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The Black Death: A Personal History
In this fresh approach to the history of the Black Death, world-renowned scholar John Hatcher re-creates everyday life in a mid-fourteenth century rural English village. By focusing on the experiences of ordinary villagers as they lived-and died-during the Black Death (1345-50), Hatcher vividly places the reader directly inside those tumultuous times and describes in fascinating detail the day-to-day existence of people struggling with the tragic effects of the plague. Dramatic scenes portray how contemporaries must have felt and thought about these momentous events: what they knew and didn't know about the horrors of the disease, what they believed about death and God's vengeance, and how they tried to make sense of it all despite frantic rumors, frightening tales, and fearful sermons.
318 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 2008
430 people are currently reading
2765 people want to read
About the author
John Hatcher
35 books11 followersA specialist in the economic, social and demographic history of England from the middle ages to the eighteenth century, John Hatcher is Professor of Economic and Social History at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.
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November 17, 2022
The best of times and the worst of times is true in every generation often depending on how much money you have, or at least patronage from someone who does. But until the modern era it was always the worst of times when your locality got infected with the Black Death.
There was no knowledge of germs or rats as vectors for disease, it was all miasmas and punishment from the Christian God who at that time was conceived as vengeful and harsh. The later Christian God who is ever-loving and forgiving (but is just as much involved in war, death and torture) was as much a product of our times as their god was of theirs. So preachers preached and people begged forgiveness.
But if the disease came calling on a member of your household, the entire house was walled up for 40 days. People were lucky if they had someone who bring and leave them food, or they had a vegetable garden they could sneak out to from a hole in the boarded-up house. It is estimated that many died of starvation and that was put down to plague.
Some villages suffered 80% mortality and in one week in London there were 7,000 deaths recorded. But the records are considered underestimates since the people maintaining the records often died themselves and there was no-one to take over. Many deaths went unrecorded with the bodies just thrown on to the death carts as they passed and thence into mass graves.
There was no help for rich or poor, not from gods or doctors. The disease was the scourge of Europe for over 400 years.
Compared to that, it seems like we are living in the best of times now.
__________
Update I didn't think that in the Covid years and the weeks, three at a time, of 24/7 lockdown. But even then I was grateful for small mercies. I have a big garden, it was possible to go for a walk and my son had a pass until 6pm as a lawyer. He would bring home chocolate from the gas station every night. Then, as soon as we were released from imprisonment, it was a charter flight down to Puerto Rico and AA down to Miami and two months staying in a nice hotel in Boca Raton at minimal rates, less than I pay in rent. So it wasn't the worst of times. But when I got Covid it felt like it.
For others, who really suffered, who died, who looked after the suffering and the dying, for the old who were isolated in homes who could no longer see their families, for the sick in hospital, for those with long-term treatment plans cancelled by the hospitals, it was the very worst of times.
I don't forget either.
updated 15 Nov 2022
There was no knowledge of germs or rats as vectors for disease, it was all miasmas and punishment from the Christian God who at that time was conceived as vengeful and harsh. The later Christian God who is ever-loving and forgiving (but is just as much involved in war, death and torture) was as much a product of our times as their god was of theirs. So preachers preached and people begged forgiveness.
But if the disease came calling on a member of your household, the entire house was walled up for 40 days. People were lucky if they had someone who bring and leave them food, or they had a vegetable garden they could sneak out to from a hole in the boarded-up house. It is estimated that many died of starvation and that was put down to plague.
Some villages suffered 80% mortality and in one week in London there were 7,000 deaths recorded. But the records are considered underestimates since the people maintaining the records often died themselves and there was no-one to take over. Many deaths went unrecorded with the bodies just thrown on to the death carts as they passed and thence into mass graves.
There was no help for rich or poor, not from gods or doctors. The disease was the scourge of Europe for over 400 years.
Compared to that, it seems like we are living in the best of times now.
__________
Update I didn't think that in the Covid years and the weeks, three at a time, of 24/7 lockdown. But even then I was grateful for small mercies. I have a big garden, it was possible to go for a walk and my son had a pass until 6pm as a lawyer. He would bring home chocolate from the gas station every night. Then, as soon as we were released from imprisonment, it was a charter flight down to Puerto Rico and AA down to Miami and two months staying in a nice hotel in Boca Raton at minimal rates, less than I pay in rent. So it wasn't the worst of times. But when I got Covid it felt like it.
For others, who really suffered, who died, who looked after the suffering and the dying, for the old who were isolated in homes who could no longer see their families, for the sick in hospital, for those with long-term treatment plans cancelled by the hospitals, it was the very worst of times.
I don't forget either.
updated 15 Nov 2022
October 12, 2017
Be ye not fooled: this is a novel. That's what the author means by "a personal history." This Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University (!) was so cowed by the lack of historical documentation on the plague in England that he felt compelled to create fictional characters and have them do fictional things (based on what contemporary rural denizens could have, might have done).
Each chapter covers a brief period of time in the 1340s, with the final chapter covering 1350, and is preceded by one or two pages of historical fact in italics. The problem with this melding of 10% fact and 90% fiction is that it doesn't work. Neither history nor fiction devotees will be left happy and satisfied. The fiction sections are dry and wooden and astoundingly repetitive. A brief example: On p. 191, a man named John Blakey, the steward to a landowner named Lady Rose, goes to the village of Walsham to try to bring some order to the chaos of her estate after many laborers have been stricken and killed by the plague. Blakey "is shocked to find conditions far worse" than they had expected. One paragraph later he sits "in shocked silence" as the hayward (the person in charge of fences and enclosures) tells him that tenants are no longer bothering to perform their farm labor for the Lady. On the next page he is "spluttering" and can hardly compose himself. On the next page he has been "shocked into silence." On the next page, still in conversation with the hayward, he sits "in stunned silence." On p. 243 he is yet again "stunned into silence" (again, by the hayward). A googlebooks search shows 22 results for "shocked" in the book and 26 for "silence," although those are certainly low estimates since not all pages of the book are searchable.
About half of England's rural population was killed by the Black Death (or as the author irritatingly puts it, multiple times, was "scythed"). One fictional character who escapes the Grim Reaper's scythe is a well-off landowner who, on the theory that foul but harmless vapors might counteract the foul and harmful vapors that spread pestilence, has all the manor privies emptied into a brass cooking pot, which he leans deeply into with a towel draped over his head, inhaling. This causes incessant diarrhea and vomiting, but spares his life. Then we have a character named Simon, who, drinking in a packed tavern, falls off his bench, screaming and pointing to a large swelling on his upper thigh. (The plague often produced giant boils in the armpit or groin area, called buboes.) The tavern customers "did indeed see a great lump in his crotch" and ran screaming from the tavern. Whereupon Simon chased after them chortling and "exposing his huge erect cock..."
No, even that could not make this tale interesting.
March 11, 2015
This excellent book is a creative reconstruction of a village in crisis, from 1345 - 1350. The author chose the village of Walsham (now Walsham-le-Willows) in North West Suffolk, as it had good local records for him to plunder. Saying that, there are no diaries or any personal records and, so, the author does make the book more intimate by creative writing and creating characters - such as Master John, responsible for the villagers spiritual needs. However, where possible he uses real names, people and statistics.
