In the Book of Revelation, Pestilence is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and people felt that this disease surely heralded the end of the world. To the nobility and other authority figures, this idea had a practical advantage. Should the masses believe that a higher power was holding them accountable for their actions, said authorities could more easily regulate activities that they thought troublesome, like gambling and brothels.
在《启示录》中，鼠疫是天使四骑士之一，人们觉得这种瘟疫的发生肯定意味着世界末日的来临。对于贵族和其他当权者来说，这样的理论是很有用的。如果大众认为存在着一个更高的力量在审视他们的所作所为，那么当局者在管理上就会轻松得多，比如在赌博和妓院这样的事情上。

Ideas about cures for the plague were linked to possible causes. It was long thought that the balance of the humors and states of the body was crucial to staying healthy; if that was true for humans, then the same might be true for the universe. This led to a number of astrological theories on what was causing the clear imbalance of life and death on Earth.
要想解决瘟疫，就得找到引发瘟疫的原因。长久以来人们都认为心情与身体状态的平衡是保持健康的关键；如果这种理论也适用于人类的话，那么也可能同样适用于宇宙。所以在何物引发地球上生命与死亡失衡的问题上，出现了很多占卜理论。

Quoting Greek philosophers and their writings on the balance of life, astrologer Geoffrey de Meaux tried to use the positioning of the planets within the zodiac to determine how long each outbreak would last, why certain cities were vulnerable, and who would die next.
在援引了希腊哲学家们及其有关生命平衡的作品的情况下，占星家Geoffrey de Meaux 试图利用十二宫图里的行星位置来预测每一次的瘟疫爆发会持续多久，为什么某些城市会变得如此脆弱以及下一个死去的将是何人等。