How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in
the next world! The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died
unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their
rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by
the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth.
-Giovanni Boccaccio, 1348
Because Boccaccio was an eyewitness to the events that he was describing, this is an example of a primary source. What period of
Medieval history was Boccaccio writing about?
A)
the Crusades
B)
the Black Death
the Hundred Years War
D)
the Battle of Hastings