The Black Death first made its fearful appearance in England in Weymouth, but the villagers begin to hear rumours about the plague long before. Travellers, sailors, merchants begin to bring tales of a terrible plague and the villagers are victims of heresay and rumour. They begin to make what preparations they can by taking religious pilgrimages and, urged by Master John, making confession. Master John reads aloud a letter from the bishop, in which it is said, "If the latest rumours are true, then the plague has already arrived in the Far South and West of England." Strangers are both feared, in case they bring plague, yet welcomed for news they might bring. The author also describes in great detail the ritual of Master John attending a death bed scene before the plague, which involved many people from the community, the dying persons family and the Church. If we contrast this with the hurried, impersonal confessions (for those lucky enough to receive them at all) for those suffering from plague, it shows how difficult it was for the society to cope with the sheer numbers of people ill and dying. For plague brought fear of infection and family members were often too scared to nurse or care for their dying relatives. Even if someone could be brought to administer the last rights, everyone was over stretched, exhausted and over whelmed, and often the dying person was too ill to make their confession, as the illness struck so quickly. In 1349 the plague struck Walsham, close to Easter Day. By late June, when it departed, the village population was cut in half. There were no tenant deaths reported in March and 103 reported in June. For a small community like Walsham, the number of people lost was devastating.
John Hatcher re-creates the people of the village extremely well. We feel their anticipation and fear, the horror of the plague finally coming to them and then the aftermath. For the plague changed England forever. People who had earlier been happy to take any work offered, now found that labour was in demand. They were unwilling to work for the same wages, or even to take over land and cottages left vacant. More more women than usual were left to inherit, as the men in their family died. The elite of the country were alarmed at the empowerment by the lower orders by the massive mortality rates. The King issued the 'Ordinance of Labourers', compelling the common people to work when required and trying to force them to accept the same wages and conditions as before the Black Death. In reality, those left were more concerned with their own lands, and those who had normally had a surplus of labour to choose from had to offer more wages and incentives than normal - if they could find anyone willing to work at all.
This is an excellent read and gives a very good representation of the experience of living in those times and what it meant for those left behind once the devastation passed. I enjoyed reading it very much and would recommend it highly.
The Black Death first made its fearful appearance in England in Weymouth, but the villagers begin to hear rumours about the plague long before. Travellers, sailors, merchants begin to bring tales of a terrible plague and the villagers are victims of heresay and rumour. They begin to make what preparations they can by taking religious pilgrimages and, urged by Master John, making confession. Master John reads aloud a letter from the bishop, in which it is said, "If the latest rumours are true, then the plague has already arrived in the Far South and West of England." Strangers are both feared, in case they bring plague, yet welcomed for news they might bring. The author also describes in great detail the ritual of Master John attending a death bed scene before the plague, which involved many people from the community, the dying persons family and the Church. If we contrast this with the hurried, impersonal confessions (for those lucky enough to receive them at all) for those suffering from plague, it shows how difficult it was for the society to cope with the sheer numbers of people ill and dying. For plague brought fear of infection and family members were often too scared to nurse or care for their dying relatives. Even if someone could be brought to administer the last rights, everyone was over stretched, exhausted and over whelmed, and often the dying person was too ill to make their confession, as the illness struck so quickly. In 1349 the plague struck Walsham, close to Easter Day. By late June, when it departed, the village population was cut in half. There were no tenant deaths reported in March and 103 reported in June. For a small community like Walsham, the number of people lost was devastating.
John Hatcher re-creates the people of the village extremely well. We feel their anticipation and fear, the horror of the plague finally coming to them and then the aftermath. For the plague changed England forever. People who had earlier been happy to take any work offered, now found that labour was in demand. They were unwilling to work for the same wages, or even to take over land and cottages left vacant. More more women than usual were left to inherit, as the men in their family died. The elite of the country were alarmed at the empowerment by the lower orders by the massive mortality rates. The King issued the 'Ordinance of Labourers', compelling the common people to work when required and trying to force them to accept the same wages and conditions as before the Black Death. In reality, those left were more concerned with their own lands, and those who had normally had a surplus of labour to choose from had to offer more wages and incentives than normal - if they could find anyone willing to work at all.
This is an excellent read and gives a very good representation of the experience of living in those times and what it meant for those left behind once the devastation passed. I enjoyed reading it very much and would recommend it highly.
December 8, 2009
This could have been done better. In fact, I think a similar concept was applied when Barbara Tuchman wrote 'A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century'. She created a very cohesive narrative by selecting a relatively obscure figure out of history and tracing the events of the century as they had happened to him, on both a grand and a very personal level. The difference here is that her figure, Enguerrand de Coucy, was a very real person, as opposed to Hatcher's Master John, who is a work of invention.
The narrative in question, Hatcher's, can't seem to decide if a novel should be written or if a scholarly work is at hand, and it suffers from the indecision. As a scholarly work, the book is at fault for including so much fiction and for getting mired in descriptions of daily work and administrative tasks in a 14th century village as opposed to descriptions of the affliction and aftermath (which is, of course, why one opts to read the book). As a fictional piece, it lacks from any semblance of a storyline, developed characters, or any kind of investment or emotion on the character's part.
A better alternative would be to read John Kelly's 'The Great Mortality' for a nonfiction treatment of the subject, and perhaps Geraldine Brooks' 'Year of Wonders' for a fictional piece set during a later epidemic.
The narrative in question, Hatcher's, can't seem to decide if a novel should be written or if a scholarly work is at hand, and it suffers from the indecision. As a scholarly work, the book is at fault for including so much fiction and for getting mired in descriptions of daily work and administrative tasks in a 14th century village as opposed to descriptions of the affliction and aftermath (which is, of course, why one opts to read the book). As a fictional piece, it lacks from any semblance of a storyline, developed characters, or any kind of investment or emotion on the character's part.
A better alternative would be to read John Kelly's 'The Great Mortality' for a nonfiction treatment of the subject, and perhaps Geraldine Brooks' 'Year of Wonders' for a fictional piece set during a later epidemic.
July 20, 2015
I found this book both impressive and engaging. Hatcher (an eminent medieval historian) himself describes the genre of this unusual book as resembling a "docudrama," which is probably the best way of encapsulating it. It's likely to appeal to the interested layperson, but could also be useful for classroom use by history instructors. Hatcher uses the surviving records of an English village (reaching beyond it to nearby towns and manors, and, where relevant, to continental Europe.) He then reconstructs/imagines the experience of this community not only during the first outbreak of the Black Death, but during the years immediately preceding and following it. This enriches considerably its potential usefulness, in my view, as well as its interest. Hatcher, while inventing conversations and motives, keeps remarkably close to his documents, and explains how they survive and are used by historians. Impressively, Hatcher covers not only economy (prices and landholding,) and social status, but also how the plague affected governance, ecclesiastical administration, popular piety, and, not least, the roles of women in agricultural society. His protagonists include a cleric, members of the nobility and gentry, manor officials, a monk, and a diverse group of peasants, It's a meticulously crafted and a fascinating work.
