The Environmental Causes of the Plague and their Terminology in the German Pestbücher of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

In his treatise on the treatment of the plague (Liber pestilentialis de venenis epidimie. Das bůch der vergift der pestilentz das da genant ist der gemein sterbent der Trüsen Blatren, Strassburg: Grüninger 1500), the Strassburg surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig lists a series of possible causes for the outbreak of the plague, some of which clearly remind us of the present-day environmental discourse on pollution and climatic change: the poisoning of the soil, the air, and the water determined by the negative influence of the stars, and the appearance of unusual climatic conditions, as well as sudden and significant weather changes. These concepts are not Brunschwig’s own but derive from a long tradition of German and many other texts dealing with the plague, its causes and treatment (Pestbücher), and they can be specifically traced back to the work of previous authors, such as for example Konrad of Megenberg (1309–1374), one of the more forward-thinking authors in this field. In this study, some of the most significant of these treatises from the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries will be taken into consideration with respect to their description of the “environmental” causes of the plague and to the terminology used to indicate them, in order to outline the late medieval and early modern conception of the relationship between human health and environment, as well as its linguistic representation in the German language.