Mass grave shows how Black Death devastated the countryside

[Judi Lynn]

Grave in Lincolnshire dates to medieval pandemic of 1348 and reveals rural plague catastrophe

Esther Addley
Tue 18 Feb 2020 07.00 ESTLast modified on Tue 18 Feb 2020 19.25 EST

A mass grave containing the remains of dozens of victims of the Black Death offers chilling new evidence of the speed and scale of the devastation the plague brought to rural England, according to archaeologists.

The grave, discovered in a remote corner of rural Lincolnshire, has been dated to the 14th century, almost certainly to the earliest and deadliest medieval outbreak of the disease in 1348-9.

It contained the bodies of at least 48 men, women and children who were laid in a sandy pit within days of each other. DNA tests on the bodies found the plague pathogen, confirming how they died.

About half the population of England was wiped out within 18 months by the 1348-9 pandemic. Perhaps surprisingly, however, direct archaeological evidence for the Black Death is extremely rare, according to Hugh Willmott, senior lecturer in European historical archaeology at the University of Sheffield, who led the excavation.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/18/mass-grave-shows-how-black-death-devastated-the-countryside

[mbusby]

1. Compare that...

...with going to your local grocery store pharmacy and getting a vaccination for the plague. How times have changed.

[comradebillyboy]

2. The Black Death destroyed the old order in Europe increasing

social mobility and paving the way for the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. WW1 finished the job of the French Revolution in destroying the old order in Europe yet again. Every cloud has a silver lining.

[Karadeniz]

3. Thanks for posting!❤

[wnylib]

4. For details of the effects of the Plague

on England and Europe, I recommend Barbara Tuchmann's book on the 14th century, A Distant Mirror.

It covers the whole century, but there is a chapter on the Plague of 1348-50 that quotes contemporaries on what it's like as they experience it. Makes you feel like you are there. One quote, left unfinished as the writer succumbed to the disease, is from a sole survivg monk in his order, who says he is writing about it in case "any of the race of man' would live to tell of it in the future.

She names some famous people of the times who were victims and describes the effects on society - numerous vacancies in the churches and universities filled by incompetent, untrained replacements; the flagellants spreading rebellion in the church and simultaneously spreading the disease as they went from town to town.

Also describes the slaughter of Jews in several towns across Europe as they were accused of causing the Plague.

Worth reading to get a sense of the times and of human nature when mass fear overtakes people and society breaks down into lawlessness.