January 16, 2009
although i found this book strangely compelling while i was reading it, i probably wouldn't ever want to give it a re-read. the author is a prolific historian who specializes in the middle ages, apparently, & has written a bunch of straightforward history books about the black plague & the economic development of europe in medieval times. he bills this book as a kind of "docudrama," focusing on the mid-sized english village of walsham during the years leading up to the black plague, the plague months, & the aftermath. he wanted to write about the way the plague impacted the everyday lives of serfs & villagers, but there's pretty much no verifiable historical evidence that would enable a historian to write that kind of personal account, since most toiling vollagers back then were illiterate & their literate counterparts were largely clergy & manor holders who were pretty unconcerned about the day-to-day affairs of regular people, so long as they were looking after their crops properly & paying attention in church. i guess the narrator of the story is supposed to be a member of the clergy recounting the events of the plague from a distance of a few years. the primary protaganist is the village priest, master john (self-insert?), a "good" priest who is devoted to his asceticism & obligation to care for the villagers' mortal souls. there is so much religion in this book, it blew my mind. i am a life-long atheist who actually wasn't allowed as a child to have anything to do with religion. i wasn't allowed to, say, watch "the flying nun," lest it convert me to catholicism. i wasn't allowed to stay the night at the houses of friends who might pray in front of me before bed. there is so much about religion that i just don't know or understand, & what's more, i kind of don't care. so reading a book with a priest as a main character totally blew my mind. there was this one part where, after the plague, a female villager who became wealthy through inherited land decides to go on a pilgrimage to rome. she is told that she can get a plenary indulgence because "the pope holds the keys to a vault wherein is stored the excess charitable goodwill accrued by jesus, the virgin mary, & all the saints & apostles during their lives, which was more than enough to secure their own salvations." i was like, are you fucking KIDDING ME? WHO COULD POSSIBLY BELIEVE THIS SHIT? like the pope can just open a door & be like, "yeah, here's a little salvation for you, & here's some for you, & yeah, you're all good on the hail marys now. have an awesome eternal salvation." it made me realize that even though i have always been fairly tolerant of religious folks (so long as they don't try to convert me), i have never actually consciously believed that any of them REALLY believed in god. i figured maybe their spirituality gave them a mooring for a moral compass, but surely they knew the god thing was totally bogus, right? when i expressed this sentiment to my quaker, meeting-attending, god-beliving-in boyfriend...man, he got really pissed. anyway, this is an okay book. there are probably far more interesting, less religion-obsessed books about the black plague though.
May 16, 2020
a bitter but instructive example for the dire consequences a lethal pandemia can have on the political, religious, cultural, psychological, and mental foundations of society - in quite a few respects not so very much different from today. the human factor.
February 18, 2020
The author took facts from historical records and tried to turn it into a fictional story so readers could better understand the life of those who lived through the Black Death. It didn't work. It never sounded like a story, it read like a text book. It was one long church sermon, since most records were kept by priests and monks and from their point of view, it was brought by sin and they thought they could pray it away.
January 10, 2022
There were strengths and weaknesses here. The concept is very cool: a reconstruction of a plague-era village based on the village's impressive records, using real data and names to develop a fictionalised narrative based in fact. The author has been researching the plague and the wider time period for many years and is therefore qualified to make highly educated guesses, but this is still first and foremost a fictionalised account. Each chapter begins with a brief italicised summary of the historical facts, and then the chapter proceeds as an account written as though by a member of the clergy keeping a historical record of the time.
There is an abundance of raw data available for this town, mainly in the form of estate records detailing properties and inheritance. This means that the amount of death and devastation wrought by the plague can be fairly accurately guessed and outlined. There is also a lot of information available about the impact the plague had on prices of labour and food afterwards, and it's very interesting to see a similar pattern playing out with our current pandemic: short of workers, employers have to pay more or go without the work being done; in turn, workers have more leverage and can demand better treatment from their employers. This was interesting both for its own sake and for its parallels.
However, the data seemed to limit the author's imagination. He stated that this was as much fact as fiction, but he stuck closely to the data and did not seem to have the nerve to commit to the fiction aspect. By this, I mean that the book was severely lacking in human emotion. The information stuck squarely to the facts -- the kinds of sermons given, the people who died and who inherited, some information on pilgrimages and funeral rites. Some of this was enlightening, such as the importance of confession and the turmoil that such extreme death brought, as there was no time for such elaborate rites; some of it was quite clearly there as filler. There was also no imagination at all when it came to emotion, which is where I hoped the author would take some creative liberties. Aside from brief acknowledgments that the survivors were grieving, there was really no attention paid whatsoever to the human toll of such a disaster.
Even though the facts that are available were used generously, it has to be said that these are records from the mid-1300s. Even with a well-documented village like Walsham, there is simply not enough material for a book of this length. Frequently the book was repetitive, going over the same facts and customs multiple times in various chapters; a large part of the first half of the book is imagined sermons delivered word for word, which became immensely dull. The language of the book is too simplistic to be academic but too devoid of emotion to be historical fiction; the author intended for an academic piece of creative writing but failed to hit either, resulting in a book that can be rather bland and dry. At the very least, the writing is straightforward enough that it is a quick and easy read, and despite the large cast of characters with similar names, it never becomes confusing to follow.
There was enough interesting material here that I don't think it was a waste, but at the same time there wasn't enough new or interesting material to justify the length of the book. The author stated that his motivation for writing the book in this style was to avoid yet another straightforward history of the plague, listing it as numbers and raw data as it spread across the world, but he essentially did the same thing on a smaller scale -- instead of the data of the world, it was the data of a single English village. I think it's important to accept that unfortunately, not much is known for certain about this time period, and a lot of it is guesswork -- especially in regards to rural areas, as many plague histories focus on the cities. It was interesting to see a glimpse of rural life during this time, but without committing to some creative liberties with characterisation and emotion, there was not enough raw material for a book of this length and the repetition and extended sermons illustrate this quite clearly.
Worth a read if you're new to the subject and want an overview, or you want to focus on the role of religion during the Black Death -- it's an excellent source for that. If you're looking for a more human take on the plague, though, I don't think this would cut it. For something subtitled "the intimate story", it lacks intimacy and emotion.
There is an abundance of raw data available for this town, mainly in the form of estate records detailing properties and inheritance. This means that the amount of death and devastation wrought by the plague can be fairly accurately guessed and outlined. There is also a lot of information available about the impact the plague had on prices of labour and food afterwards, and it's very interesting to see a similar pattern playing out with our current pandemic: short of workers, employers have to pay more or go without the work being done; in turn, workers have more leverage and can demand better treatment from their employers. This was interesting both for its own sake and for its parallels.
However, the data seemed to limit the author's imagination. He stated that this was as much fact as fiction, but he stuck closely to the data and did not seem to have the nerve to commit to the fiction aspect. By this, I mean that the book was severely lacking in human emotion. The information stuck squarely to the facts -- the kinds of sermons given, the people who died and who inherited, some information on pilgrimages and funeral rites. Some of this was enlightening, such as the importance of confession and the turmoil that such extreme death brought, as there was no time for such elaborate rites; some of it was quite clearly there as filler. There was also no imagination at all when it came to emotion, which is where I hoped the author would take some creative liberties. Aside from brief acknowledgments that the survivors were grieving, there was really no attention paid whatsoever to the human toll of such a disaster.
Even though the facts that are available were used generously, it has to be said that these are records from the mid-1300s. Even with a well-documented village like Walsham, there is simply not enough material for a book of this length. Frequently the book was repetitive, going over the same facts and customs multiple times in various chapters; a large part of the first half of the book is imagined sermons delivered word for word, which became immensely dull. The language of the book is too simplistic to be academic but too devoid of emotion to be historical fiction; the author intended for an academic piece of creative writing but failed to hit either, resulting in a book that can be rather bland and dry. At the very least, the writing is straightforward enough that it is a quick and easy read, and despite the large cast of characters with similar names, it never becomes confusing to follow.
There was enough interesting material here that I don't think it was a waste, but at the same time there wasn't enough new or interesting material to justify the length of the book. The author stated that his motivation for writing the book in this style was to avoid yet another straightforward history of the plague, listing it as numbers and raw data as it spread across the world, but he essentially did the same thing on a smaller scale -- instead of the data of the world, it was the data of a single English village. I think it's important to accept that unfortunately, not much is known for certain about this time period, and a lot of it is guesswork -- especially in regards to rural areas, as many plague histories focus on the cities. It was interesting to see a glimpse of rural life during this time, but without committing to some creative liberties with characterisation and emotion, there was not enough raw material for a book of this length and the repetition and extended sermons illustrate this quite clearly.
