Castle Quest - Reply to Topic

Forum:	Castles In General & Medieval History
Topic:	The Black Plague

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T O P I C R E V I E W
SwordOfErin This might not have much to do with castles, but it is mideval history and I don't know where else to look. When did the Plague reach Germany and what was the reaction there? I've heard of witch hunts and rounding up Jews and killing them, but did those really happen? Any other info on it, or directions to sites where I could find information, would be appriciated.
Marko I don't know how good your German is, but here is a large page about just what you wanted to know. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzer_Tod
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[This message has been edited by Marko (edited 02-15-2006).]
Steve-O-Gerst Witch hunts, and Jew killings are indeed a not so proud part of Plague history, which seem to have been a bit more common in German areas.
A wonderful book on the subject (For beginners, at least) is "In The Wake of the Plague" by Norman F. Cantor, ISBN 0-06-001434-2. I've heard that Cantor is not very careful about selecting his facts, but this book has a little chart, which indicates that depending on the part of Germany you're interested in, the plague first struck some time between June 1348- June 1350, and tended to start from the southwest, spreading northeast. There were, of course, several waves of later infections as well, and isolated areas were probably hit earlier, or later than these dates.
There's also a lot of online details somewhere, maybe not specific to Germany, but if you do a web search on some combinations of Medieval, or Black Death, or Jews, you'll probably find some pretty disturbing details. I had some book marks a while back, bit I've lost them since.
SwordOfErin Thanks. What I'm really looing for is information about witch hunts (if witches were ever in fact blamed for the plague). Part of a story I'm writing takes place during the Plague, and one of the characters is Christian (so no Jewish prejudice) but he is run out of the town or worse, so I'm looking for any cases of people being accused of whichcraft and causing or bringing the Plague.
Steve-O-Gerst A specific case of someone getting accused of witchcraft and bringing, or causing the plague might be tough to find.
For witchcraft, I suggest looking at the "Maleus Maleficarum," also known as "The Witches Hammer." It's a pretty famous book about how to do a witch hunt, written around 1500, I believe. I'd get you the ISBN of a recent copy, but my parents would... umm... not appreciate seeing it around the house, so it's hard for me to get to it.
There's a lot of good books about the plague. I went to Borders a while ago, and got a book called "Magic in the Middle Ages," that too is a little hard for me to get to right now though.
Merlin A very interesting new theory about the black plague and how it altered the face of europe in the 14th century and afterwards: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4755328.stm
[This message has been edited by Merlin (edited 02-28-2006).]