Poème sur la grande peste de 1348

What it is

This is a printed edition, made in 1888, of a poem written by Olivier de la Haye about the great plague of 1348. The edition was published from a manuscript held in the library of the Palais Saint-Pierre, and only a small number of copies were printed.

Why it matters

Although the edition itself dates from 1888, it preserves a poem composed close to the time of the Black Death, making it a primary source for how people living through the disaster described and understood it. The poem allows historians to reconstruct contemporary medical and religious responses, including consultations by medical authorities of the period.

Look closer

• Why might someone choose to write about the plague in poetry rather than in a medical or official record?
• What does the survival of the manuscript, and its careful publication centuries later, tell you about how societies preserve memories of disaster?
• What might a poem leave out that a medical report would include?