Representations of Plague and Violence in Late Medieval Hispano-Jewish Communities

Abstract In the aftermath of the Black Death there were concerns with memorializing the event. These were part of a somber mood that affected numerous phenomena in different fields. Indeed, the bubonic plague seems to have left traces in such areas as religion, visual arts, literary compositions, commemorations, and attitudes toward death. The historical study of such representations, therefore, cannot be limited to any one field but necessitates an interdisciplinary approach. The following pages examine some aspects of this representation and the afterlife of the fourteenth-century plague and violence in the specific case of Iberian Jewish communities and their texts.