Episode 2: Plague

It's the Black Death, the original plague! Em and Jesse discuss the outbreaks of plague that bookended the Middle Ages--the Plague of Justinian (around 540 CE) and the better-known outbreak that spread across Asia into Western Europe and eventually hit the British Isles in the 1300s. We discuss Medieval responses to plague, such as quarantine, scientific inquiry, and pograms, as well as the ways the plague is reflected in literature of the time.