The Black Death

Plague Literature Across Europe

The Black Death generated an enormous body of literature across Europe. Chroniclers, poets, preachers, physicians, and ordinary people wrote about the plague in a variety of forms — chronicles, poems, sermons, medical treatises, letters, and devotional texts — creating a corpus of plague literature that is among the richest and most varied in medieval European history.

Chronicles and Historical Writing

The chronicles of the Black Death are among the most important primary sources for the pandemic. Written by monks, clerics, and civic officials, these chronicles record the plague’s arrival, its progress through specific communities, and its impact on social, economic, and religious life.

In Italy, the chronicler Giovanni Villani of Florence began recording the plague in his Nuova Cronica but died of the disease in 1348. His brother Matteo Villani continued the chronicle, describing the social and economic aftermath of the epidemic with remarkable precision. Matteo himself died in the pestis secunda of 1361, and the chronicle was continued by his son Filippo.

In Siena, Agnolo di Tura del Grasso left one of the most harrowing personal accounts of the plague. A cobbler and minor civic official, Agnolo buried his five children with his own hands and recorded the devastation of his city with unflinching detail. His account is notable for its personal voice — rare in medieval chronicles — and for its emotional power.

In France, Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar and professor at the University of Paris, described the plague’s impact on the capital and on the French countryside. His chronicle combines factual observation with moral reflection, interpreting the plague as a divine punishment and calling for repentance.

In England, several chroniclers recorded the plague: Henry Knighton, an Augustinian canon at Leicester; Robert of Avesbury, registrar of the Court of Canterbury; and the anonymous author of the Annales Londinienses. These accounts vary in detail and reliability, but together they provide a comprehensive picture of the plague’s impact on England.

Poetry and Lyric

The plague inspired poetry in multiple languages and traditions. In Italy, Petrarch’s lyric poetry and Boccaccio’s narrative verse reflected the personal and philosophical impact of the pandemic. In Wales, the poet Jeuan Gethin left a vivid description of the plague in Welsh verse before dying of the disease in 1349. In Ireland, the Franciscan friar John Clyn recorded the plague in Kilkenny in a chronicle that ends with the poignant note: “I leave these things written, lest perchance they should be forgotten in time to come.”

In the German-speaking lands, plague poetry was often associated with the Flagellant movement, whose penitential songs were composed and sung during the processions of 1349. These songs, which called for repentance and warned of divine wrath, represent a distinctive form of popular literature generated by the pandemic.

Medical Treatises

The plague stimulated the production of a large body of medical literature. Physicians across Europe wrote treatises on the causes, symptoms, and treatment of the disease, drawing on the humoral framework and on their own clinical observations.

The most famous medical treatise of the plague era was the report of the Medical Faculty of the University of Paris (1348), which attributed the plague to a conjunction of planets and recommended preventive measures based on miasma theory. This report was widely circulated and translated, and it shaped the medical understanding of the plague for decades.

The papal physician Guy de Chauliac included a detailed account of the plague in his Chirurgia Magna (1363), one of the most important medical texts of the medieval period. De Chauliac’s account is notable for its clinical precision and for its distinction between the two forms of plague — bubonic and pneumonic — that he observed in Avignon.

In the Islamic world, the physicians Ibn al-Khatib and Ibn Khatima produced medical treatises that argued for the contagiousness of plague, challenging the prevailing theological opinion. Their work represents one of the most sophisticated medical analyses of the pandemic produced anywhere in the medieval world.

Sermons and Devotional Literature

The plague generated a vast body of religious literature. Sermons preached during the epidemic — calling for repentance, offering consolation, or attempting to explain the catastrophe — were recorded and circulated. The ars moriendi literature, which offered guidance on how to die well, emerged in the post-plague period and became one of the most popular genres of devotional writing.

The Flagellant songs, the plague processions, and the votive masses all generated liturgical texts that reflected the religious anxieties of the post-plague period. The proliferation of chantry endowments — which specified the prayers and masses to be said for the souls of the dead — created a body of liturgical literature that reflected the preoccupation with death and the afterlife.

The Legacy of Plague Literature

The literature of the Black Death had a lasting influence on European culture. The chronicles, poems, and treatises produced during the pandemic became primary sources for subsequent historians and writers. The themes of mortality, suffering, and the search for meaning that characterised plague literature continued to resonate in European writing for centuries.

The plague also stimulated the development of new literary forms. The frame narrative — exemplified by Boccaccio’s Decameron — became a popular literary device. The ars moriendi genre established a tradition of devotional writing about death that persisted into the modern period. And the chronicle tradition, which combined factual observation with moral reflection, influenced the development of historical writing in the early modern era.