Norman Cantor talks about Anthrax and not just bubonic being a major, if not more prevalent part of the Black Death in the 14th century. Does further research back this up? It felt like he glossed over all of his reasoning in his book

by QuirkyTurtle999
y_sengaku

While more can always be said, you can check Is there doubt as to whether the Black Death was bubonic plague, carried by rats? answered just a few days ago by /u/Anekdota-Press as the latest academic consensus in 2022.

The use of scientific research (genetic study) in the historical disease has greatly made progress in the 21th century and especially in the last decade since 2010/11, as I also briefly summarized before in: What effects of plagues and other huge epidemics can we see in archaeology? and what authoritative and up to date papers can I read about the cause(s) of the Black Death? - in turn, it also means that we cannot trust the hypothetical identification of the pathogen of the Black Death too much in older publications, especially published before the beginning of the 21th century.

Recommended Literature (published in the last 5 years):

  • Aberth, John. The Black Death: A New History of the Great Mortality in Europe, 1347-1500. Oxford: OUP, 2021.
  • Benedictow, Ole J. The Complete History of the Black Death. rev. ed. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2021.
  • Green, Monica H. "The Four Black Deaths." The American Historical Review, Volume 125, Issue 5, December 2020, Pages 1601–1631, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhaa511