The Black Death: The Impact of the Fourteenth-Century Plague ed. by Daniel Williman (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER DANIEL WILLIMAN, ed. The Black Death: The Impactofthe Fourteenth­ Century Plague. Papers of the Eleventh Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 13. Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982. Pp. 159. $15.00. This collection is based on papers given in 1977 at the Conference on the Black Death sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies at SUNY Binghamton. A useful introduction by Nancy Siraisi surveys recent work on the plague. Six essays follow, four of them on cultural effects of the Black Death. J. M. W. Bean's "The Black Death: The Crisis and Its Social and Economic Consequences" treats largelydemographicissues. He argues that current medical knowledge can help us understand what happened in 1347-50: that summer outbreaks were principally bubonic, winter out­ breaks the more deadly pneumonic form; that mechanisms of transmission can explain the low incidence of plague in certain areas of Europe. He criticizes Shrewsbury and Bridbury for their tendency to minimize the impact of the Black Death in England, partly on the basis of evidence supplied in an appendix documenting deaths recorded in the Calendarof Inquisitions Post Mortem from 1344 to 1375. Bean thinks the most promising direction for research is in the area of "regional comparisons" because of substantial regional variation in mortality rates. Michael Dols contributes a study of "Al-ManbijI's Reportofthe Plague: A Treatise on the Plague of 764-65/1362-64 in the Middle East." He describes the chief concerns of this little-knowntreatise and its context. He finds Al-ManbijI a highly conservative interpreter of Islamic doctrine on the plague, holding traditional views on three central principles: "(1) a Muslim should not enter or flee from a plague-stricken land; (2) plague is a mercy and a martyrdom from God for a Muslim and a punishment for an infidel; and (3) there is no infection." Of the four essays treating the impact of plague from perspectives in cultural history, three turn out to be similar in approach and conclusion. Robert E. Lerner, in "The Black Death and Western European Eschatologi­ cal Mentalities" (previously published in AHR 86[1981]:533-52), exam­ ines the question of millenarianism after the plague. He downplays its role among the flagellants. He looks at chiliastic prophecies of two types, those that envision the millennium occurring between Antichrist and the Last 264 REVIEWS Judgment and those that env1s10n it occurring before Antichrist. He stresses the widespread appeal of these prophecies as a source of "edifica­ tion and comfort, not inspiration for insurrection," and considers their appearance part of "a basically unchanging medieval prophetic structure." Joseph Polzer likewise looks beyond the plague in examining the late­ medieval artistic treatment of death. "Aspects of the Fourteenth-Century Iconography of Death and the Plague" (illustrated, as is Lerner's essay) principally offers further evidence for redating Traini's famous Triumph of Death before 1348. Polzer argues for stylistic borrowings from the Traini frescoes that would put their composition before 1336. He also questions the link between the plague and the Dance of Death. He believes that plague iconography developed only gradually after repeated attacks, that Traini's fresco and other late-medieval art treat death as "a constant human concern which does not wait for epidemics." This quotation might also summarize Siegfried Wenzel's "Pestilence and Middle English Literature: FriarJohn Grimestone's Poems on Death." Wenzel first surveys the different responses to plague in Chaucer and Langland, but chiefly he compares Middle English lyrics on death from two large preachers' aids, one written before 1348 (Fasciculus morum), one after (Grimestone's commonplace book). The lyrics show little difference in theme and style, and other evidence indicates that "the medieval plague experience left a surprisingly small and unremarkable imprint on the artistic consciousness and imagination in England." Why was this the case? Wenzel suggests briefly that the English were more aware of the medical value offacing death cheerfully than were people on the Continent, but in fact such ideas circulated widely throughout Europe. More plausible is his suggestion of the "essentially traditional and moralistic...