Lester K. Little is Dwight W. Morrow Professor Emeritus of History at Smith College and former director of the American Academy in Rome. He is a past president both of the Medieval Academy of America and of the International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, Art History, and History in Rome. He is the author of Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France and Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe.
Part I. Introduction: 1. Life and afterlife of the first plague pandemic
Lester K. Little; 2. Historians and epidemics: simple questions, complex
answers Jo N. Hays; Part II. The Near East: 3. For whom does the writer
write?: the first bubonic plague pandemic according to Syriac sources
Michael Morony; 4. Justinian plague in Syria and the archaeological
evidence Hugh N. Kennedy; Part III. The Byzantine Empire: 5. Crime and
punishment: the plague in the Byzantine empire 541¿749 Dionysios
Stathakopoulos; 6. Bubonic plague in Byzantium: the evidence of the
non-literary sources Peter Sarris; Part IV. The Latin West: 7. Consilia
humana, ops divina, superstitio (Livy 7,2): seeking succor and solace in
times of plague, with particular reference to Gaul in the early middle ages
Alain J. Stoclet; 8. Plague in Spanish late antiquity Michael Kulikowski;
9. Plague in seventh-century England John Maddicott; 10. The plague and its
consequences in Ireland Ann Dooley; Part V. The Challenge of Epidemiology
and Molecular Biology: 11. Ecology, evolution, and epidemiology of plague
Robert Sallares; 12. Towards a molecular history of the Justiniac pandemic
Michael McCormick.
