A Life in the Black Death: The Inventory of Alayseta Paula (Marseille, 1348)

Daniel Lord Smail, Harvard University

This video introduces Alayseta Paula, a fourteenth-century inhabitant of Marseille and survivor of the Black Death who asks forgiveness for bringing her legal business to court past the required date.

Video

Further Reading

The theme of resilience addressed in the conclusion of this talk is developed at length in my article “Accommodating Plague.” I have also listed several recent contributions to the extensive literature on the Second Plague Pandemic that were referred to indirectly in the talk.

The inventory, transcribed and translated with questions for discussion, can also be downloaded, as well as the transcript of this video.

Geltner, Guy. “Getting Medieval on COVID? The Risks of Periodizing Public Health | History News Network.” Accessed March 31, 2020.

Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death. Published in The Medieval Globe, vol. 1, no. 1/. Accessed March 31, 2020. 

Smail, Daniel Lord. “Accommodating Plague in Medieval Marseille.” Continuity and Change 11, no. 1 (1996): 11–41. 

Spyrou, Maria A., Marcel Keller, Rezeda I. Tukhbatova, Christiana L. Scheib, Elizabeth A. Nelson, Aida Andrades Valtueña, Gunnar U. Neumann, et al. “Phylogeography of the Second Plague Pandemic Revealed through Analysis of Historical Yersinia Pestis Genomes.” Nature Communications 10, no. 1 (October 2, 2019): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12154-0.

Cite

Smail, Daniel Lord. “A Life in the Black Death: The Inventory of Alayseta Paula (Marseille, 1348),” Middle Ages for Educators, April 1, 2020. Accessed [date]. https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/life-black-death-inventory…