The Plagues of Britain and Devon - my radio interview

What was the worst plague to hit Britain and Devon? The Black Death, cholera, Spanish flu, covıd? And what can we learn from the diseases of the past about how we should deal with the coronavirus pandemic? I was lucky enough to discuss all this and more with Pippa Quelch on BBC Radio Devon.

How the Black Death killed nearly half the clergy in parts of Devon, how the authorities in Exeter took the right approach to cholera even though no one knew what was causing it, and how one Devon medical officer warned women that low-cut tops and thin stockings were spreading Spanish flu.

You and hear it here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bf7sld

And learn more from my book A Disastrous History of Britain https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disastrous-History-Britain-Chronicles-Plague/dp/075093865X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=WCY5DXBCGGAD&keywords=a+disastrous+history+of+britain&qid=1642507048&sprefix=a+disastrous+history+of+britain%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-3

Coronavirus watch: lessons from past plagues, my interview with Radio Cornwall

What can the plagues of the past tell us about coronavirus? The dreadful Black Death, that killed around 40% of England's population; bubonic plague that returned not just in a second wave, but time and time again over three centuries; the mysterious sweating sickness that nearly killed Anne Boleyn before she married Henry VIII; cholera - a scourge in the 19th century.

You can find my interview with Debbie McCrory of BBC Radio Cornwall here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C2SLrEEkds&t=103s

Coronavirus watch: the plagues of Southampton

The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic in British history. Did it enter the country through Southampton? Coronavirus has brought a resurgence of interest in my book, A Disastrous History of Britain, and here's the piece I've written on 'the plagues of Southampton' for the Southampton Daily Echo.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18468017.black-death-entered-country-southampton-look-past-pandemics/

It tells the story of the plagues that have afflicted Southampton, Winchester and the region from the Black Death, through bubonic plague and cholera to Spanish flu.

Coronavirus watch: the plagues of Britain - Bristol

As I posted before, covid-19 seems to have led to a resurgence of interest in my 'Disastrous History' books, especially 'The Disastrous History of Britain.' (The History Press).

Here's my story in the Bristol Post about the plagues that have afflicted the Bristol area over the centuries, from the Black Death to Spanish flu, and about what lessons we can learn from them. 

The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic in British history, and Bristol is a prime suspect as the place where it first entered the country -

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bristol-post/20200518/281801401152777.

Coronavirus watch: was this Britain's first major epidemic?

Over the centuries after Stonehenge was built, the descendants of the people who created it largely disappeared from Britain. They were farmers of Mediterranean appearance with dark hair and olive skin. 

The great stone circle was finished about 2500 BC, but examination of 150 ancient skeletons from all over the country suggests that over the next 500 years, our Mediterranean-type ancestors had dwindled to about 10 per cent of the population.

They were replaced by the 'Beaker people' who seem to have originated in Central Europe. In the absence of any evidence of a major conflict, some archaeologists suggest that they brought with them a disease or diseases to which the native people had no resistance. Some have even suggested it might have been bubonic plague, which returned with such devastating effect during the 300 years or so from 1348.  (See my posts of  3 and 25 April.)

If the theory is right, it would mirror what happened to the Aztecs, the Incas and the Maya, who were conquered not so much by Spanish conquistadors as by the smallpox and other diseases they brought with them.

Coronavirus watch: second waves - a lesson from history

The Black Death, probably bubonic plague, was the deadliest epidemic in British history, carrying off up to 40 per cent of the population. What a relief it must have been when it finally petered out in the early 1350s.

But in 1361, the disease was back! In what became known as the ‘children’s plague.’ While the Black Death killed more older people, this epidemic was especially hard on those born since the earlier plague had departed. It was less devastating than the Black Death, but it still carried off perhaps one person in five.

There were another four serious plague outbreaks before the end of the century, and the disease struck regularly over the next 300 years so that overall it reduced Britain’s population by maybe half.

All sorts of cures and preventions were tried - bleeding, carrying nosegays of flowers or herbs, sealing windows with waxed cloth, the constant burning of aromatic woods or powders. But with the disease being passed on by fleas of the black rat, none of them worked. The best plan was probably to run for it, away from the towns and cities, as many of the wealthy did, but even that wasn’t foolproof, though, as generally happens, the rich survived better than the poor.

