The black death in Aragon, 1348–1351

Shirk, Melanie V.

doi:10.1016/0304-4181(81)90014-2

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…And likewise, plentiful evidence has been assembled in the literature to show elements of “societal breakdown” in the Middle Ages, stemming from interaction with severe shocks and hazards. After the Black Death, violent pogroms were initiated in some places, where Jewish families were gathered up and burnt to death (Cohn 2007a), while others have pointed to plague's capacity to echo and amplify existing social tensions, increasing thefts, violence (Chiffoleau 1980), and a general rise in “confusion, fraud and lawlessness” (Shirk 1981: 357), while reducing public safety (Bowsky 1964). Similarly, with harvest failures, substantial evidence has been collected for their incendiary impact on criminality and violence (Hanawalt 1974; Stevens 2015: 34–35).…”

Section: Disaster Studies and Its Lack Of Translation To Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

History and the Social Sciences: Shock Therapy with Medieval Economic History as the Patient

Curtis¹,

Bavel²,

Soens³

2016

Social Science History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the turn of the Millennium, major changes in economic history practice such as the dominance of econometrics and the championing of “big data,” as well as changes in how research is funded, have created new pressures for medieval economic historians to confront. In this article, it is suggested that one way of strengthening the field further is to more explicitly link up with hypotheses posed in other social sciences. The historical record is one “laboratory” in which hypotheses developed by sociologists, economists, and even natural scientists can be explicitly tested, especially using dual forms of geographical and chronological comparison. As one example to demonstrate this, a case is made for the stimulating effect of “disaster studies.” Historians have failed to interact with ideas from disaster studies, not only because of the general drift away from the social sciences by the historical discipline, but also because of a twin conception that medieval disaster study bears no relation to the modern, and that medieval coping strategies were hindered by providence, superstition, fear, and panic. We use the medieval disasters context to demonstrate that medieval economic history can contribute to big narratives of our time, including climate change and inequality. This contribution can be in (1) investigating the root causes of vulnerability and resilience, and recovery of societies over the long term (moving disaster studies away from instant impact focus) and (2) providing the social context needed to interpret the massive amount of “big data” produced by historical climatologists, bioarchaeologists, economists, and so on.

show abstract

Section: Disaster Studies and Its Lack Of Translation To Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

History and the Social Sciences: Shock Therapy with Medieval Economic History as the Patient

Curtis¹,

Bavel²,

Soens³

2016

Social Science History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Negative shocks and mass persecutions: evidence from the Black Death

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we study the Black Death persecutions (1347-1352) against Jews in order to shed light on the factors determining when a minority group will face persecution. We develop a theoretical framework which predicts that negative shocks increase the likelihood that minorities are scapegoated and persecuted. By contrast, as the shocks become more severe, persecution probability may actually decrease if there are economic complementarities between the majority and minority groups. We compile citylevel data on Black Death mortality and Jewish persecution. At an aggregate level we find that scapegoating led to an increase in the baseline probability of a persecution. However, at the city-level, locations which experienced higher plague mortality rates were less likely to engage in persecutions. Furthermore, persecutions were more likely in cities with a history of antisemitism (consistent with scapegoating) and less likely in cities where Jews played an important economic role (consistent with inter-group complementarities).

show abstract

The black death in Aragon, 1348–1351

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

History and the Social Sciences: Shock Therapy with Medieval Economic History as the Patient

History and the Social Sciences: Shock Therapy with Medieval Economic History as the Patient

Negative shocks and mass persecutions: evidence from the Black Death

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About