the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

CHAPTER III
HISTORICAL SOURCES AND THE BLACK DEATH IN
BYZANTINE AND OTTOMAN TERRITORIES
3.1. Historiography
The impact of the Black Death on medieval society being so great, it is
unsurprising that a great number of authors have written about the disease
throughout the centuries. From the times of the Justinian plague onwards, Arab
scholars started writing specialized pamphlets, also called plague treatises or
plague tracts. The writings were a combination of different sorts of information,
namely medical, theological and often historical, in the form of a listing of
previous outbreaks. From the period of the Black Death onwards, this genre also
caught on in Europe. 41 Although later centuries saw the publication of volumes
that attempted to treat the subject matter more extensively, monographs on plagues
which gave a historical overview of European and/or Middle Eastern plague
outbreaks really prolifilated in the 19th century and early 20th century. Of these,
the works of Alfred von Kremer 42 , who concentrated on plague in the Middle East
and of Georg Sticker 43 , who wrote a chronology of European and to an extent
Middle Eastern outbreaks, proved especially popular as sourcematerial for more
41
For a comprehensive overview, see the unpublished PhD thesis of Christiane Nockels Fabbri,
Continuity and Change in Late Medieval Plague Medicine: A Survey of 152 Plague Tracts from
1348 to 1599. Yale University, 2006.
42
Alfred von Kremer, Über die Grossen Seuchen des Orients nach Arabischen Quellen. Wien,
1880.
43
Georg Sticker, Abhandlungen aus der Seuchengeschichte und Seuchenlehre. 2 volumes Giessen,
1908.
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