Dr. Eleanor Janega

but that includes risks.

Moving goods also means moving people, and particularly in the Middle Ages, it means moving people on animals, right?

You know, you're on horses, you're on camels, you're on things like this.

And so that moves germs as well.

And you simply have to accept

that part of being in a community of people who are around other people is that you are going to get sick.

The only way for someone to really completely avoid any germ at all, go ahead and live in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

You'll be all right.

That'll be fine.

But provided we are in contact with each other, these germs will spread.

And so when we study the Black Death, you then need to choose.

You need to choose.

Are you going to go with the myth of the Middle Ages?

where it is a time of unique stupidity, where Europe is completely cut off from the rest of the world?

Or are you going to say, oh, well, this is a really complex society that is navigating really difficult things and doing it in complex ways?

And you know, there's one answer that's correct there.

I would say that.

But so you can kind of keep your myths and your snobbery, right?

And that's a comforting story, right?

It's a comforting story.