The History for the 21st Century Project (H21, https://www.history21.com/) has just launched a new, open-access teaching module on the late medieval plague pandemic, commonly known as the Black Death. Authored by historian of medicine, Monica H. Green, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the module presents the first global narrative of the pandemic, from its origins in Central Asia up through its fullest impact in the mid-14th century.
The four-part module – entitled The Black Death: The Medieval Plague Pandemic through the Eyes of Ibn Battuta – uses the mid-14th-century Moroccan world traveler as its “guide” for a tour of the Mongol Empire and the pan-Mediterranean worlds that saw new outbreaks of plague in this period. Drawing on the latest work in the paleosciences (genetics and bioarchaeology), the module presents a new approach to infectious disease history: using documentary sources to tell
what humans saw, and using scientific findings to show what people couldn’t see of the movements of the microscopic pathogen that causes plague, the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
The result is a wider geography and a longer chronology of the pandemic. Materials provided (all for free) include readings for the students that use excerpts from primary sources to create a new narrative of the pandemic; in-class exercises to engage the students in creating their own interpretations of events; instructional materials (including teaching guides and PowerPoint slides); and suggestions for assessment exercises.
The student reading materials can be accessed and downloaded here:
https://www.history21.com/owit-module/the-black-death-the-medieval-plague-pandemic/.
Registration (again, free) is required to access the instructional materials for this and all the other modules available in the H21 platform:
https://www.history21.com/wp-login.php?action=register.
Contact Information
Monica H. Green, PhD
Independent Scholar
monica.h.green@gmail.com