On 16 March, 2020, “emergency operation” was introduced at the University of Vienna as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2), which is tantamount to a closure. University teaching was switched to “remote learning” and the university staff were obliged to “home office”.
While this represents an absolute exceptional situation for today’s students and teachers, temporary closings of the university due to epidemics were regular phenomena in the Middle Ages and early modern times. How did the university and its relatives deal with it and to what extent were they involved in disease control and prevention?
