Historians of the Black Death have long held that doctors and medical experts during the fourteenth century understood the pestilence through one of two opposing theories; aerist or contagionist. According to historiography, aerist theories (the spread of the plague through the corruption of the air) were the focus of university trained physicians who sought to explain the pestilence in terms of the ancient texts they were versed in, whilst contagionist theories (that the plague was spread through contact) belonged to lay people, who pushed for new health measures during later outbreaks. This essay aims to redress this issue, arguing that doctors and medical experts were well aware that the plague was contagious and could be spread from person-to-person,