Worth a read if you're new to the subject and want an overview, or you want to focus on the role of religion during the Black Death -- it's an excellent source for that. If you're looking for a more human take on the plague, though, I don't think this would cut it. For something subtitled "the intimate story", it lacks intimacy and emotion.
March 20, 2017
It's historical fiction, so... where's the fiction? Sure, there are made-up characters but judging by the historical facts presented at the beginning of each chapter, there really wasn't much fiction going on. Plus, the fact that the peak of the Black Death was skimmed over while giving so much attention to its effects in the upcoming years kinda bothered me. Yes, it is an important part of history and brought many changes to the land and way of living, but I picked up thia book to know how people lived day-to-day through the plague which is not something you can talk lightly about. But, that's just me, I guess I wanted more drama and less economy and religious processions.
The writing is terrible, this book is so dense it took me almost two months to complete... and it'd not even that long, so go figure... the cold historical facts and the illustrations were the best of this book, by far. There was so much filler... and it was so poorly written. It truly is a shame, because it's very obvious that the author has plenty of knowledge of this era, but it's just impossible to read.
The writing is terrible, this book is so dense it took me almost two months to complete... and it'd not even that long, so go figure... the cold historical facts and the illustrations were the best of this book, by far. There was so much filler... and it was so poorly written. It truly is a shame, because it's very obvious that the author has plenty of knowledge of this era, but it's just impossible to read.
August 16, 2010
This is one of the very few books that I have not been able to finish. The combination of fiction and fact in this book was difficult to read and did not mesh well. I felt that the facts were incredibly interesting but the story was incredibly boring. This would have been much better off as a non-fiction piece.
August 16, 2021
I appreciated this author's approach to the topic - there's certainly no shortage of academic or history books about the Black Death. But this book sets itself apart by using actual historical records to tell a narrative story, filled out with fictional elements in order to present a complete reading experience. If you want a straight fact-based history, this isn't the book for you. But if you're a narrative nonfiction fan, I recommend it. Focusing on a specific town and its inhabitants helped humanize the scope and scale of the Black Death and its transformative effects on entire societies, and the narrative really illuminated how huge the role of religion and tradition was in the lives of everyone.
May 5, 2025
An interesting premise, but I agree with some of the reviews that say it's wooden and repetitive. There was this idea of the townspeople knowing and dreading the coming of the black death that was both fascinating and frightening to think about.
But once the black death arrived, what should have been a climatic moment was very anticlimactic . Not trivial exactly, but certainly not as filled with fear and sadness as Hatcher led us to believe it would be.
That said, I kept wondering if it would make a good television series. There are some good bones here - the character of Lady Rose and her son would make great tv.
But once the black death arrived, what should have been a climatic moment was very anticlimactic . Not trivial exactly, but certainly not as filled with fear and sadness as Hatcher led us to believe it would be.
That said, I kept wondering if it would make a good television series. There are some good bones here - the character of Lady Rose and her son would make great tv.
September 23, 2021
كتاب عن الموت الاسود الذي انتشر في العالم وقتل ثلث البشر قبل اكثر من 600 عام، الكتاب كتب باسلوب روائي عن قرية انجليزية ومعاناتها مع المرض من قبل وصوله للقرية إلى نهاية المرض والمشاكل الاجتماعية التي تبعته.
مشكلتي مع الكتاب هي تركيزه على تأثير المرض في مكان نائي والا أسلوب الكتاب جميل وممتع.
مشكلتي مع الكتاب هي تركيزه على تأثير المرض في مكان نائي والا أسلوب الكتاب جميل وممتع.
January 22, 2011
The Black Death, AKA the bubonic and/or pneumonic plague, has been characterized as the greatest disaster in human history, killing 50% of the population throughout the Middle East and Europe. While factual chronicles abound, Cambridge historian John Hatcher has now endeavored to bring his readers a more immediate sense of what it must have been like to experience the cataclysm first hand. Hatcher chose to focus on the English village of Walsham, which was struck by plague in 1349, describing what probably happened from the arrival of the earliest rumors that the pestilence was coming, to its aftermath in a world turned on its head. Part documentary study and part fiction, The Black Death recreates the event as seen through the eyes of the village priest, the two manorial landlords, and the peasants who had kept the manor running from "time out of mind."
With scrupulous attention to detail, Hatcher describes the fearsome months before the arrival of the pestilence, when villagers could scarcely credit the stories that filtered into Walsham about the dreadful disease. In the mind of the Church, which exerted enormous influence over the populace, God was punishing mankind for their sins, and there was no remedy but to beg God for forgiveness and deliverance. Itinerant preachers and quacks swept in, bringing with them preventatives, cures, and spiritual exhortation. What was puzzling to all was the question of why God would punish the innocent along with the guilty, and many experienced a severe crisis of faith, to which they responded in various ways. Their fears multiplied along with reports that the plague was coming nearer and nearer. When, finally, the first villagers took ill, death swept in with a vengeance, creating a cruel, hellish atmosphere that persisted for months. When the scourge finally ran its course, Walsham had lost half of its 1500 inhabitants. The final third of the book deals with its after-effects, as people struggled to pick up the threads of their lives in the face of overwhelming shortages of food and labor, and the breakdown of the practical traditions and rituals that served as the foundation of manorial life. In the turmoil can be seen the roots of the labor/management conflict that continues today.
Readers looking for a historical novel will not find it in The Black Death, which focuses upon fact at the expense of depth of character. Yet it goes a long way toward helping modern readers understand what life was like during that fearsome era. Included are 44 illustrations that are tied to specific portions of the text. Unfortunately, there is some textual redundancy, but that's a small price to pay for the accuracy with which the topic is covered. The Black Death succeeds in making real people of the victims of the plague, individuals whose deaths were horrendous and whose lives were changed forever.
With scrupulous attention to detail, Hatcher describes the fearsome months before the arrival of the pestilence, when villagers could scarcely credit the stories that filtered into Walsham about the dreadful disease. In the mind of the Church, which exerted enormous influence over the populace, God was punishing mankind for their sins, and there was no remedy but to beg God for forgiveness and deliverance. Itinerant preachers and quacks swept in, bringing with them preventatives, cures, and spiritual exhortation. What was puzzling to all was the question of why God would punish the innocent along with the guilty, and many experienced a severe crisis of faith, to which they responded in various ways. Their fears multiplied along with reports that the plague was coming nearer and nearer. When, finally, the first villagers took ill, death swept in with a vengeance, creating a cruel, hellish atmosphere that persisted for months. When the scourge finally ran its course, Walsham had lost half of its 1500 inhabitants. The final third of the book deals with its after-effects, as people struggled to pick up the threads of their lives in the face of overwhelming shortages of food and labor, and the breakdown of the practical traditions and rituals that served as the foundation of manorial life. In the turmoil can be seen the roots of the labor/management conflict that continues today.
Readers looking for a historical novel will not find it in The Black Death, which focuses upon fact at the expense of depth of character. Yet it goes a long way toward helping modern readers understand what life was like during that fearsome era. Included are 44 illustrations that are tied to specific portions of the text. Unfortunately, there is some textual redundancy, but that's a small price to pay for the accuracy with which the topic is covered. The Black Death succeeds in making real people of the victims of the plague, individuals whose deaths were horrendous and whose lives were changed forever.
