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Available
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Collection
Publication
Vintage Books (2010), Paperback, 528 pages
Description
The story of Britain immediately before, during and after the greatest catastrophe in human history — the Black Death. Challenging widely-accepted theories about the plague’s spread and long-term effects, the book promises to be the definitive account of Britain during this pandemic.
User reviews
LibraryThing member PossMan
REVIEW
"THE SCOURGING ANGEL: The Black Death in the British Isles" Benedict Gummer 2009
"THE BLACK DEATH: An Intimate History" John Hatcher 2008
These two books about the plague that arrived in Britain for the first time in 1348 were published within a few months of each other. They have a very
Benedict Gummer, born 1978, as far as I can see from the cover blurb is not an academic but took a starred double first in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He runs a corporate responsibility consultancy. His book has a more conventionally academic style but is well-written and approachable. It puts the Black Death into the context of fourteenth century British history starting just before its arrival at a small south-coast port in 1348. The disease spread slowly and he deals with the impact on populated areas such as London and events in Ireland and Wales. Edward III was in conflict with France and also had to cover his northern border with Scotland. There was considerable unrest in Ireland. Gummer explains what effect the Black Death had on these several conflicts. There were also tensions arising out of the feudal and land-holding system. The disease touched different hamlets in different ways and in Yorkshire and the north one village might be totally wiped out and one not far away escape unscathed. So in spite of the Walsham described in Hatcher's book not every village was typical. He suggests that on average about half the population died. Only a very small number of top aristocrats died which he ascribes to their ability to isolate themselves. Like Hatcher he describes at some length the role of the church and different responses of individual clerics - some found they need to visit (meaning escape to) Rome. Some monastic communities just shut themselves in for the duration. On the other hand a very large number of parish priests died and he describes the efforts of some conscientious bishops to go round their diocese and find and put in place new ones. As a stop-gap deacons could take over some of the duties. The population fall meant that widows often inherited land and enterprising peasants could acquire land cheaply. Some lords found that they could not find anyone to work the land and tried to enforce feudal obligations which may have fallen into disuse. This brought about renewed tensions and attempts by Edward's government to fix wages. He explains how some towns became more prosperous after the Black Death as people came in from the countryside and new people given burgess status. Others withered away. He believes the disease merely hastened events rather than caused them. The disease reappeared twice before the end of the century. Gumming discusses these briefly and also the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
The nature of the pestilence is relegated to an appendix in Gummer's book. At school, many years ago, I was always led to believe that it was bubonic plague. Gummer mentions briefly the work of some writers of the last two decades and it seems the consensus is that it was not. As he says we should perhaps trust contemporary descriptions more. The people seemed to be aware that contact with the dying or dead could be fatal. Bubonic plague he says is not contagious. The Great Death travelled very quickly compared with bubonic plague (in say India in early 1900s). The death rate was much higher - bubonic plague can be expected to kill up to around 15%. The incubation period was quite long - it would be perhaps a month before symptoms would appear and then almost certain death within about five days. Bubonic plague needs 3 elements together - the black rat, the rodent flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis) and the plague bacillus (Yersinia Pestis). In 1348 the black rat was not well established in Britain and one write called attention to an outbreak of the Black Death in Iceland which has no black rats. He leaves it an open question not definitively solved but clearly he is on the side of those who believe something other than bubonic plague was responsible.
I enjoyed both books and the two approaches compliment each other well. Hatcher's seems to me more focused on the Black Death itself whilst Gummer's book is much better with the connections to other aspects of British history of the period.
"THE SCOURGING ANGEL: The Black Death in the British Isles" Benedict Gummer 2009
"THE BLACK DEATH: An Intimate History" John Hatcher 2008
These two books about the plague that arrived in Britain for the first time in 1348 were published within a few months of each other. They have a very
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different approach to their subject and for that reason may help some potential readers if I compare them together, although it is as well to say it is Gummer's book which is freshest in my mind. Both refer to the "Black Death" but as Gummer points out it was not known by that name at the time but rather as the "Great Death". Also as "plague" but that was used in general way without any present-day hints of bubonic plague. Hatcher's book is perhaps a more gripping story and might appeal to a wider audience. Some may say that it is a story as opposed to "history". After reading it I feel that would be unfair. It takes one single village, Walsham in East Anglia, and describes vividly how the plague comes to the village and the effect it has on the life of the villagers. To make a good narrative names have been made up and conversations and events have been invented. No single small hamlet would have exhaustive records showing the whole gamut of the Black Death experience. But Hatcher is very careful to distinguish known historical facts from speculative narrative. Each chapter begins with a factual commentary which helps to put the narrative in context. Some of the events he describes may come from records about a village or manor elsewhere but everything he describes is based on documentary evidence of some sort. A lot of the narrative centres on the priest, Master John, and the response of the Church and clerics to the emergency. His account of religious observance is very useful and a contrast can be drawn between the death-bed ritual that he describes in a time before the plague arrives, and the hasty burials afterwards. Although the form is narrative this is emphatically not merely a story put down in a distant period. It is a real history written by an academic who has been researching the fourteenth century for over forty years. The scholarship and width of knowledge are evident throughout.Benedict Gummer, born 1978, as far as I can see from the cover blurb is not an academic but took a starred double first in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He runs a corporate responsibility consultancy. His book has a more conventionally academic style but is well-written and approachable. It puts the Black Death into the context of fourteenth century British history