The Black Death has always been a favorite subject of modern medievalism: books, films, and games set in the Middle Ages or in medieval-styled settings. Modern stories about the Black Death are not intended to be historically accurate: they reflect modern ideas about disease and the Middle Ages. This is especially true in the last few decades as creators use plague fictions to grapple with the modern epidemics of HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and Covid-19. In this lecture, Dr. Winston Black traces the history of plague medievalism, with a focus on how screenwriters and video game designers in the 21st Century depict medieval medicine, religion, and culture during the Black Death, and what that means for understanding and teaching past plagues in the Covid era.
