Thesis ID: CBB001562555

Understanding Plague: The Medical and Imaginative Texts of Medieval Spain (2001)

unapi

Garza, Randal Paul (Author)


Snow, Joseph T.
Michigan State University


Publication Date: 2001
Edition Details: Advisor: Snow, Joseph T.
Physical Details: 231 pp.
Language: English

It is commonly agreed that the plague outbreak of 1347 commonly referred to as the Black Death was the source of numerous socio-economic changes in the later Middle Ages. However, while numerous studies exist that trace the progress and effects of the disease in countries such as Germany, England and France, such a study concerning Spain is conspicuously absent. As it seems unimaginable that such a communicable fatal infirmity would not have reached medieval Spain through its well-established trade routes, this dissertation first brings together information that documents the pernicious behavior of the disease in Spain and then goes on to demonstrate how it changed the societies it afflicted. By studying the medical and imaginative texts of medieval Spain, we find that the disease did, in fact, help change the perceived role of the medical practitioner, the idea of public health and the portrayal of death and dying. In an attempt to establish patterns of thought by which to help identify similar treatments of plague in medieval Spain, this dissertation begins with an analysis of the earliest plague writers, namely Thucydides, Procopius, John of Ephesus and Evagrius Scholasticus. As the Black Death of 1347 along with the series of recurrent outbreaks that erupted well into the fifteenth century formed the third pandemic, the study of these earlier authors who documented the first two worldwide epidemics gives considerable insight on how Spanish writers dealt with the later outbreak. The second chapter then moves to a study of Alonso de Chirino's Del regimiento en tienpo de pestilencia and Licenciado Fores' Tratado til y muy provechoso contra toda pestilencia y aire corupto and shows how cyclical plague bouts evoked changes in medicine and the notion of public health. Finally, the last chapter delves into the changes that frequent exposure to the dead and dying had on the imaginative texts of medieval Spain. A study of the Libro de (la) miseria d'omne, the Revelain de un hermitanno and La dana general de la Muerte shows a clear change in how Spanish intellectuals perceived their own mortality in the wake of plague.

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Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 62 (2002): 4157. UMI order no. 3036675.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562555/

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Authors & Contributors
Geddes da Filicaia, Marco
MacKay, Ruth
Maria Paola Zanoboni
Vesna Blazina
Zlata Blazina Tomic
Geddes da Filicaia, Costanza
Concepts
Disease and diseases
Plague
Medicine
Epidemics
Public health
Medicine and literature
Time Periods
Medieval
Early modern
Ancient
Renaissance
16th century
14th century
Places
Spain
Europe
Mediterranean region
Adriatic sea
Cairo (Egypt)
Turkey
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