The following selection is an extract from the report of the University of Paris medical faculty on the causes of the Black Death, October 1348.

We say that the distant and first cause of this pestilence was and is the configuration of the heavens. In 1345, at one hour after noon on 20 March, there was a major conjunction of three planets in Aquarius. This conjunction, along with earlier conjunctions and eclipses, by causing a deadly corruption of the air around us, signifies mortality and famine. . . . Albertus Magnus in his book Concerning the causes of the properties of the elements (treatise 2, chapter 1) says that the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter causes a great pestilence in the air, especially when they come together in a hot, wet sign, as was the case in 1345. For Jupiter, being wet and hot, draws up evil vapours from...