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Source set · 6 sources ✓ Lesson ready

How did people explain and respond to the Black Death?

Chroniclers in Florence, Damascus, and Castile, the earlier Plague of Justinian, and records of violence against Jewish communities show how people made sense of mass death.

Timeline of key events →

Teach it

✓ Lesson ready

A ready-to-run lesson for this set: Historian’s Lab: Station Rotation. Slides include a hook, one slide per source, directions, a take-a-stand vote, an exit ticket, and a teacher script in the speaker notes.

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1. Hook: a striking quote 3-5 min

Neither physicians nor medicines were effective.
Marchione di Coppo Stefani, Florentine Chronicle, on the plague of 1348

Ask: Imagine a disease that no doctor can explain or cure. How might people try to make sense of it? What might they do?

2. Main activity: Historian’s Lab: Station Rotation

Grouping: Four stations, groups of 4 to 6, rotating every 7 minutes

Materials (printables are in the Lesson Plan Doc)
  • Four station cards (printable pages in the Lesson Plan Doc), one per table
  • Station recording sheet (in the Lesson Plan Doc)
  • A three-column chart on the board: Explanations, Responses, Blame
  1. Launch 3 min
    Explain the lab: at each station students record explanations, responses, and whether each response helped, harmed, or did neither.
  2. Rotate 28 min
    Four stations, 7 minutes each. Give a one-minute warning before each move. At Station 4, remind students that the confessions in that source were forced by torture and the accusations were false.
  3. Fill the chart 7 min
    Groups add evidence to the Explanations, Responses, and Blame columns. Ask: which responses were similar in Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities?
  4. Take a stand 7 min
    Use the vote slide.
  5. Exit ticket 5 min
    Students answer on a slip before leaving.

Take a stand: Did the Black Death mostly pull communities together or tear them apart?

  • Pulled together: In Damascus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians prayed together in one procession, and rulers like Alfonso XI and Florence’s officials tried to organize a response.
  • Tore apart: Boccaccio described neighbors and relatives avoiding one another, and in Strasbourg a mob killed the city’s Jews after false accusations spread.

3. Pacing options

15-minute bell-ringer

  • 3 min Hook: “Neither physicians nor medicines”
  • 8 min Run Station 3 only as a whole class: compare the Damascus procession with Alfonso XI’s order
  • 4 min Exit ticket question 1

Full 50-minute lesson

  • 4 min Hook: Stefani
  • 3 min Launch the lab
  • 28 min Four stations, 7 minutes each
  • 7 min Fill the chart
  • 5 min Vote and exit ticket
  • 3 min Buffer

4. Exit ticket

  1. Name one explanation and one response from today. Which source shows each?
  2. Why do you think people in some places blamed a minority group for the plague? Use the Station 4 source.

5. Differentiation

Support

  • This set has no Adapted Docs yet; read key passages aloud or chunk them for struggling readers.
  • Start struggling readers at Station 3, which has the shortest texts.
  • Give the recording sheet with the place and date already filled in for each station.
  • Word bank: pestilence, bubo, procession, mourning, chronicle, accusation.

Extension

  • Pope Clement VI issued orders in 1348 defending Jews against the poisoning charge. Research what he argued and why it did not stop the violence.
  • Compare Procopius (542) with Stefani (1348). What had changed about how people described plague in 800 years, and what had not?

Suggested sequence

  1. Procopius: The Plague, 542, History of the Wars, II.xxii-xxxiii
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 20 min
    Translated primary source: Procopius: The Plague, 542, History of the Wars, II.xxii-xxxiii.
    Ask: Whose perspective does this account represent, and what might another side have said?
    Open with this source to frame the question.
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  2. Marchione di Coppo Stefani: The Florentine Chronicle: The Plague in Florence 1348
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Translated primary source: Marchione di Coppo Stefani: The Florentine Chronicle: The Plague in Florence 1348.
    Ask: How reliable is this source, and how could we check it?
    Original ↗SOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  3. Boccaccio on the Black Death
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Boccaccio's eyewitness description of the plague in Florence in 1348.
    Ask: How did the Black Death change daily life and attitudes?
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  4. Ibn Battuta (1304-1368/69): The Plague (Black Death) in Damascus 1348, from Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 10 min
    Translated primary source: Ibn Battuta (1304-1368/69): The Plague (Black Death) in Damascus 1348, from Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354.
    Ask: What does the traveler notice, and what does that tell us about both the traveler and the place?
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  5. Alfonso XI of Castile (1311-1350): Alfonso XI and the Black Death: Three Sources, trans
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Translated primary source: Alfonso XI of Castile (1311-1350): Alfonso XI and the Black Death: Three Sources, trans. Nicolás Agrait Alfonso…. Responded to the Black death with various statements, and later died of it himnself in 1350.
    Ask: What can this source tell us about life in its time and place?
    Original ↗SOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP
  6. The Black Death and the Jews 1348-1349
    Document · Fordham University · World: Medieval (500-1500) · Grades 6-8, 9-12 · ⏱ 15 min
    Translated primary source: The Black Death and the Jews 1348-1349 Contains: The Confession of Agimet of Geneva, , October 20, 1349; Jacob von…. Königshofen (1346-1420); Chonicle; The Epitaph of Asher aben Turiel, Toledo, Spain, 1349.
    Ask: What questions would you want to ask the author?
    Close with this source before writing.
    Original ↗Copy DocSOAPSToneHIPP / HAPP

Culminating writing prompt

Using evidence from at least three sources in this set, write an argument that answers the question: “How did people explain and respond to the Black Death?” Cite each source by title, explain how its author, audience, and purpose affect its reliability, and respond to at least one counterargument.

Printable writing sheet (make a copy)

Students can plan with the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning organizer.