ABSTRACT
In the chronicle of his hometown, the southern German imperial city of Augsburg, Hector Mülich gave prominence to three events in 1495. First, the generous donation of a silver bust of a saint to one of the city’s churches; second (in great detail) the devastation caused by a fire in the nearby town of Gersthofen; and third, the dramatic highpoint of the year, the emergence of a mysterious disease:
Mülich had no doubt who was to blame for this divine punishment: the French.2 Many of his contemporaries shared his view, frequently tracing the national association to a specific historical event: the invasion of the Italian peninsula in 1494 by the armies of the French king, Charles VIII (1483-1498).3 It was believed that the disease first erupted among Charles’ mercenaries, who at the cessation of hostilities returned to their respective homelands, thus spreading the new plague throughout Europe. In the German lands the labels that were quickly ascribed to
this hitherto unknown condition reflect this conviction, the most common being the French Disease (Franzosenkrankheit), French pox (Franzosenpocken), or the Latin equivalent, morbus gallicus.4
