ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to map out the emotional burden plague placed on Ottoman society, and to make its effects more visible to the historical gaze. The chapter addresses the widespread uncertainties that are expressed, including those felt at the level of individuals (e.g., about their future, fortunes, and death), communities (e.g., about administrators, spiritual leaders), and imperial structures (e.g., about the continuity of the dynastic family, the state, and its institutions). Hence, the chapter attempts to put these uncertainties at the center of historical inquiry, and to better understand the behavior of individuals who experienced them. The vagaries of plague served both to make life more tenuous and to significantly increase the level of individual and social anxiety about the apparent ambiguity of life and death. The age of the Renaissance was a time of discovery and rediscovery, of reform and renewal, and of science and reasoning; it was also "plagued" by deadly uncertainties.
