The Black Death: The Intimate Story of a Village in Crisis 1345-50

(Paperback)

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Description

The Black Death remains the greatest disaster to befall humanity, killing about half the population of the planet in the 14th century. John Hatcher recreates everyday medieval life in a parish in Suffolk, from which an exceptional number of documents survive. This enables us to view events through the eyes of its residents, revealing in unique detail what it was like to live and die in these terrifying times.

With scrupulous attention to historical accuracy, John Hatcher describes what the parishioners experienced, what they knew and what they believed. His narrative is peopled with characters developed from the villagers named in the actual town records and a series of dramatic scenes portray how contemporaries must have experienced the momentous events.

Reviews

"a gripping read -- part historical inquiry, part novel" INDEPENDENT "This totally absorbing book presents the best account ever written about the worst event to ahve ever befallen the British Isles" -- Simon Winchester "The author is praised as a masterly social historian and the book as colourful as an episode of Midsomer Murders" FINANCIAL TIMES "Conveys with great effectiveness the intensity of medieval English devotions and their deep preoccupation with the business of dying. Reading this book I was reminded time and again of the Tibetan Book of the Dead" -- Will Self EVENING STANDARD "John Hatcher, a distinguished economic historian, sets out to attempt something new: the describe the plague in terms of one of these hard-hit communities... more than most of the purely historical accounts have given us" LITERARY REVIEW

Author Bio

John Hatcher is Professor of Economic and Social History and Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University. He has taught the subject of the Black Death for twenty years and is the author of eight books on medieval and early modern history. He has appeared in the BBC series 'Timewatch' and the Channel 4 series 'The Seven Ages of Britain', and has acted as an advisor to numerous other television history series.