Plague in Valencia, 546: A Case Study of the Integration of Texts and Archaeology
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-02-01

Although so-called Justinianic Pandemic of Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague) that began in the early 540s dramatically altered the history of the Mediterranean, our information about it is fragmentary. This is especially true in the Western Mediterranean, where few narratives or documents reveal the plague’s impact. Archaeology can help fill these gaps. Recent work on the prevalence of mass graves in the late- and immediately post-Roman world suggests that mass graves, properly understood, can serve as a proxy for mass death. However, despite the work being done to bring together the documentation of these graves, it has been difficult to know whether these graves result from plague, famine, violence, or some other unknown cause.
In this paper, I will argue that the canons of the Council of Valencia provide us with a test case for combining archaeological and philological evidence for the Justinianic Pandemic. The council was held in 546, three years after the first outbreaks of plague in Spain. The fourth canon is concerned with the sudden and unexpected death of bishops and legislates that dead bishops be placed “on a bier apart from the others” so that “the old customs for burying bishops might be preserved.” Given the large number of sixth-century mass graves from Valencia, concern about the proper burial of bishops “apart from the others” suggests an institutional reaction to the plague pandemic and the breakdown of traditional burial practices. The evidence, however, is not straightforward.
The paper is divided into three parts. The first analyzes the canon within the context of late antique Hispanic burial customs. The second studies the archaeological evidence for burials in Valencia, both those of bishops within the sixth-century ecclesiastical complex and the mass graves that are currently being documented. Finally, the third section attempts a philological study of the terms used in the canon. The paper allows us to reflect on the methodological potential for integrating church documents and funerary archaeology. This concatenation of evidence from Valencia charts a specific instance of the Late Antique plague and showcases the promise – and difficulty – inherent in the interdisciplinary study of bubonic plague.

NB: for repentinus mors in the talk above, understand repentina mors or repentinus obitus; there was an error in the last minute editing of the presentation paper.

Author - Gruber, Henry, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States of America (Presenting author)