starting just before its arrival at a small south-coast port in 1348. The disease spread slowly and he deals with the impact on populated areas such as London and events in Ireland and Wales. Edward III was in conflict with France and also had to cover his northern border with Scotland. There was considerable unrest in Ireland. Gummer explains what effect the Black Death had on these several conflicts. There were also tensions arising out of the feudal and land-holding system. The disease touched different hamlets in different ways and in Yorkshire and the north one village might be totally wiped out and one not far away escape unscathed. So in spite of the Walsham described in Hatcher's book not every village was typical. He suggests that on average about half the population died. Only a very small number of top aristocrats died which he ascribes to their ability to isolate themselves. Like Hatcher he describes at some length the role of the church and different responses of individual clerics - some found they need to visit (meaning escape to) Rome. Some monastic communities just shut themselves in for the duration. On the other hand a very large number of parish priests died and he describes the efforts of some conscientious bishops to go round their diocese and find and put in place new ones. As a stop-gap deacons could take over some of the duties. The population fall meant that widows often inherited land and enterprising peasants could acquire land cheaply. Some lords found that they could not find anyone to work the land and tried to enforce feudal obligations which may have fallen into disuse. This brought about renewed tensions and attempts by Edward's government to fix wages. He explains how some towns became more prosperous after the Black Death as people came in from the countryside and new people given burgess status. Others withered away. He believes the disease merely hastened events rather than caused them. The disease reappeared twice before the end of the century. Gumming discusses these briefly and also the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
The nature of the pestilence is relegated to an appendix in Gummer's book. At school, many years ago, I was always led to believe that it was bubonic plague. Gummer mentions briefly the work of some writers of the last two decades and it seems the consensus is that it was not. As he says we should perhaps trust contemporary descriptions more. The people seemed to be aware that contact with the dying or dead could be fatal. Bubonic plague he says is not contagious. The Great Death travelled very quickly compared with bubonic plague (in say India in early 1900s). The death rate was much higher - bubonic plague can be expected to kill up to around 15%. The incubation period was quite long - it would be perhaps a month before symptoms would appear and then almost certain death within about five days. Bubonic plague needs 3 elements together - the black rat, the rodent flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis) and the plague bacillus (Yersinia Pestis). In 1348 the black rat was not well established in Britain and one write called attention to an outbreak of the Black Death in Iceland which has no black rats. He leaves it an open question not definitively solved but clearly he is on the side of those who believe something other than bubonic plague was responsible.
I enjoyed both books and the two approaches compliment each other well. Hatcher's seems to me more focused on the Black Death itself whilst Gummer's book is much better with the connections to other aspects of British history of the period.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Bishop Ralph sent an ordinance throughout his diocese on 10th January 1349, in which he set out the challenge he and his flock faced: not only were priests dying and leaving their parishes destitute, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find
The way the author showing how historians were able to track the spread of the epidemic and the mortality rates was really interesting. They used contemporary information on the numbers of replacement priests that had to be sent out by the bishops, records form the manor courts held in villages every few weeks showing the increase in numbers of tenements switching hands after the death of the previous tenant, and in towns and cities, the number of wills of richer men executed each month.
The Great Plague was followed by further outbreaks later in the century, the first of which hit hardest in places that had got off relatively lightly before, and later plagues hit children particularly badly, probably because the adults had built up resistance after their previous exposure to the disease. The author tracks the social and political changes caused by the Great Death for 30 or so years, ending with the Peasants' Revolt, by which time its effects were becoming too diluted by time to track.
The author usually refers to the epidemic that swept across Europe as the Great Death or the pestilence, and sometimes as the plague, and must have been really annoyed at his publishers making him use "The Black Death in the British Isles" as a subtitle, as he stresses in the introduction that the term Black Death was invented by the Victorians.
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replacements who were willing to visit the sick for fear of infection or contagion. Shrewsbury's anger at the failings of his clergy, unwilling (he claimed) to risk their lives for the 'salvation of souls', was palpable. So to ensure that everyone who died had been able to make a final confession, he instructed that if a priest could not be found, then the dying could make their confession to a layman; if a man could not be found, then a woman would suffice. In this moment of crisis, when priestly mediation was needed most, the bishop effectively delegated sacramental powers to the laity: Shrewsbury had been forced to concede the complete incapacity of the church in the face of this overwhelming catastrophe.The way the author showing how historians were able to track the spread of the epidemic and the mortality rates was really interesting. They used contemporary information on the numbers of replacement priests that had to be sent out by the bishops, records form the manor courts held in villages every few weeks showing the increase in numbers of tenements switching hands after the death of the previous tenant, and in towns and cities, the number of wills of richer men executed each month.
The Great Plague was followed by further outbreaks later in the century, the first of which hit hardest in places that had got off relatively lightly before, and later plagues hit children particularly badly, probably because the adults had built up resistance after their previous exposure to the disease. The author tracks the social and political changes caused by the Great Death for 30 or so years, ending with the Peasants' Revolt, by which time its effects were becoming too diluted by time to track.
The author usually refers to the epidemic that swept across Europe as the Great Death or the pestilence, and sometimes as the plague, and must have been really annoyed at his publishers making him use "The Black Death in the British Isles" as a subtitle, as he stresses in the introduction that the term Black Death was invented by the Victorians.
Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
528 p.
ISBN
0099548836 / 9780099548836