, including a woman preparing cheese. Cheese, Tacuinum sanitatis Casanatense (14th century)
Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of Pietro Crescenzi, written c. 1306. Imagining the harvest in early modern Europe - Traces changes in European representations of harvests from 1400 to 1789. Pictures of the harvest in the sixteenth century; Images of a busy, sweat-drenched harvest.
A 13th century CE illustration showing a medieval siege in France. From the Maciejowski Bible, c. 1240 CE. (Pierpont Morgan Library)
The Battle of Aljubarrota (Castile vs Portugal, 1385) / British Library, Wikimedia Commons
There died in Avignon in one day one thousand three hundred and twelve persons, according to a count made for the pope, and another day four hundred and fifty-eight persons and more. Three hundred and fifty-eight of the friars preachers in the region of Provence died during lent.
"At that time the mortality was so great that it left scarcely any one alive ... [and] laborers could exact their own terms, whether wages or clothing."
"So many died that all believed it was the end of the world. And in many places no bells tolled, and no one wept no matter what his loss, for all awaited death."
"Wickedness increased to such a degree that [people] no longer had any regard for honesty or good faith, and robbery and trickery reached such a level that it was a rare thing to find anyone who would keep his word or fulfill his obligations."
"Amid the errors there shone forth men of brilliant genius, who although they were incapable of stemming the torrent of barbarism, became conspicuous in their erudite works."
"In these days, there shone forth many men of incomparable holiness, whom the Lord magnified with the signs of miracles and wonders."
"Rome was great in arms, law and eloquence. But our Athens has surpassed it in the study of the arts and sciences."
“Souls ignite one another, minds fertilize one another, tongues exchange confidences; and the mysteries of this human being, a microcosm in this macrocosm, abound and spread.”
"The Gothic Age was not dark; it produced universities, windmills, mechanical clocks, spectacles, the guild-system, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio."
"Our use of the term 'Dark Ages' to denote the early Middle Ages betrays our bias towards literacy and the written word."
Written Sources
Against the malice of servants who were idle and unwilling to serve after the pestilence without taking outrageous wages it was recently ordained by our lord the king, with the assent of the prelates, nobles and others of his council, that such servants, both men, and women, should be obliged to serve in return for the salaries and wages which were customary (in those places where they ought to serve) during the twentieth year of the present king’s reign (1346-7) or five or six years previously.
“It is the custom in England, as with other countries, for the nobility to have great power over the common people, who are serfs. This means that they are bound by law and custom to plough the field of their masters, harvest the corn, gather it into barns, and thresh and winnow the grain; they must also mow and carry home the hay, cut and collect wood, and perform all manner of tasks of this kind.”
"At that time the peasants were so much at peace and tranquil that they scarcely knew what a helmet looked like."
"When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men."
"The rich, the mighty, and the nobles oppress the poor and the weak so cruelly that it is pitiful to see them."
"The lord owes his vassal protection...so that all shall live in peace."
"Between a serf and the lord of the manor there was a close tie...a feudal group knit closely together by common obligations."
"The wretched serf does immeasurably more than his lord prescribes for him...he dreads his lord's greed."
"The peasant subjected to his lord erupts in anger and rage."
"The lord spends his days in gluttony and lust, in gaming, hawking, hunting."
"Then the archers shot with bows, and the mangonels threw stones, and the knights and foot-soldiers with swords and spears fought hand to hand at the walls and gates, and so violently assailed them that they took the outer wall by force."
"The king of England had the town surrounded on all sides, and shut up by sea and land, so that no person could enter or go out without his leave. He had the sea watched by his ships, to prevent any succour being thrown in by that quarter; and had made his miners work night and day."
"It is only the diligent and sagacious general who can draw up his army near the walls of a fortified town so as to take the greatest advantage of the nature of the place."
“The principal part of a siege is the construction of engines. These are of various kinds, and are used to throw darts and stones, to batter the walls, to undermine the foundations, to fill up the ditches, and to cast bridges over them.”
"The king ordered his army to close in on the city and besiege it. They surrounded the city walls, constructing wooden siege engines and towers to attack the ramparts."
"We employed siege engines of every kind, battering rams, catapults, mangonels, petraries, Greek fire, crossbows, and slings. The defenders countered our every move."
"The bold attackers fought their way over ramparts and walls. The defenders showered stones, arrows and fire upon them. A fierce struggle ensued."
"Miners hid themselves below ground, digging a hollow trench under the foundations. Propping up the ground with wood, they took away the lower stones."
“The trebuchet is a machine for throwing stones. It is made thus: two beams are laid across each other, and a sling is attached to the point where they cross. A stone is placed in the sling, and when the machine is set in motion, the stone is thrown with great force.”
BBC Bitesize: Causes and effects of the Black Death
Medievalists.net: How the Black Death Improved the Lives of Medieval Peasants
History Today: The Black Death - the greatest catastrophe ever
Britannica School: Black Death
Eye Witness to History: The Black Death 1348
BBC History: The Black Death (archived page)
Swiss National Museum: How the Great Plague changed the world
How did the Bubonic Plague make the Italian Renaissance possible
Avalon Project: Medieval Documents
Best of History Websites: Medieval History (Middle Ages)
CORSAIR: Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
Epistolae: Medieval Women’s Letters
Manuscripts Online: Written Culture 1000-1500
Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance - Provides "bibliographies of articles and reviews drawn from 518 medieval and renaissance journal titles".
Labyrinth - Global information network providing access to electronic resources in medieval studies.
Links to Other Chaucerian and Medieval Sites - Links to materials on Chaucer and to medieval Studies in general
The Medieval Review - Distributes reviews of current scholarly work in the field of medieval studies.
The Online Medieval & Classical Library - "A collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization."
Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature - Anglo Saxon and Medieval
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