August 11, 2023
Norman F. Cantor's In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Made, which I read years ago, before the Wuhan Plague struck, was such a compelling read, I should have known other books on the subject may not measure up. Unlike Cantor's book, which chronicles the pestilence's general history, time frame, and repercussions, Hatcher focuses on Walsham, a Suffolk village which serves as a microcosm for all of Europe as the pestilence decimated the population (perhaps decimated, which means the removal of one from a group of ten, is the wrong word, for at Walsham, almost one out of every two or three perished from the pestilence), and the impact this had on landlord-tenant relationships. Perhaps this is why I was drawn to the book, and made interesting precisely because of the Wuhan Plague we've endured for almost two years now. Human nature has not changed much since the mid-fourteenth century, and some parallels are pretty palpable, most notably, that most people will believe anything when faced with a powerful, unknown adversary. But my main takeaway from this book was just how influential, how central, and how involved the Catholic Church and its teachings were in the people's day to day lives. In the villages, edicts from the king were almost always announced in church, and practically anything the church via the priest or chaplain advised was taken as gospel truth. And while I acknowledge the considerable shift in that once unwavering faith, this time to science--some churches and sects still hold a ridiculous sway over their flock. We haven't progressed much since the Middle Ages, if some people actually believe that 666, or the mark of the beast, lurks in every covid vaccine, and must be avoided at all costs.
15 December 2021
15 December 2021
July 27, 2021
John Hatcher has written a comprehensive historical novel (for the most part) about a town in England during the Black Death - both before, during, and after. Although records from this time period and area are scant, the author uses what is available to him to paint a portrait of Waltham, a town in Sussex, its priest, and the events that unfold as the plague spreads.
The author is undoubtedly a learned historian. He begins each chapter with a several-page italicized description of what was truly going on in England at the time in which the chapter is set. Then he writes of the fictionalized setting/characters/circumstances which flesh out the plot of the "personal history." To me, the author seemed a knowledgeable historian but middling fiction writer. The 90% of the book that was fictionalized has dense paragraphs, endless dialogue (mostly from the tiresome priest), and characters that are not developed at all. The author told the reader what was happening instead of engaging the reader in the work, either through character development, engaging dialogue, or even plot action. I felt as though this book couldn't decide what it wanted to be - a historical treatise or a novel in need of an editor.
I would recommend this book only to those who have a keen interest in the medieval plague years and are willing to wander through extraneous filler to get what they are looking for. 3 stars.
The author is undoubtedly a learned historian. He begins each chapter with a several-page italicized description of what was truly going on in England at the time in which the chapter is set. Then he writes of the fictionalized setting/characters/circumstances which flesh out the plot of the "personal history." To me, the author seemed a knowledgeable historian but middling fiction writer. The 90% of the book that was fictionalized has dense paragraphs, endless dialogue (mostly from the tiresome priest), and characters that are not developed at all. The author told the reader what was happening instead of engaging the reader in the work, either through character development, engaging dialogue, or even plot action. I felt as though this book couldn't decide what it wanted to be - a historical treatise or a novel in need of an editor.
I would recommend this book only to those who have a keen interest in the medieval plague years and are willing to wander through extraneous filler to get what they are looking for. 3 stars.
August 27, 2008
I expected this book to be a grisly account of those suffering the disease - perhaps that appealed to me on some level. But that's not what it is at all (and perhaps that's why readers on this site haven't liked it more -- they wanted the macabre details).
The section of "The Black Death" dealing with the actual infection was brief. The majority of the book focused on the months leading up to the outbreak, as rumors of pestilence to the south reached Walsham (a small village in England) and the citizens were called to repentance, and the social turmoil that followed the decimation of the population. Hatcher sucked the very marrow out of Walsham's primary sources; though the fourteenth century overall is nearly undocumented, the local records for Walsham and its environs are strong.
The Black Death is a somewhat overworked topic, yet Thatcher adds something new to the scholarship. Not only is his "personal history" approach unique, but it also provides a clearer understanding than anything I've read before of how the black plague loosened the bonds of feudalism and undermined the authority of the Catholic clergy.
Overall, though the book was different from what I expected, I found it engaging, and a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in social history.
The section of "The Black Death" dealing with the actual infection was brief. The majority of the book focused on the months leading up to the outbreak, as rumors of pestilence to the south reached Walsham (a small village in England) and the citizens were called to repentance, and the social turmoil that followed the decimation of the population. Hatcher sucked the very marrow out of Walsham's primary sources; though the fourteenth century overall is nearly undocumented, the local records for Walsham and its environs are strong.
The Black Death is a somewhat overworked topic, yet Thatcher adds something new to the scholarship. Not only is his "personal history" approach unique, but it also provides a clearer understanding than anything I've read before of how the black plague loosened the bonds of feudalism and undermined the authority of the Catholic clergy.
Overall, though the book was different from what I expected, I found it engaging, and a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in social history.
September 11, 2020
A historical narrative that spices history with a pinch of fiction about the lives and conditions of the English people who witnessed the Black Death and lived through its ramifications.
One of the best history books that I've ever read.
One of the best history books that I've ever read.
March 6, 2014
Godology seemed to have added terrible distress to those destined only to live another 24 hours
April 27, 2020
A work of docu-fiction that aims to elaborate on the existing facts concerning the black death in the small town of Walsham in Suffolk, a location chosen for the abundance of surviving records. Unfortunately the book doesn't quite work as a piece of fiction suffering from editorial issues and a lack of imagination. It's main problem is repetition - it manages to illustrate the same point over and over particularly with the peasants revolt in the second half of the book, then there's the obvious repetition in the writing style - 'from time out of mind' being Hatcher's favourite go to phrase. That said I did find Master John's arc to be quite sad. Despite being agnostic myself, I found his actions & purity of belief admirable.
In the first half, Hatcher does well to show the power of religion at this time. The Medieval English calendar was centered largely around religious festivals, and the villagers looked to the parish priest (in the book's case 'Master John') to give them guidance and support in their day to day lives. Master John knows them intimately; he hears their confessions, visits them at their homes, and executes elaborate funeral processions for family members when they die. One section of the book gives a vivid depiction of Master John going through the last rites for a villager. It's a lengthy affair, requiring help from a chaplain and several assistants to carry various religious paraphenalia (holy oil, a boy called a 'pyx', to name a few). Upon the team's arrival the villager is usually in an unfit state to be mouthing words and answering lengthy questions. At one point, Master John puts a bit of bread (the 'body of the host') in the dying mans mouth. He can barely swallow so he sputters it, sending bits of the saliva-coated bread into the team's faces. It's an important event however, as it gives the villager the last chance to confess any sins and ensures a smooth journey to heaven.
Religion even solidifies the social hierarchy and the class system, as it is 'gods intention' to have everyone in their 'right place'. Ultimately there was a very heavy emphasis to live a life free from sin, which is instilled in the locals from a very young age through graphic paintings of heaven and hell on the church stained glass windows.
Naturally, there is pandemonium when the villagers first hear of the oncoming pestilence. They reassess their religious lives and force impossible questions upon the parish priest: 'Why is god tormenting us? We have not sinned. We have done everything you have asked of us. We are following gods wishes.' The priest explains that the pestilence is gods anguish at their sins, and encourages them to repent more than ever before. He consults his elders, particularly one monk at Bury St. Edmunds who has spent his life looming over Tomes getting a rounded view on things. The monk seems excited to tell Master John about a similar description to the pestilence in an ancient Greek book by Thucydides, but ultimately offers no practical advice leaving John majorly disheartened.
The villagers live in fear; some drown their sorrows with drink and debauchery, but Master John tries to keep his flock in check, making most of the village double their attendance to church. Some go off on pilgrimages to holy locations like the 'Fountain of the Virgin', are visited by religious fanatics and charlatans who make quick money from selling the desperate villagers supposedly 'holy' items, and most worry immensely over sudden death and the possibility of not getting their last rites and being lost to Hell. The richer villagers form fraternities and guarantee each other last rites and a consecrated burial.
