A Scourge on the World: The Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Responses to the Black Death in the Iberian Peninsula
Abstract:
From 1347 to 1351, the Black Death broke out from an origin point in Central Asia, traveling through to Constantinople and the Mediterranean, Europe and North Africa, and finally through the Nordic countries before disappearing. The plague had decimated the populations of countries affected and caused a social, cultural, and economic upheaval. In response to the Black Death in 1347, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities within the Iberian Peninsula, despite having a similar basis of medical knowledge, responded differently to why the plague had occurred and how to treat it. This project aims to examine and analyze the differences and similarities between the responses of the Iberian Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communal and medical responses to the Black Death.