Daily Life During the Black Death (Daily Life Through History Series)

by Joseph P. Byrne

Overview

Daily life during the Black Death was anything but normal. When plague hit a community, every aspect of life was turned upside down, from relations within families to its social, political, and economic stucture. Theaters emptied, graveyards filled, and the streets were ruled by the terrible corpse-bearers whose wagons of death rumbled day and night.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313038549
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/30/2006
Series:	Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

JOSEPH P. BYRNE is a European historian and Associate Professor of Honors at Belmont University, Nashville, TN. He has conducted research and published articles on a wide variety of subjects, from Roman catacombs to American urbanization, though his area of expertise is Italy in the era of the Black Death. He is the author of The Black Death (Greenwood, 2004) and Daily Life during the Black Death (Greenwood, 2006). He is currently serving as editor for The Encyclopedia of Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic (Greenwood, projected 2008).

Table of Contents

Chronology
The Black Death: 1347-1730
At Medical School
At the Doctor's Office
At Home with the Plague
At the Churh and Churchyard
In the BIshop's Palace and Monastery
At the Pest House
At City Hall
On the Steets and Roads of Europe
At the Booksellers and the Theatre
In the Village and on the Manor
In the Medieval Muslim World
The Plague's Last Stand in Europe
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Adult/High School-As with all titles in this series, readers can expect to find far more than what people ate, how they dressed, and what work they undertook. The authors dig deep into the religious, economic, and political structures of the given societies. The arts, crafts, education, and family patterns are all thoroughly represented. Readers who come to Byrne's book with a vague notion of some bad sickness spreading across Europe during the Middle Ages will put it down with a full awareness of the horror of the flesh-destroying pestilence of the Plague, or "King Death." The second title is arranged geographically, starting with the peoples of the eastern woodlands and working westward through the Ohio Valley, the Southwest, and on to California and the Pacific Northwest. The Native American story is one of constant adjustments to ever-more-pressing dangers and adversity. And in that respect it is similar to the story of Europeans during the era of the Black Death. Both books expertly portray the lives of peoples under enormous strain to maintain a semblance of the normalcy implied by the term "daily life." Each volume comes with a full complement of strong scholarship, including extensive notes, bibliographies, chronologies, illustrations, and excerpts from original sources. The prose and general composition suggest a laudable and consistently high level of editing. These volumes are both recommended for teens with strong reading skills and a background in history.-Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Daily Life During the Black Death provides a comprehensive introduction to many of the subjects surrounding the study of premodern epidemics. In his opening introduction Joseph Byrne offers a concise outline of the issues confronting historians of the plague and one of the clearest summations of the debate among scholars about whether the Black Death was in fact bubonic plague or some other disease, such as anthrax.” —Sixteenth Century Jourbanal

“Reading about aspects of life in medieval Europe-religious, economic, and political structures as well as food, clothing, and crafts-puts a human face on the immense suffering caused by the flesh-destroying pestilence known as the plague, or Black Death. This volume expertly describes people of the Middle Ages under enormous strain to maintain some semblance of ordinary life in the face of terrible fear and adversity. Background notes and excerpts from primary-source documents are included.” —Curriculum Connections School Library Jourbanal

“Readers who come to Byrne's book with a vague notion of some bad sickness spreading across Europe during the Middle Ages will put it down with a full awareness of the horror of the flesh-destroying pestilence of the Plague, or King Death….Both books expertly portray the lives of peoples under enormous strain to maintain a semblance of the normalcy implied by the term daily life. Each volume comes with a full complement of strong scholarship, including extensive notes, bibliographies, chronologies, illustrations, and excerpts from original sources. The prose and general composition suggest a laudable and consistently high level of editing. These volumes are both recommended for teens with strong reading skills and a background in history. (Reviewed with Daily Life of Native Americans from Post-Columbian through Nineteenth-Century America)” —School Library Jourbanal

“Known as the Black Death, the bubonic plague pandemic that ravaged the Medieval Muslim and Christian worlds affected individuals at all levels of society. This text for middle school and high school students and general readers provides an overview of daily life during these perilous times. Twelve chapters look at the impact of the plague on people's activities in such settings as the doctor's office, the home, city hall, and on the roads.” —SciTech Book News

From the Publisher