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Abstract

This study shows how the different concepts of epidemic diseases met with the everyday needs of the late medieval and early modern society. The analysis of practice and discourse in the context of "pestilences" covers broad social strata from representatives of the authorities and medical doctors to artisans and the "poor" in German Imperial Towns and their territories. Generally, those persons acted according to a variety of concepts. Their seemingly contradictory actions cannot be explained refering to their ignorance about infection, but have to be interpreted in the appropriate situational context. In this context it is possible to understand how the variety and parallelism of different concepts enabled groups as well as individuals to choose those notions of the spreading of diseases which promised the least interference with their plans and intentions.