Syllabus
HIST 640.01 |
The Black Death |
|---|---|
Prof. Jarbel Rodriguez |
SCI 268 |
Office: SCI 267A |
e-mail: jarbel@sfsu.edu |
Office Hours: M: 1:45-3:30; Th: 4:45-6:15 |
Ph: 415-338-1560 |
In the winter of 1347 a deadly epidemic reached Europe’s Mediterranean ports and quickly spread inland. Two years later, the disease, known to later generations as the Black Death, had killed about 40% of Europe’s population and shaken Medieval European society to its very core. The Black Death, moreover, occurred as Europe was experiencing what may very well have been the most calamitous century in its long and turbulent history. The disease hit Europe during the opening phase of the Hundred Years’ War; a mere two decades after the Great Famine which had killed 3 million people in seven years; in the midst of the worst crisis the Medieval Church ever suffered; and just a few years before Europe’s peasant population began going into bloody revolts. This was a society in crisis. This course aims to understand the causes, immediate impact, and long-term consequences of this catastrophe and to try to appreciate how a highly developed society deals with extreme crisis.
Prerequisites: ENG 214, HIST 300 and Upper Division status. Undergraduates may not take this class unless they have completed these requirements before enrolling in the course. No exceptions.
This course fulfills the Pro-Seminar requirement for history majors who have Europe Before 1500 as one of their three fields.
Learning Outcomes
1. Students will learn and be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the Black Death, its causes, and its impact on European society, both short and long term (Department Undergraduate Objective 1).
2. Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to analyze and interpret historical evidence, both primary and secondary, by their participation in class discussions and the research paper (Department Undergraduate Objectives 2 & 3).
3. Students will have to demonstrate an ability to do extensive research in primary and secondary sources on a topic of their choice pertaining to the Black Death. They will also have to effectively communicate the results of this research in a 20-25 page research paper due at the end of term (Department Undergraduate Objective 4).
Required Books
John Aberth, From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages (New York, 2000)
Christine M. Boeckl, Images of Plague and Pestilence: Iconography and Iconology (Kirksville, MO, 2000)
Samuel Cohn, The Cult of Remembrance and the Black Death: Six Renaissance Cities in Central Italy (Baltimore, 1992)
Samuel Cohn, The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe (London, 2003)
David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. ed. by Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. (Cambridge, MA, 1997)
Resemary Horrox, trans. and ed., The Black Death (Manchester, 1994)
Colin Platt, King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late Medieval England (Toronto, 1996)
All articles can be accessed through e-reserve. Consult with me for password.
Grades
Book Review: 20%
Discussion Questions: 10%
Class Participation: 10%
Research Paper Abstract: 5%
Research Paper: 55%
Assignments
Book Review : Select one of the books that we are discussing in class and write a 3-4 page critical review of the author’s work. The review is due the day we discuss the book in class.
Discussion Questions : Ten percent of your grade will come from questions that you will provide for our class discussions. Each week that we have readings assigned, every student will be responsible for coming up with one question that we can use in the class discussion. These questions should be broad and address one or more of the topics covered by that week’s readings (more information on how to craft your questions can be found here.) You will e-mail the question by Sunday at noon at the latest. Do not bother sending questions in late. They need to be in on time so that I can go through them and organize them for our discussions on Monday.
Class Participation : This is measured by your comments during our weekly class discussions—not so much quantity as quality. I expect everyone to show up having read the assignments and ready to speak up. If you are fatally shy or believe that you cannot make useful comments, now is the time to get over it. Do not risk your grade by not speaking up.
Research Paper : Every student is required to submit a research paper of 15-20 pages for undergraduates and 22-25 pages for graduate students. The research paper will be on a topic of your own choosing that relies mostly on primary sources—in other words, do not go and read a couple of books on your topic and tell me what they say. Instead, put together a group of primary sources that address your particular topic, develop a thesis/argument and create a work of original scholarship. You are required to turn in an abstract (DUE MARCH 3rd) that describes your paper topic along with a brief bibliography of sources and secondary material you are thinking about using. There is more information in the class website under “Research Paper.” The Research Paper is due May 19th.
Readings
All readings are to be done by the time of our weekly meetings.
