ABSTRACT
Leprosy and plague are often placed together as the two major diseases affecting the Middle Ages. Historians see these diseases as competitive, owing to the belief that the presence of bubonic plague in Europe further reduced the number of lepers (Hays 24). These diseases also point to a human desire to control the effects of God. Leprosy and bubonic plague are different diseases; the former is chronic and difficult to contract, while the latter is acute and easier to transmit. Leprosy allowed humans to moralize about the sins that brought about the disease, because the disease was localized and hard to contract; therefore, the moral interpretations held because there was little evidence to refute those interpretations. When bubonic plague struck, people attempted to interpret the disease along similar moral guidelines as they did for leprosy. In this chapter, I explore the different moral meanings literary, medical, and theological authors ascribed to plague. Through an examination of William Langland’s Piers Plowman, Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Pardoner’s Tale, and the York Cycle’s Moses and Pharaoh, I demonstrate that the authors focused on spiritual sins as the reason for the presence of plague and that these moral associations point to perceived social problems within medieval English society.