Unfortunately 50% of the population are wiped out and the bodies are piling up so fast they can't possibly bury them in time. Priests and their underlings are afraid to go near the villagers in order to not catch the pestilence themselves so they either don't, or they charge exorbitant rates for their service (which people pay if they can). People are left hysterical when their loved ones pass without the correct burial and psychological torment manifests deeply as they consider their loved one's journey to hell.
One vivid scene see's a diseased woman speaking through the slats in her window to her neighbour, telling her to take her healthy daughter and look after her when she dies. People are crawling out onto the road in delirious states (high temperatures were a symptom) and they lay there to die. The poorest of the population come round with carts and shift the bodies for a pittance, dumping them over the hedge of a nearby field. Mass graves are dug piling 10's of bodys on top of each other. Master John works long hours and exhausts himself administering to his parishioners.
After the pestilence, so much of the population has been wiped out that the social hierarchy is reordered somewhat. There is so much work going for so little people that the peasants start to charge double what they used to, and the land owners pay for fear of yielding zero in the coming harvest. The peasants start to eat good bread, not the stuff that's 50% sawdust that they are used to eating, and they also request ale and hearty meals in their breaks from work. People inherit land from family members who died in the pestilence, so they begin to stop working for other people and tend to their own land instead.
The order of things is disrupted so much that the King even orders legal action to be taken on any workers taking more than their usual rate, aswell as the employers who hire at them. It's such a free-for-all that there is corruption on all levels, including the stewards who are working on behalf of the Lady's and Lords. The more trustworthy stewards try to get stocks built in front of the village church, but can't find a carpenter to make them at the usual price!
Ultimately, the pestilence loosens the social hierarchy and puts another steak in the heart of the feudal system that pretty much expires by the 17th century (I think there was a law passed that made it illegal in Britain? I can't recall). And sadly, Master John becomes more and more depressed with priesthood, and the sins of his flock (the church also supported the restrictive laws, seeing the workers as transgressing their social boundaries). One day while performing mass, Master John keels over and dies within minutes. Luckily, he was ably confessed by the two priests at his side, guaranteeing him a safe passage to heaven.
In the first half, Hatcher does well to show the power of religion at this time. The Medieval English calendar was centered largely around religious festivals, and the villagers looked to the parish priest (in the book's case 'Master John') to give them guidance and support in their day to day lives. Master John knows them intimately; he hears their confessions, visits them at their homes, and executes elaborate funeral processions for family members when they die. One section of the book gives a vivid depiction of Master John going through the last rites for a villager. It's a lengthy affair, requiring help from a chaplain and several assistants to carry various religious paraphenalia (holy oil, a boy called a 'pyx', to name a few). Upon the team's arrival the villager is usually in an unfit state to be mouthing words and answering lengthy questions. At one point, Master John puts a bit of bread (the 'body of the host') in the dying mans mouth. He can barely swallow so he sputters it, sending bits of the saliva-coated bread into the team's faces. It's an important event however, as it gives the villager the last chance to confess any sins and ensures a smooth journey to heaven.
Religion even solidifies the social hierarchy and the class system, as it is 'gods intention' to have everyone in their 'right place'. Ultimately there was a very heavy emphasis to live a life free from sin, which is instilled in the locals from a very young age through graphic paintings of heaven and hell on the church stained glass windows.
Naturally, there is pandemonium when the villagers first hear of the oncoming pestilence. They reassess their religious lives and force impossible questions upon the parish priest: 'Why is god tormenting us? We have not sinned. We have done everything you have asked of us. We are following gods wishes.' The priest explains that the pestilence is gods anguish at their sins, and encourages them to repent more than ever before. He consults his elders, particularly one monk at Bury St. Edmunds who has spent his life looming over Tomes getting a rounded view on things. The monk seems excited to tell Master John about a similar description to the pestilence in an ancient Greek book by Thucydides, but ultimately offers no practical advice leaving John majorly disheartened.
The villagers live in fear; some drown their sorrows with drink and debauchery, but Master John tries to keep his flock in check, making most of the village double their attendance to church. Some go off on pilgrimages to holy locations like the 'Fountain of the Virgin', are visited by religious fanatics and charlatans who make quick money from selling the desperate villagers supposedly 'holy' items, and most worry immensely over sudden death and the possibility of not getting their last rites and being lost to Hell. The richer villagers form fraternities and guarantee each other last rites and a consecrated burial.
Unfortunately 50% of the population are wiped out and the bodies are piling up so fast they can't possibly bury them in time. Priests and their underlings are afraid to go near the villagers in order to not catch the pestilence themselves so they either don't, or they charge exorbitant rates for their service (which people pay if they can). People are left hysterical when their loved ones pass without the correct burial and psychological torment manifests deeply as they consider their loved one's journey to hell.
One vivid scene see's a diseased woman speaking through the slats in her window to her neighbour, telling her to take her healthy daughter and look after her when she dies. People are crawling out onto the road in delirious states (high temperatures were a symptom) and they lay there to die. The poorest of the population come round with carts and shift the bodies for a pittance, dumping them over the hedge of a nearby field. Mass graves are dug piling 10's of bodys on top of each other. Master John works long hours and exhausts himself administering to his parishioners.
After the pestilence, so much of the population has been wiped out that the social hierarchy is reordered somewhat. There is so much work going for so little people that the peasants start to charge double what they used to, and the land owners pay for fear of yielding zero in the coming harvest. The peasants start to eat good bread, not the stuff that's 50% sawdust that they are used to eating, and they also request ale and hearty meals in their breaks from work. People inherit land from family members who died in the pestilence, so they begin to stop working for other people and tend to their own land instead.
The order of things is disrupted so much that the King even orders legal action to be taken on any workers taking more than their usual rate, aswell as the employers who hire at them. It's such a free-for-all that there is corruption on all levels, including the stewards who are working on behalf of the Lady's and Lords. The more trustworthy stewards try to get stocks built in front of the village church, but can't find a carpenter to make them at the usual price!
Ultimately, the pestilence loosens the social hierarchy and puts another steak in the heart of the feudal system that pretty much expires by the 17th century (I think there was a law passed that made it illegal in Britain? I can't recall). And sadly, Master John becomes more and more depressed with priesthood, and the sins of his flock (the church also supported the restrictive laws, seeing the workers as transgressing their social boundaries). One day while performing mass, Master John keels over and dies within minutes. Luckily, he was ably confessed by the two priests at his side, guaranteeing him a safe passage to heaven.
December 28, 2019
The people of Walsham knew that the Black Death was coming. At first, it seemed to them that “such a sickness, if it could be believed at all, was occurring in the strangest of places at the very ends of the earth, where no Englishman had ever been.” Yet the stories being told in cottages, alehouses, monasteries, and manor halls became ever more detailed. “This pestilence, it was said, was borne by the wind in clouds of poison, and was contaminating all those it touched, bringing sudden death to thousands upon thousands of Tartars and Saracens.” For two long years they heard stories about the plague ravaging the east. Finally, people started to believe that “it is only a matter of time before he arrives in this kingdom.” After all, “the most powerful prayers and penitential processions proffered in their multitudes have not yet been sufficient to stay the hand of an angry God.”
The Black Death duly arrived in Weymouth by ship in June 1348. “The terror raging less than a hundred miles from the doors of Walsham’s residents combined with their beliefs and the teachings of their priests to feed an almost obsessive concern with sin.” The plague was clearly God’s will, though “contemporaries had great difficulty in explaining why God found it necessary to inflict it.” More pilgrims than ever before made their way to local shrines. “Holy water was drunk, sprinkled over food, loved ones, and animals, thrown over paths and fields, and used to moisten almost every doorway in Walsham by constant dousings.” In addition, people purchased “pieces of bone from the skeletons of saints, hairs from hallowed heads, fingers from sacred hands, and pieces of wood from the cross of Christ, or at the least a chunk of wood from the coffin in which he had been laid.”
