In the first half of the 1580s, Seville, Spain, confronted
a series of potentially devastating crises. In three years,
the city faced a brush with deadly contagion, including the
plague; the billeting of troops in preparation for Philip
II’s invasion of Portugal; crop failure and famine following
drought and locust infestation; an aborted uprising of the
Moriscos (Christian converts from Islam); bankruptcy of the
municipal government; the threat of pollution and contaminated
water; and the disruption of commerce with the Indies. While
each of these problems would be formidable on its own, when
taken together, the crises threatened Seville’s social
and economic order. In The Plague Files, Alexandra
Parma Cook and Noble David Cook reconstruct daily life during
this period in sixteenth-century Seville, exposing the difficult
lives of ordinary men, women, and children and shedding light
on the challenges municipal officials faced as they attempted
to find solutions to the emerging public health emergencies
that threatened the city’s residents.
Filling several gaps in the historiography of early modern
Spain, this volume offers a history of not only Seville’s
city government but also the medical profession in Andalusia,
from practitioner nurses and barber surgeons (who were often
the first to encounter symptoms of plague) to well-trained
university physicians. All levels of society enter the picture—from
slaves to the local aristocracy. Drawing on detailed records
of city council deliberations, private and public correspondence,
reports from physicians and apothecaries, and other primary
sources, Cook and Cook recount Seville’s story in the
words of the people who lived it—the city’s governor,
the female innkeepers charged with reporting who recently
died in their establishments, the physicians who describe
the plague victims’ symptoms.
As Cook and Cook’s detailed history makes clear, in
spite of numerous emergencies, Seville’s bureaucracy
functioned with relative normality, providing basic services
necessary for the survival of its citizens. Their account
of the travails of 1580s Seville provides an indispensable
resource for those studying early modern Spain.
Alexandra Parma Cook is an independent scholar,
and Noble David Cook is a professor of history
at Florida International University. The Cooks have worked
together for more than thirty years and have coauthored several
books, including Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A
Case of Transatlantic Bigamy. They live in Coral Gables,
Florida.
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