Death was a habitual visitor to fourteenthcentury Europe. Never before had humanity seen such widespread dying. Famines, wars, and a host of deadly diseases all took millions of lives during the 1300s. But the worst single calamity to wrack this troubled century was the Black Death—a plague that killed anywhere from 24-25 million Europeans between 1347 and 1351. As Frederick F. Cartwright and Michael D. Biddis, authors of Disease and History , observe, "The Black Death was not just another incident in the long list of epidemics which have smitten the world. It was probably the greatest European catastrophe in history." 1 Anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of the total population of Europe died from this plague. Similar death rates took place in Asia, the Mideast, the Mediterranean, Africa, and as far away as Greenland and Iceland, thus making the Black Death the greatest ecological calamity in...