They did all of this because they were terrified of dying suddenly, “unable to confess adequately or to express sufficient contrition.” “It is impossible to overstress the importance of a “good death,” which was essential to ensure the safe journey of the soul from this world to the next, shortening the time spent in Purgatory, and the easing the pains while there.” Few plague victims were “able to respond to the urgings of their confessors, and many were incapable of even understanding what was said to them.” Because of this, the plague posed a threat not only to people's bodies but also their souls.
When the plague left Walsham in June 1349, half of its residents were dead. This left the remaining residents in an interesting position. “Men and women who had spent most of their lives desperately seeking poorly paid work in competition with scores of their fellows, hoping without expectation one day to acquire a piece of land or a cottage, or even the ability to keep themselves and their families moderately well fed, clothed, and warm, now found themselves sought after by employers and landlords.” Land, which had always been scarce, was suddenly there for the taking. “Increasingly, the old ways of doing things, the old levels of rents and wages, and the old customs were no longer accepted without question.” In time, this led to “revolutionary changes in economic and social institutions, including the decline of serfdom and feudalism, and a golden age for peasants and laborers.”
These are some of the insights I’ve gathered from reading John Hatcher’s excellent “The Black Death: A Personal History.” The book convincingly recreates the lives of ordinary people living in Walsham at the time of the plague. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this period of history.
The Black Death duly arrived in Weymouth by ship in June 1348. “The terror raging less than a hundred miles from the doors of Walsham’s residents combined with their beliefs and the teachings of their priests to feed an almost obsessive concern with sin.” The plague was clearly God’s will, though “contemporaries had great difficulty in explaining why God found it necessary to inflict it.” More pilgrims than ever before made their way to local shrines. “Holy water was drunk, sprinkled over food, loved ones, and animals, thrown over paths and fields, and used to moisten almost every doorway in Walsham by constant dousings.” In addition, people purchased “pieces of bone from the skeletons of saints, hairs from hallowed heads, fingers from sacred hands, and pieces of wood from the cross of Christ, or at the least a chunk of wood from the coffin in which he had been laid.”
They did all of this because they were terrified of dying suddenly, “unable to confess adequately or to express sufficient contrition.” “It is impossible to overstress the importance of a “good death,” which was essential to ensure the safe journey of the soul from this world to the next, shortening the time spent in Purgatory, and the easing the pains while there.” Few plague victims were “able to respond to the urgings of their confessors, and many were incapable of even understanding what was said to them.” Because of this, the plague posed a threat not only to people's bodies but also their souls.
When the plague left Walsham in June 1349, half of its residents were dead. This left the remaining residents in an interesting position. “Men and women who had spent most of their lives desperately seeking poorly paid work in competition with scores of their fellows, hoping without expectation one day to acquire a piece of land or a cottage, or even the ability to keep themselves and their families moderately well fed, clothed, and warm, now found themselves sought after by employers and landlords.” Land, which had always been scarce, was suddenly there for the taking. “Increasingly, the old ways of doing things, the old levels of rents and wages, and the old customs were no longer accepted without question.” In time, this led to “revolutionary changes in economic and social institutions, including the decline of serfdom and feudalism, and a golden age for peasants and laborers.”
These are some of the insights I’ve gathered from reading John Hatcher’s excellent “The Black Death: A Personal History.” The book convincingly recreates the lives of ordinary people living in Walsham at the time of the plague. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this period of history.
December 17, 2021
Winter palette-cleanser - a semi-fictionalised account of the Black Death in a Suffolk village.
For a fan of 'Ulverton' and 'Akenfield', it's not a bad approach.
What stands out - despite this being obvious - is the remarkable hold of religion on these people and the fatuousness of religion at this and any time. You're left begging for the reformation to happen, really.
The fictionalised retelling has some strong moments: I particularly liked the account of the procession to Walsingham, and the parade of charlatans and hawkers buzzing around it. Those wan amulets and badges of the virgin! The wage bonanza that follows the depletion of the population is cause for celebration, and it's hard not to want to applaud the peasants telling 'Lady Rose' to piss off with her fines and work obligations.
The preface lays out the writer's choice of making 'Master John', the priest, a good man. It's a creative choice, I suppose, but I can't help thinking he'd have been more interesting if he was as bent as the rest of the clergy. Odd, too, that given this age of daily cruelty and barbarism there aren't more summary executions and maiming. Perhaps rural England was already genteel at this time.
For a fan of 'Ulverton' and 'Akenfield', it's not a bad approach.
What stands out - despite this being obvious - is the remarkable hold of religion on these people and the fatuousness of religion at this and any time. You're left begging for the reformation to happen, really.
The fictionalised retelling has some strong moments: I particularly liked the account of the procession to Walsingham, and the parade of charlatans and hawkers buzzing around it. Those wan amulets and badges of the virgin! The wage bonanza that follows the depletion of the population is cause for celebration, and it's hard not to want to applaud the peasants telling 'Lady Rose' to piss off with her fines and work obligations.
The preface lays out the writer's choice of making 'Master John', the priest, a good man. It's a creative choice, I suppose, but I can't help thinking he'd have been more interesting if he was as bent as the rest of the clergy. Odd, too, that given this age of daily cruelty and barbarism there aren't more summary executions and maiming. Perhaps rural England was already genteel at this time.
November 7, 2024
Pretty slow start to the book but the pace increased as the story progressed. Not really what I was looking for when I checked the book out because it is a blend between non-fiction and fiction which means…it is just historical fiction? What do I know. Anyways, pretty decent read. The plague devastated England and killed a lot of people. I knew that much before I read this book! So I guess I know some things. But not a ton of things. Did you know that rats can have up to 200 babies a year? Pretty gross, I know. Unless you enjoy rats in which case that might be a pleasant surprise. But if you enjoy rats then you probably already knew about their breeding tendencies so it is not really a surprise. What’s that old saying about breeding and rabbits? Maybe we should revise that and insert rats instead of rabbits. Or would that be offensive to certain people? Is comparing a person’s breeding ability to a rabbit less offensive than it would be comparing them to a rat? What about squirrels? They are rodents, like rats, and seem to breed a lot. But people think squirrels are cute. Same with rabbits. So that must be the difference. Cuteness. But again, I return to the person(s) who enjoy rats. They think rats are cute so maybe they would not be as offended. I once saw a rat.
May 14, 2025
As others have commented, this book is a sort of hybrid between a history and historical fiction. The author used data from actual court and ecclesiastical records, but he also created some fictional characters, particularly one of the main characters, the priest at Walsham, known as Master John.
The Black Death is an endlessly fascinating topic, especially after we lived through a global pandemic; thankfully, the mortality rate of COVID was minuscule in comparison. What hasn’t changed is human nature: people of the 14th century were just as obsessed with the latest news as we 21st century folks.
The Black Death is an endlessly fascinating topic, especially after we lived through a global pandemic; thankfully, the mortality rate of COVID was minuscule in comparison. What hasn’t changed is human nature: people of the 14th century were just as obsessed with the latest news as we 21st century folks.
July 28, 2023
A funny book! I didn’t initially enjoy the not-quite-fictional-history-but-history-but-fiction style Hatcher writes in. I’m still not sure it’s entirely necessary because popular histories written in english use plenty of literary devices to help readers use their imagination. Still by the end I really enjoyed it. It was easy to read and helpful to follow the thoughts and emotions of the average person in the medieval period (as imagined by Hatcher and informed by his own research which is plentiful).
