Medieval writers blamed the pestilence variously on God’s wrath, the prevalence of vice, the coming of Antichrist, the impending resurrection of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the excessive tightness of women’s clothes, misalignment of the planets, sodomy, evil vapors, rain, Jewish conspiracy, the tendency of hot and moist people to overindulge in sex and baths, and underripe vegetables, which doctors of medicine were sure caused “windy ulcers.”
