Jean de Venette

For the chroniclers of the fourteenth century, the plague represented one of the worst occurrences of a morbid and calamitous era. After famines and disease outbreaks in the early decades of the century, a disastrous war had begun between the English and French. While a poor climate had affected crops and harvests, thousands of people died of starvation in France, one of the wealthiest realms of Europe. Jean de Venette, a friar of the Carmelite order and a master of theology at the University of Paris, wrote a long account of these miseries in the late fourteenth century. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, Venette gives a balanced and unbiased report of the plague, of the beliefs of the people on the origins of the plague, the effects of the plague on common people as...