Managing Pandemics in Early Modern Germany

Peter Hess is professor emeritus of German and European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2009 to 2018, he served as department chair. Recent publications are Resisting Pluralization and Globalization in German Culture, 1490–1540: Visions of Nation in Decline (De Gruyter, 2020) and Violent First Contact in Venezuela: Nikolaus Federmann’s Indian History (Penn State UP, 2021). His current project is a book on Ulrich Schmidel’s service as mercenary in the Río de la Plata region, 1534–1554.

• List of Figures and TablesIntroductionHannah MurphyPart I: Textual Strategies: Plague and PrintChapter 1. Plague for a Popular Audience: Suspicions of Print in Late Fifteenth-Century GermanyChristopher HutchinsonChapter 2. The Ethics of Surviving Plague: Political, Social, and Moral Considerations in Sixteenth-Century German Plague TextsPeter HessChapter 3. Fighting Plague and Heresy in Bavaria: The Confessionalization of Bavarian Plague Literature, 1521–1650Erik A. HeinrichsPart II: Political Strategies: Rulers and City Councils Responding to PlagueChapter 4. Contagion and Control: City Councils and the French Pox in Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg, 1495–1510Monica C. O’BrienChapter 5. Tracing Sixteenth-Century Infection Chains in Central GermanyThomas WozniakChapter 6. Handling Pestilence During the Thirty Years’ WarSigrun HaudeChapter 7. Plague Control in the Absolutist Territorial State. Ideal and Reality in Electoral Hanover 1709–1716Ulf WendlerPart III: Broader Academic and Social Responses to PlagueChapter 8. About What is Right in Times of Plague. Contagious Debates in Natural Philosophy, Medicine, Law, and Theology at the Academia Julia inUniversity of Helmstedt, 1681‒83Benjamin WalluraChapter 9. Diseases as Threat to the Human and Animal World. Interdependencies of Early Modern Contagion Discourses in Central EuropeAnsgar Schanbacher, Philip Knäble, and Malte de VriesChapter 10. Plague Cemeteries in Early Modern German TownsMartin ChristPandemics—Theirs and Ours. An AfterwordPeter HessBibliographyIndex

“The aim here is not to draw continuities between the early modern period and the 21st century, but to denaturalize epidemics and understand them in their specific historicity. In this way, the manuscript provides an answer to the question: What can we learn from history?” • Dr. Leander Diener, Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science