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Artists often depicted the mass trauma using three popular cultural representations that surfaced in performance, poetry, and painting: the Triumph of Death, the Dance of the Dead ("danse macabre"), and Death and the Maiden.  The story and image of St. Sebastian became popular; the arrows with which he was pierced represented the plague, but he survived the deadly assault and became a protector against the plague.  

Artists often depicted the mass trauma using three popular cultural representations that surfaced in performance, poetry, and painting: the Triumph of Death, the Dance of the Dead ("danse macabre"), and Death and the Maiden.  The story and image of St. Sebastian became popular; the arrows with which he was pierced represented the plague, but he survived the deadly assault and became a protector against the plague.  

The Plague was commonly interpreted by popular religiosity as a divine punishment despite some efforts to treat the disease medically. The theological interpretation viewed premature death by the plague as either God's rescue of His own from unmitigated evil or as punishment for the victim's sins. Other interpretations blamed the plague on evil lifestyles or, in the case of Bavarian physician, humanist, and astrologer Joseph Grünpeck (d. 1532), on unfavorable juxtapositions of the heavenly bodies. Piety, contrition, and repentance were recommended as therapies, along with intercessory prayer by the saints and sometimes even exorcisms and magic. Natural remedies included treatment with garden herbs. Intended for both physicians and literate society at large, the treatises indicate a close relationship between practical piety and natural-empirical treatment - something Dutch historian [[Johan Huizinga]] called "the almost irreconcilable contradictions" of late medieval religious life.

The Plague was commonly interpreted by popular religiosity as a divine punishment despite some efforts to treat the disease medically. The theological interpretation viewed premature death by the plague as either God's rescue of His own from unmitigated evil or as punishment for the victim's sins. Other interpretations blamed the plague on evil lifestyles or, in the case of Bavarian physician, humanist, and astrologer Joseph Grünpeck (d. 1532), on unfavorable juxtapositions of the heavenly bodies. [[Piety]], contrition, and repentance were recommended as therapies, along with intercessory prayer by the saints and sometimes even exorcisms and magic. Natural remedies included treatment with garden herbs. Intended for both physicians and literate society at large, the treatises indicate a close relationship between practical piety and natural-empirical treatment - something Dutch historian [[Johan Huizinga]] called "the almost irreconcilable contradictions" of late medieval religious life.

[[File:Dance-dead.jpg|thumb|300px|left|[[Hans Holbein]],  "The Dance of Death." Woodcut, about 1538]]

[[File:Dance-dead.jpg|thumb|300px|left|[[Hans Holbein]],  "The Dance of Death." Woodcut, about 1538]]