PART I – The Course of the Black Death
Week 1 (Jan 28th) – Introduction
Class Introduction
Week 2 (Feb 4th) – The European Crisis of the 14th Century
Aberth, From the Brink of the Apocalypse
Week 3 (Feb 11th) – The Initial Devastation
Aberth, John. “The Black Death in the diocese of Ely: the evidence of the bishop's register” in Journal of Medieval History 21 (1995) 275-287 [E-RESERVE]
Megson, Barbara. “Mortality among London citizens in the Black Death” in Medieval Prosopography: History and Collective Biography 19 (1998) 125-133 [E-RESERVE]
Wray, Shona K. “The experience of the Black Death in Bologna as revealed by the notarial registers” in Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 14 (1994) 44-64 [E-RESERVE]
Horrox, The Black Death, pp. 1-85
Week 4 (Feb 18th) – Religious and Popular Responses
Kieckhefer, Richard. “Radical Tendencies in the Flagellant Movement of the mid-Fourteenth Century” in Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1974) 157-176 [E-RESERVE]
Lerner, Robert. “The Black Death and Western European Eschatological Mentalities” in American Historical Review 86 (1981) 533-552 [E-RESERVE]
Reyerson, Kathryn. “Changes in Testamentary Practice at Montpellier on the Eve of the Black Death” in Church History 47 (1978) 253-269 [E-RESERVE]
Horrox, The Black Death, 111-157, 207-226
Week 5 (Feb 25th) – NO CLASS
Prepare Abstracts
Week 6 (Mar 3rd) – Medical Responses
Arrizabalaga, Jon. “Facing the Black Death: Perceptions and Reactions of University Medical Practitioners” in Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death ed. Luis Garcia Ballester et al (Cambridge, 1994) 237-288 [E-RESERVE]
Henderson, John. “The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses” in Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-1600 ed. Steven Bassett (Leicester, 1992) 136-150 [E-RESERVE]
Horrox, The Black Death, 158-206
ABSTRACTS DUE
Week 7 (Mar 10th) – NO CLASS
Individual Meetings with Professor to discuss abstracts.
Week 8 (Mar 17th) – Rethinking the Black Death
Cohn, The Black Death Transformed
Week 9 (Mar 24th) – NO CLASS
SPRING BREAK
Week 10 (Mar 31st) – NO CLASS
Cesar Chavez Day
PART II – Long Term Impact of the Black Death
Week 11 (April 7th) – The Black Death and England
Platt, King Death
Musson, Anthony. “New labour laws, new remedies? Legal reaction to the Black Death ‘crisis’” in Fourteenth Century England ed. Nigel Saul (Suffolk, 2000) 73-88 [E-RESERVE]
Week 12 (April 14th) – Impact of the Epidemic I
Bardsley, Sandy. “Women’s Work Reconsidered: Gender and Wage Differentiation in Late Medieval England” in Past and Present 165 (1999) 3-29 [E-RESERVE]
Courtenay, William J. “The Effects of the Black Death on English Higher Education” in Speculum 55 (1980) 696-714 [E-RESERVE]
Dohar, William. “’Since the Pestilence Time’: Pastoral Care in the Later Middle Ages” in A History of Pastoral Care ed. G.R. Evans (London, 2000) 169-200 [E-RESERVE]
Hanawalt, Barbara. “Reading the Lives of the Illiterate: London’s Poor” in Speculum 80 (2005) 1067-1086 [E-RESERVE]
Harper-Bill, Christopher. “The English church and English religion after the Black Death” in The Black Death in England ed. W. Mark Ormrod & P.G. Lindley (Stamford, 1996) 79-123 [E-RESERVE]
Hatcher, John. “Women’s Work Reconsidered: Gender and Wage Differentiation in Late Medieval England” in Past and Present 173 (2001) 191-198 [E-RESERVE]
Week 13 (April 21st) – Impact of the Epidemic II
Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West, chs. 2-3
Horrox, The Black Death, 248-351
Week 14 (April 28th) –The Black Death in Italy
Cohn, The Black Death and the Cult of Remembrance
Week 15 (May 5th) – Art and the Black Death
Boeckl, Images of Plague and Pestilence
Marshall, Louise. “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy” in Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994) 485-532 [E-RESERVE]
Week 16 (May 12th) – NO CLASS
Finish Research Papers
Week 17 (May 19th) – Final Things