Communities and crisis : : Bologna during the Black Death / / by Shona Kelly Wray.

• Superior document: The medieval Mediterranean ; v. 83
• Author: Wray, Shona Kelly.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Medieval Mediterranean ; v. 83.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Bologna is well known for its powerful university and notariate of the thirteenth century, but the fourteenth-century city is less studied. This work redresses the imbalance in scholarship by examining social and economic life at mid-fourteenth century, particularly during the epidemic of plague, the Black Death of 1348. Arguing against medieval chroniclers' accounts of massive social, political, and religious breakdown, this examination of the immediate experience of the epidemic, based on notarial records--including over a thousand testaments--demonstrates resilience during the crisis. The notarial record reveals the activities and decisions of large numbers of individuals and families in the city and provides a reconstruction of the behavior of clergy, medical practitioners, government and neighborhood officials, and notaries during the epidemic.

Table of Contents

List of tables, figures, and maps -- A note on currency, names, and titles -- Introduction -- The notarial evidence : testaments in the libri memoriali, demaniale, and the provvisori -- lluminating the dark century : notarial evidence on Bologna's civic life -- Social reactions of the populace during the Black Death -- Public persons during the Black Death -- Neighborhood activity during the Black Death -- The individual and the family -- Conclusion -- Map of Bologna -- Map of parishes of Bologna -- List of parishes for map of parishes of Bologna.