Historians generally agree bubonic plague was the cause of the disease we call the Black Death. Only in the mid-19th Century did scientists begin to have an understanding of the mechanism for the transmission of such diseases. But you may be surprised to find out that people in the Middle Ages understood that good sanitation and similar precautions could help slow the progress of the plague.
I. Your assignment is to read and analyze the document Pistoia, "Ordinances For Sanitation In A Time Of Mortality" below.
Approach your reading of each primary source using the questions below as a guide:
- What does the document state?
- What elements within the document have likely connections to the plague and its effects? In what way?
- In what ways, if any, does the document differ from other first- or secondhand accounts the class has read?
- What possible sources of bias or unintentional inaccuracy should be taken into account?
II. The following specific questions should guide your reading:
- What do the ordinances say?
- Which ordinances, if any, would likely have reduced deaths from the plague? Which, if any, would not?
- What do the ordinances suggest the council believed about how the plague spread?
- Which occupations would be affected by the ordinances?
- Which occupations would likely suffer as a result of the ordinances?
- Which might actually prosper?
- Which procedures required by ordinances XIV-XXII would you recommend be continued after the plague is gone, if you could advise the citizens of Pistoia (armed with our knowledge of sanitation and disease)?
- Assuming ordinances XIV-XXII remained in effect after the plague, how would life have changed (compared to the years before the Black Death) for those to whom the ordinances apply?
III. Answering the questions about the ordinances should help you stage an "interview" with one of the lords Anziani and the Standardbearer of Justice and another with a member of the working class.
Your staged interview should provide the following information to the class:
- Explain the purpose of the ordinances.
- Give examples of specific ordinances.
- Discuss how the ordinances were likely to change how tradesmen and/or craftsmen worked.
- Showcase ordinances you think would prove productive during the plague and in the future and others you think would not be productive.
- Make connections for the other students explaining how the Black Death resulted in changes for those who survived.