MONTHLY LECTURE

Plague and hardship, reflected in the coins, medals and amulets of the 16th to 19th centuries

Dr. Hans-Joachim Barth, Munich

The lecture was devoted to medals and amulets that depict the triad of plague and epidemics, hunger and war from the perspective of the suffering population. It covered the period from the Black Death (1346 to 1353) with its recurring outbreaks of plague, through the Thirty Years' War, into the 18th century, linked to the parallel climate crisis of the Little Ice Age, which repeatedly caused crop failures. From the 16th century onwards, these events and society's coping strategies can be documented numismatically.