Black Death Book

My first foray into the Black Death as a specific subject as opposed to it being mentioned - often briefly - in other histories of the the period and I found it both interesting and educational.

I found the chapters on the disease's spread from Asia, its entry into southern and eastern Europe to its trail of devastation in Britain well laid out and easy to grasp.

The human aspect is a major part of this book; not just the number of deaths but the affects on people's lives and minds as best can be known. The reactions of the cities, towns and villages to the Black Death both in how to combat it and to continue on with life is fascinating. Ports and major cities feared and fared differently but death - and a painful and ugly one at that - came and laid waste with no apparent relief or succour likely to come from any avenue or person to them and those inland. Ships were turned away from ports after docking because their cargoes of ill or dead crew brought panic and realisation that their place on Earth was not to be spared. This contact did nothing but spread the contagion to their fellow citizens and drive those in the full blaze of the disease to other ports in their quest to land and recieve treatment.

Laid bare is the medieval mind and its inability to comprehend the cause, transmission methods and medical knowledge in how to treat an epidemic that cut through men, women and children of all social classes - including the Church, high or low.
The Church's standing in Europe was indeed affected as people across Europe saw that God's will ravaged not just their own but those of all creeds and colours including their enemies. Importantly too the Church offered no course of action or suggestion to the people in how to placate God's wrath and this hopelessness and in some cases dereliction of duty by church officials led many to question their own devotion and their God. True too, as the author shows, is how many of the Church's own died ministering or helping their flocks and their death rates were high and in some cases very high against other groups.

For England, where there is a good amount of contemporary information the picture of the Black Death's progress and its impacts on the population in counties, towns and areas I know was gripping. The chapter he wrote on a fictional village - based on the source data and his own research - on how the disease arrived, the fear it invoked and the speed with which it gripped the villagers and ended so many lives was also good.

Commentary and specific chapters on the Black Death's impact on labour, feudal life and agriculture and those on the standing and the people's relationships with the Church during and after were also informative too.

Conclusions on the impacts and linkages to changes in feudal laws, the Peasants' Revolt, the reformation etc are also covered. It is here I suspect that 40 years' on much research may have been done and Mr Ziegler's views may now be superseded or outdated.

His book was seemingly unappreciated by the experts and scholars of the Black Death/Medieval period when he wrote this is the late 60s, as is made plain in the 2003 introduction in my copy as he describes one professor calling him an amateur. As Mr Ziegler goes on to say he was an amateur of the period if not as an author.

Today I suspect the reaction, even if true and overtly suggested, in reviews of a present day author's work by experts, would be less likely to trouble the establishment as popular history - which is in essence what this book is, although highly researched and well reasoned - is now not only accepted and part of the history landscape, but the subject matter experts themselves have in the last forty years learned how to write (and present) quality history in accessible language with depth suitable for a wider readership than students and peers.

It's not the first popular history ever written I accept but it deserves its place as a accessible and informative account of the Black Death, which left me thanking my lucky stars (or Almighty God) that I did not live in the 1340s.