The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague, Compiled from Contemporary Sources [abridged]

"...This account of the epidemic that began in 1348 draws on the documents of the period to create a vivid impression of the human turmoil it caused, in which men felt tossed and torn between God and the Devil as never before or since. When it passed, as unaccountably as it began, the forces of life, health and goodness raised men once again from the depths of this mediaeval abyss of confusion and superstition. ..."