Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, and: Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe (review)

Although neither of these books quite explains what the grim “end of antiquity” was or the hopeful “birth of Europe,” both represent welcome efforts to fuse biology and history to understand an event that lasted over two hundred years and affected nearly everyone between Iran and Ireland.

Plague and the End of Antiquity emerged from a Rome conference (2001). It is an informative, well written, sometimes fascinating, and nearly comprehensive volume, which can be recommended strongly for all interested in the history of disease and in this specific period. It does, however, tend to raise more questions than it answers. The editor notes the absence of a systematic scholarly discussion of this plague (15–16; but meanwhile Dionysius Stathakopoulos’ 2004 Famine and Pestilence lays down a solid foundation). Little (Ch. 1) introduces the pandemic and the main sources. He samples its possible effects and contemporary responses, especially religious, drawing on evidence for its sequel (the Black Death). His introduction is a historical survey, not a discussion of methodological problems (e.g., on how science and literary sources can be combined). Hays (Ch. 2), an “outsider” to the Justinianic period (41), races through a host of questions regarding the study of plague, based on other cases (mostly modern). He posits (without elaboration) the distinction between biological and social constructions of disease (33), although not that between social and literary constructions, which seems to be methodologically prior in this case.

The next two chapters are on the Syriac evidence. Michael Morony (Ch. 3) presents the literary sources and their terminology for plague and distills their information into a detailed and useful narrative (including the responses and perceptions of contemporaries). He discusses the narrative (79, 83) and religious agendas (81–83) of the sources tangentially, without discussing genre. Kennedy (Ch. 4) briefly and cautiously presents the archaeological evidence: archaeology cannot prove that “massive loss of life” occurred but cannot refute it either (95). The two chapters on Byzantium nicely complement each other. Stathakopoulos (Ch. 5) surveys the plague’s spread; the religious, astrological, medical, and moral responses; and its effects, especially on mortality and the military. Peter Sarris (Ch. 6) speculates on its possible origin before turning to its effects on agriculture. He argues, based on numismatic, legal, and papyrological evidence, for massive depopulation.

There follow four chapters on the west. Gaul is shortchanged in Alain Stoclet’s incoherent chapter 7. There is something about the cult of Mary but also a lot of Livy and baffling leaps from Indo-European theory to Sturluson, Oedipus, Philostratos, and the seventeenth century. Michael Kulikowski (Ch. 8) offers a meticulous systematic survey of the Spanish evidence, both archaeological (mass graves in Valencia) and textual (including translations of four Toledo homilies that suggest that plague was an established presence in Spain). John Maddicott (Ch. 9, previously published) scrutinizes the English evidence, which is limited to the later seventh century. Among many interesting items in this comprehensive chapter, it seems that Bede did not present plague as God’s anger at a sinful people, because “given the almost precise coincidence in time between the plague’s attacks and the post-Whitby advance of the church under Theodore, he had good cause to play down its virulence” (182). Ann Dooley’s study of Ireland (Ch. 10) is too full of Irish names, genealogy, and terms for non-specialists to follow. But apparently we can identify more victims by name there than anywhere else!

The book concludes with two chapters on epidemiology (Ch. 11: Robert Sallares) and molecular history (Ch. 12: Michael McCormick). Sallares’ chapter, the longest in the volume, is one of the most informative, a fascinating combination of hard science and historical inquiry. Its detailed account of...