September 22, 2024
Never quite takes flight, but an interesting read. I found the most effective part was before the plague arrived, both the evocation of pre-plague society and the oppressive and awful news of its advance, which felt suffocatingly fearful even to a modern reader.
April 4, 2025
this is one of the most enjoyable history books I have read so far; the Black Death is such an alluring subject, yet it's also seemingly so elusive, and it takes the work of authors like this one to bring the remnants of a terrible time in English history to life.
August 29, 2020
Fascinating insight into a different world
September 25, 2020
In The Black Death: A Personal History, we witness some of the same #2020 struggles: people fleeing, leaving homes behind (as did our friends), and essential workers relied upon to help other survive, even as their own domestic demands grow. But at least those peasants got paid extra!
This is novel, compelling way of doing history. The self-described “docudrama” is an effective way of tying together the scant factual threads surviving from the 1300s. It’s a very different century but painted vividly and clearly, so we can recognize the same plaguetime reactions: it won’t happen here... oh no, it did! ... blame the outsiders and bar the roads...
What’s unique to that historic moment is the institution of the Church, arguably more central and potent than the the king’s sparse jailers. And let us heap such blame upon that Church. They spent this pestilence promoting ideas that either do nothing (like prayer) or make people more vulnerable (by tormenting the body). They treat “grace” as their only PPE and at least half of the clergy seem more interested in collecting fees than saving people from a quick and terrifying death.
The only medical advice at hand is from centuries-old Galen: Run away! But, of course, you can’t run from a world-wide plague. ...you’re probably just bringing it with you. Master John, the iconic “good priest” of the parish, has advice that’s barely more useful: repent, fast, and parade behind the image of Christ.
And still they died. Of course they did. Don’t believe the misinformed.
As in ours and every other death-wrung crisis, children are abandoned in houses of death. It was even more common then, when half this particular village died in the midst of a single summer. Maybe as many as 50 were dying each day in a population of ~1500, with ~20% surviving the bubonic form. The survival rate for the airborne form was zero.
They were abandoned by all: no medicine (nor real doctors, as medical research was sinful) and no government aid (nor a real state to intervene, just the layered exploitation of feudalism). The only group with power over people’s lives (the church, with their hands clutching those souls) was useless.
Fear and isolation followed the immediate outbreak. Even the good-hearted were exhausted and there was no hope to be found. Even in Camus’s plague, the healers soldiered on. But they had antibiotics.
From court records — one of the few abundant sources available — we see a time of chaos, as death disrupted the necessary economic flow. It hits home just how everyone, from villager to high lord, depended on the crop cycle. Excess rains, or the failure to do the right chore at the right time — like not leaving livestock to defecate in one’s field — could be devastating. So authorities faced the twin crises of who should be responsible for these lands and how the labor should be provided. The old customs, which demanded service and fees to the lord or lady of the manor, were put aside as labor became suddenly twice as scarce and more than twice as valuable.
The economic history is presented as a series of strategic, partial, and temporary concessions by the lords of the lands. Rents and fines were cheaper, wages were higher, and perks were tastier (even if the king’s ordinance threatened to jail anyone who didn’t work for the cheap former rates). Recovery was fitful, as traders were sparse and the laboring class could roam in search of better wages, rather that tend the local lord’s crops for free. Prices for things like cloth and shoes shot up as common people wanted to look like their betters, buying from the few craftsmen who remained to the horror of the gentry.
Resentment rose high among those “betters” — they considered the rustics gifted their new land by a gracious god and not truly deserving of such good fortune. The ruling class would prefer starvation return, to chasten these peasants of “stout heart” and new demands. Of course the clergy preached that the masses were “divinely ordained” to toil on the land for whatever pittance their lords decided. Clergy and nobility marveled at this world now turned upside, the common phrase of the time, and in just a couple centuries — relatively quick for those slow, dark times — those rustics would launch mass rebellions against both wings of the ruling class. Eventually they’d launch us on the path that brought us Rousseau and Guillotine.
Compassionate as the “good priest” might be in that era, he was of a class that could not fathom why the rustics were not humbled by the hand of God, outstretched with the scourge of pestilence. But were they, the self-appointed rulers of the body and the soul, promising protection in this life and the next? There’s not an ounce of self-reflection to be seen. F—ing feudalism.
This is novel, compelling way of doing history. The self-described “docudrama” is an effective way of tying together the scant factual threads surviving from the 1300s. It’s a very different century but painted vividly and clearly, so we can recognize the same plaguetime reactions: it won’t happen here... oh no, it did! ... blame the outsiders and bar the roads...
What’s unique to that historic moment is the institution of the Church, arguably more central and potent than the the king’s sparse jailers. And let us heap such blame upon that Church. They spent this pestilence promoting ideas that either do nothing (like prayer) or make people more vulnerable (by tormenting the body). They treat “grace” as their only PPE and at least half of the clergy seem more interested in collecting fees than saving people from a quick and terrifying death.
The only medical advice at hand is from centuries-old Galen: Run away! But, of course, you can’t run from a world-wide plague. ...you’re probably just bringing it with you. Master John, the iconic “good priest” of the parish, has advice that’s barely more useful: repent, fast, and parade behind the image of Christ.
And still they died. Of course they did. Don’t believe the misinformed.
As in ours and every other death-wrung crisis, children are abandoned in houses of death. It was even more common then, when half this particular village died in the midst of a single summer. Maybe as many as 50 were dying each day in a population of ~1500, with ~20% surviving the bubonic form. The survival rate for the airborne form was zero.
They were abandoned by all: no medicine (nor real doctors, as medical research was sinful) and no government aid (nor a real state to intervene, just the layered exploitation of feudalism). The only group with power over people’s lives (the church, with their hands clutching those souls) was useless.
Fear and isolation followed the immediate outbreak. Even the good-hearted were exhausted and there was no hope to be found. Even in Camus’s plague, the healers soldiered on. But they had antibiotics.
From court records — one of the few abundant sources available — we see a time of chaos, as death disrupted the necessary economic flow. It hits home just how everyone, from villager to high lord, depended on the crop cycle. Excess rains, or the failure to do the right chore at the right time — like not leaving livestock to defecate in one’s field — could be devastating. So authorities faced the twin crises of who should be responsible for these lands and how the labor should be provided. The old customs, which demanded service and fees to the lord or lady of the manor, were put aside as labor became suddenly twice as scarce and more than twice as valuable.
The economic history is presented as a series of strategic, partial, and temporary concessions by the lords of the lands. Rents and fines were cheaper, wages were higher, and perks were tastier (even if the king’s ordinance threatened to jail anyone who didn’t work for the cheap former rates). Recovery was fitful, as traders were sparse and the laboring class could roam in search of better wages, rather that tend the local lord’s crops for free. Prices for things like cloth and shoes shot up as common people wanted to look like their betters, buying from the few craftsmen who remained to the horror of the gentry.
Resentment rose high among those “betters” — they considered the rustics gifted their new land by a gracious god and not truly deserving of such good fortune. The ruling class would prefer starvation return, to chasten these peasants of “stout heart” and new demands. Of course the clergy preached that the masses were “divinely ordained” to toil on the land for whatever pittance their lords decided. Clergy and nobility marveled at this world now turned upside, the common phrase of the time, and in just a couple centuries — relatively quick for those slow, dark times — those rustics would launch mass rebellions against both wings of the ruling class. Eventually they’d launch us on the path that brought us Rousseau and Guillotine.
Compassionate as the “good priest” might be in that era, he was of a class that could not fathom why the rustics were not humbled by the hand of God, outstretched with the scourge of pestilence. But were they, the self-appointed rulers of the body and the soul, promising protection in this life and the next? There’s not an ounce of self-reflection to be seen. F—ing feudalism.
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