City councilors in Pistoia passed desperate ordinances during the Black Death banning citizens from importing used clothes or even traveling outside the city walls while…

A closer look

Panic legislating is practically a medieval art form. When the bubonic plague hit the Italian city of Pistoia in 1348, the local government frantically passed a series of strict civic laws trying to legislate the disease away. They banned the sale of second-hand textiles, strictly regulated butchers, and ordered corpses to be buried in wooden boxes exactly two and a half braccia deep to prevent 'foul air' from escaping, showing a surprisingly advanced, albeit terrified, grasp of public sanitation.