Dread the Grim Reaper: Early Warning Strategies as a Means of Plague Prevention: Hospitaller Malta’s Fight Against Contagion
Plague, the grim reaper of preindustrial society, brought social disruption and physical devastation on such a scale as to warrant major literary attention both from contemporaries who witnessed the misery it perpetrated and by writers fortunate enough to live in centuries when this most fatal of epidemics was by and large only a distant memory
The Coronavirus is not the Black Death
The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has sickened almost 86,000 and killed more than 2,900 people, spread worldwide, and caused stock markets to tumble. Analogies to the Black Death, the outbreak of bubonic plague that wiped out between one-half and two-thirds of the population of Europe from 1347–51, were inevitable.
Black Death Mass Grave discovered in England
A mass burial of bodies, known to be victims of the Black Death, has been discovered at the site of a 14th-century monastery hospital at Thornton Abbey, in eastern England.
Well-Poisoning Accusations in Medieval Europe: 1250-1500
During the later Middle Ages, a new idea fueled suspicion of minority groups in Europe: a belief
that they might poison wells to cause widespread illness and mortality.
New insights into the genetic evolution of the Black Death
Analysis of 34 ancient plague genomes from the Black Death and succeeding plague epidemics in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, reveals how the bacterium diversified after a single introduction
Black Death burials reveal the diversity of London’s medieval population
New research on people buried in London during the Black Death suggests that the city’s population was more diverse than currently believed, including the presence of people with African heritage.
Black Death did not reach Poland, according to peat bog evidence
Researchers confirmed that the Black Death epidemic in the mid-14th century did not reach Poland; agricultural production remained at a stable level during that time.
Fur trade may have spread the Black Death through Europe, study finds
Commercial trade routes, including the fur trade routes, would have contributed to the rapid spread of the Black Death and other epidemics throughout Europe.
Severity and Selectivity of the Black Death and Recurring Plague in the Southern Netherlands (1349-1450)
This paper offers a newly-compiled database of 25,610 individuals that died between 1349-1450 in the County of Hainaut to test a number of assumptions on the selectivity and severity of late medieval plague outbreaks.
In the Wake of Death: Socioeconomic Effects of the Black Death in Medieval England
In the years following the plague, as peasants and merchants gained more economic freedom, tensions grew between lower and upper classes of society as the upper classes stood to lose their status and way of life.
The ‘light touch’ of the Black Death in the Southern Netherlands: an urban trick?
In this article an array of dispersed sources for the Southern Netherlands together with a new mortmain accounts database for Hainaut show that the Black Death was severe, perhaps no less severe than other parts of western Europe.
The Medical Response to the Black Death
Even though medicine in the Middle East was marginally more advanced than European medicine, physicians in both regions were unsuccessful at treating the Plague; however, the Black Death served to promote medical innovations that laid the foundations of modern medicine.
Modeling plague transmission in Medieval European cities
The Black Death pandemic swept through Europe during the Middle Ages leading to high mortality from plague. How it spread, the transmission of the disease within and between cities, remains a subject of controversy among scientists and historians.
Property, Power and Patriarchy: The Decline of Women’s Property Right in England After the Black Death
The social and governmental response to the Black Death in England undermined the social strength of women’s property rights and created a late-medieval patriarchal structure qualitatively different from that of the earlier fourteenth century.
Dangers of Noncritical Use of Historical Plague Data
When scholars fail to apply source criticism or do not reflect on the content of the data they use, the reliability of their results becomes highly questionable.
Black Death spread to sub-Saharan Africa, researcher finds
After three years of work, Gérard Chouin is adamant that the medieval-era bubonic plague epidemic, the Black Death, spread to Sub-Saharan Africa and killed many people there as it did in Europe and the Mediterranean basin in the 14th century.
Book Review: The Mortecarni
Are you a horror fan looking for something different to shake up your reading list? Kelly Evans might have just what you’re looking for in her latest novel, ‘The Mortecarni’, a medieval zombie mash up set around the time of the Black Death.
The sex-selective impact of the Black Death and recurring plagues in the Southern Netherlands, 1349-1450
We present a newly compiled database of mortality information taken from mortmain records in Hainaut, Belgium, in the period 1349-1450, which not only is an important new source of information on medieval mortality, but also allows for sex-disaggregation.
Book Review: Occupying Space in Medieval and Early Modern Britain and Ireland
Our review of ‘Occupying Space in Medieval and Early Modern Britain and Ireland’
The Emotional Lives of Epidemics: Hate and Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS
From an interdisciplinary array of scholars, a consensus has emerged: invariably, epidemics in past times provoked class hatred, blamed the ‘other’, and victimized the victims of epidemic diseases.
Community Archaeology and the Black Death
Professor Carenza Lewis talks about her innovative 10-year research programme which has involved thousands of members of the public in new archaeological excavations in their own back gardens, producing finds which reveal exactly where the impact of the Black Death was most and least severely felt
Mass Burial of Black Death victims discovered in England
A mass burial of 48 bodies, known to be victims of the Black Death, has been discovered at the site of a 14th-century monastery hospital at Thornton Abbey in England.
Places to See: London in 7 Drinks
Can you tell history through a pint? Or a cup of coffee perhaps? According to Dr. Matthew Green you can. The historian and author turned his passion for history into Unreal City Audio: London Walking Tours.
Plague, Papacy and Power: The Effect of the Black Plague on the Avignon Papacy
The plague came at a critical moment for the Church, and the papacy at Avignon did not adequately rise to the challenge.