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Pandemics spread throughout early modern Germany on a regular basis and profoundly affected public policy and private lives. While plague was central, other diseases such as French pox, which appeared in the 1490s, were of concern as well. This volume examines both historical data and textual evidence to explore how early modern states, communities, and individuals responded to such outbreaks, how they dealt with ensuing political, ethical, intellectual, social, and pragmatic issues, and how they handled arising conflicts. The focus is on the period between 1480 and 1720, between the onset of printed plague literature and the end of periodic outbreaks of plague.
“The aim here is not to draw continuities between the early modern period and the 21st century, but to denaturalize epidemics and understand them in their specific historicity. In this way, the manuscript provides an answer to the question: What can we learn from history?” • Dr. Leander Diener, Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science
Peter Hess is professor emeritus of German and European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2009 to 2018, he served as department chair. Recent publications are Resisting Pluralization and Globalization in German Culture, 1490–1540: Visions of Nation in Decline (De Gruyter, 2020) and Violent First Contact in Venezuela: Nikolaus Federmann’s Indian History (Penn State UP, 2021). His current project is a book on Ulrich Schmidel’s service as mercenary in the Río de la Plata region, 1534–1554.
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction
Hannah Murphy
Part I: Textual Strategies: Plague and Print
Chapter 1. Plague for a Popular Audience: Suspicions of Print in Late Fifteenth-Century Germany
Christopher Hutchinson
Chapter 2. The Ethics of Surviving Plague: Political, Social, and Moral Considerations in Sixteenth-Century German Plague Texts
Peter Hess
Chapter 3. Fighting Plague and Heresy in Early Modern Bavaria: The Confessionalization of Bavarian Plague Literature, 1521–1650
Erik A. Heinrichs
Part II: Political Strategies: Rulers and City Councils Responding to Plague
Chapter 4. Contagion and Control: City Ccouncils and the French Ppox in Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg, 1495–1510
Monica C. O’Brien
Chapter 5. Tracing Sixteenth-Century Infection Chains in Central Germany
Thomas Wozniak
Chapter 6. Handling Pestilence During the Thirty Years’ War
Sigrun Haude
Chapter 7. Plague Control in the Absolutist Territorial State. Ideal and Reality in Electoral Hanover 1709–1716
Ulf Wendler
Part III: Broader Academic and Social Responses to Plague
Chapter 8. About What is Right in Times of Plague. Contagious Debates in Natural Philosophy, Medicine, Law, and Theology at the Academia Julia inUniversity of Helmstedt, 1681‒83
Benjamin Wallura
Chapter 9. Diseases as Threat to the Human and Animal World. Interdependencies of Early Modern Contagion Discourses in Central Europe
Ansgar Schanbacher, Philip Knäble, and Malte de Vries
Chapter 10. Plague Cemeteries in Early Modern German Towns
Martin Christ
Pandemics—Theirs and Ours. An Afterword
Peter Hess
Bibliography
Index