A widespread fear of dying from poison seized the upper classes of European society in the 14th cen-tury, as the inventories of the wealthy and a growing number of treatises on this subject attest. This arti-cle surveys the social context that probably gave rise to this fear and the contents of specialised works on this subject. It also examines the range of precautions against an attempt to poison the king contained in the ordinances that ruled domestic life in the royal courts of Mallorca and the Crown of Aragon.
