What primary sources record well‑poisoning accusations during the Black Death, and how reliable are they?
Executive summary
Contemporary medieval chronicles, municipal letters and judicial records contain numerous accusations that Jews and other marginal groups poisoned wells during the Black Death—these primary testimonies document the charges and ensuing violence but must be read as socially and politically loaded evidence rather than objective forensic proof [1] [2] [3]. Modern specialists reconstruct these primary accounts and stress that while the accusations and massacres are well attested, the sources are shaped by rumor, communal scapegoating, and interests that make causal claims about “poisoning” extremely unreliable [4] [5].
1. Which types of primary sources record well‑poisoning accusations?
Medieval chronicles and narrative compilations record widespread reports that Jews and other minorities had poisoned wells and water supplies during plague outbreaks, sometimes naming towns or jurists responsible for reprisals (examples summarized in source collections and classroom anthologies) [1] [6]. Municipal and episcopal letters and civic documents capture local responses: for example, specific letters and municipal records—cited in modern editions—report accusations and the rounding up or execution of suspects, such as the translated Magistrate of Narbonne letter preserved in Horrox’s anthology and referenced by modern compilers [2] [1]. Trial rolls, inquisitorial investigations and execution records survive in places and are cited in scholarship as primary proof that arrests, investigations, and burnings took place across regions from Aragon and southern France into parts of the German lands [4] [7].
2. Key named witnesses and compilations that historians use
Scholars rely on named chroniclers and compilations—both contemporary and near‑contemporary—assembled in modern sourcebooks to trace the accusations and their diffusion (collections curated by university presses and teaching guides list Boccaccio and other contemporaries alongside local clerical letters) [6] [8]. Tzafrir Barzilay’s book Poisoned Wells synthesizes a wide range of these firsthand materials and directs readers to the specific municipal letters, chronicles and legal records that underpin the narrative of 1348–50 persecutions [4] [9]. Educational source packets and university guides likewise point to localized accounts—such as the Sölden outbreak where Jews were burned “on the strength of a rumour” that they had poisoned wells—documented in regional chronicles preserved in archives and quoted in teaching PDFs [3] [10].
3. How reliable are these primary sources for proving well‑poisoning actually occurred?
The primary documents reliably show that accusations, investigations and violent reprisals happened: municipal letters, trial records and chronicles converge on the existence and scale of persecution in many locales [2] [4]. They are, however, poor epidemiological evidence for deliberate poisoning: medieval authors lacked germ theory and often explained sudden mass illness as malicious poisoning, which means contemporaneous testimony reflects belief and rumor more than scientific demonstration [11] [5]. Modern historians therefore treat the sources as solid for documenting social reactions and legal actions but as deeply compromised for establishing causal claims about water contamination, because accusations were amplified by existing antisemitic tropes, political leverage and communal panic [5] [4].
4. Biases, motives and why scholars caution against literal readings
Primary narratives were produced in communities under extreme stress and frequently by actors with political or religious stakes—local elites, ecclesiastical authorities, or chroniclers who could either inflame or seek to contain violence; for instance, papal protection for Jews in Avignon is noted in contemporary reporting alongside massacres elsewhere, signaling political differences in treatment that shaped the record [1]. Scholars such as Barzilay emphasize that well‑poisoning accusations were part of a longer medieval repertoire of scapegoating—appearing before the Black Death in the “Lepers’ Plot” and later recycled—so primary reports must be read against patterns of prejudice and the social dynamics that produced them [5] [4].
5. Practical guidance for using these primary sources
Use municipal letters, trial rolls and contemporaneous chronicles to chart where accusations led to legal or violent outcomes; consult modern edited collections (e.g., Horrox’s anthology cited in teaching modules) for vetted translations and document contexts [2] [8]. Treat claims of deliberate poisoning as social evidence of blame, not as forensic proof of contamination, and triangulate accounts from different regions and types of records to separate rumor‑driven narrative from administrative documentation of arrests and executions [4] [3].