A Peste Negra de 1347-53 é um evento singular na história humana por vários motivos. Entre eles, é habitual destacar-se a mortalidade muito elevada, a rapidez da sua propagação e um profundo impacto na memória dos sobreviventes e dos seus descendentes. Essa memória pode detetar-se de formas diversas, e uma busca intensiva na documentação coeva do Norte de Portugal revela a introdução de palavras e expressões intimamente ligadas a essa ocorrência traumática. Este capítulo é dedicado a um fenómeno desse tipo, relacionando a Peste Negra com a vulgarização do léxico da peste, sobretudo “pestilência”, entre os portugueses comuns da segunda metade do século XIV.

Historical research and historiographical production have always been strongly connected both with the past they study and with the present they are produced in. Inside this universe, History of Science offers valuable examples of parallel evolution of science in its most diverse dimensions and of the interpretation of its past.  Talking about the study of past epidemics, specifically, the relation between what is known about a disease in a certain moment and what is written about past occurrences of that disease is not just evident but cannot also be forgotten when the history of that historiography is written. The aim of this brief paper is to analyse the evolution of Portuguese historiography about medieval plague epidemics, especially Black Death, confronting it with the evolution of the scientific knowledge about that disease throughout the decades and determining how fast did Portuguese historians integrate that knowledge in their own historical analysis. From miasmatical theory until the definition of microbial theory of diseases, from the discovery of the plague bacillus (and little after, the vectorial transmission) to the confirmation of the identity of plague bacteria as the responsible for Black Death, all these discoveries influenced the way past plagues were studied and understood. Cultivating a symbiotic relationship since a long time ago, Natural and Life Sciences, at one side, and History, at the other, move forward together, establishing bridges that benefit both and allow the production of a scientific knowledge progressively more rigorous, transversal and useful.

This dissertation links reflections about the history of death, of dying during the Middle Age, the necessity of approach the subject in the scholar environment, and the current Covid-19 pandemic. It starts with the assumption that, even with death being a general phenomenon, the perception and the experience of dying are not. Hence, it is possible to find different perspectives are not adequately explored during Basic Education, with death often appearing as a quantification of fatalities in a certain event. Thus, it is discussed not only the necessity of a deeper debate about the history of death, but also the importance that the school does not remove itself from this discussion, to bridge the scientific knowledge to the students’ daily life. To do it, a teaching method that may help the teacher in the approach of this and other controversial subjects is a pedagogic workshop. The main issue is the scant research dedicated to theorizing these workshops as a didactic resource to teachers. Based on these questions, a Canvas model was created to develop a methodology of pedagogic workshop design. Canvas is a broadly used administrative tool applied in the conception of business plans and games in general that can be adapted to many other purposes. Therefore, with the conception of the Pedagogic Workshop Canvas Model, this idea is illustrated with an example of a workshop, in which the teacher can approach death during the Black Death in the 14th century and the Covid-19 pandemic, to discuss similarities and differences. The Pedagogic Workshop Canvas Model is a versatile methodology that contributes to the teacher’s creativity, favors the planning and troubleshooting even before the workshop execution, and allows improvements, after which the same workshop may be adapted and enhanced for other opportunities.

Although the last decades witnessed major advances on the study of historical epidemiology, particularly the plague, the impact and consequences of the Black Death in Portugal remain largely unknown. This paper aims to propose a chronology of introduction and spread of the epidemic in Portuguese territory, offering a first attempt of reconstitution of infection routes and chronology. Although direct documentary references are scarce, they provide enough information to present a first draft destined to be improved, corrected, or contradicted by future research.