“Across the era of the Second Pandemic . . . [a]uthorities stepped in to limit the depressing effects of mourners in black and tolling bells, and prevented gatherings of people through which the disease might be spread. The times were extraordinary, and the death tolls often unbelievable. . . . Without controlling—or outright banning—the traditional ceremonies, cities would have become true necropolises, cities of the dead.”

—Joseph P. Byrne, Daily Life During the Black Death, 2006.