For more, see my book A Disastrous History of Britain (The History Press)

The plagues of Britain: the Black Death

The Black Death has the dubious distinction of being in all likelihood the worst disaster in British history. Probably a lethal cocktail of bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic plague (though not all historians agree), it carried off perhaps a third of the population after coming to England from the East in 1348.

Spread by fleas carried on the black rat, and perhaps originating in Central Asia, it was first noticed in the West Country, and may have arrived at Melcombe Regis, now effectively part of Weymouth. Across the country, so many priests died that there were not enough to hear people’s final confessions, so the church said people about to die could unburden themselves to a lay person, and in extremis, ‘even to a woman’.

One of the consequences of the appalling mortality was a dramatic decline in respect for authority – particularly that of the church. The clergy often banged on about how the plague was God’s punishment for people’s bad behaviour, but the line did not go down very well, and at Yeovil, for example, the local bishop found himself besieged in his church by an angry crowd armed with bows and arrows.

London was by far the biggest city in the country, and there, as in other places, the numbers of dead overwhelmed the authorities, and many bodies were just shovelled into mass graves. Food supplies started to dry up as carters refused to come to the city, and Londoners had to go out into the countryside to search for supplies. This lack of social distancing helped spread the pestilence.

For more, see my book A Disastrous History of Britain (The History Press).

What was the Black Death?

Did bubonic plague really cause the Black Death? This was one of the questions tackled in BBC TV’s Decoding Disaster, which went out under the Timewatch banner.

What is certain is that the epidemic was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, disaster in history, killing perhaps 75 million people in Europe and Asia from 1346 to 1353 – 30 to 40 per cent of the population. The conventional explanation is that it was bubonic plague, carried by the fleas of the black rat, along with pneumonic and septicaemic plague which could be transmitted from person to person.

Sceptics, though, have suggested there were just not enough rats to spread the disease on the scale that happened, so other ideas have been suggested – notably anthrax or some kind of haemorrhagic plague, like Ebola. Others maintain that with a death toll on this scale, a number of different diseases must have been raging at the same time.

At the time, top academics at Paris University came up with their own explanation: a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius on 20 March 1345, but they were humble enough to acknowledge that some things were ‘hidden from even the most highly trained intellects.’

For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World. See also my posts of 19 January and 31 March 2009, 1 September 2011 and 17 December 2013.

Disasters: a warning from a historian

Just started reading Barbara Tuchman's portrayal of the 'calamitous' 14th century, A Distant Mirror. The century began with unusually cold weather and devastating famines, the Hundred Years War between England and France kicked off, and then came possibly the worst disaster in history, the Black Death, which carried off perhaps one person in three.

But Tuchman warns us that one of the dangers of writing history is that the 'bad side - evil, misery, contention, harm' tends to get recorded more than the good: 'In history this is exactly the same as in the daily newspaper. The normal does not make news.'

The author goes on: 'Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts.' Yes, lots of disasters happen, but most of us will be lucky enough never to experience one. So a sense of proportion is important.

Governments need to take note too. By trying to prevent anything bad happening (which cannot, anyway, be achieved), they often pursue policies that are in themselves damaging - something we often see in the field of 'security' - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/19/gchq-intercepted-emails-journalists-ny-times-bbc-guardian-le-monde-reuters-nbc-washington-post

Incidentally, so far A Distant Mirror is a great read. 

Plague hits Madagascar

Plague has struck Madagascar again. More than 40 people in five districts have been killed by the bubonic version, spread by rats’ fleas, while two have died from the even more lethal pneumonic type, which is spread from person to person and can kill in 24 hours.

Last year, the island suffered more deaths from the disease than any other country – 60. There has been a programme to exterminate rats and fleas in Madagascar’s prisons, but the Red Cross warned in October that there was danger of an epidemic, following a fall in living standards since a coup in 2009.

Health officials have gone to the areas affected to investigate, but the local WHO office says medicines are in short supply.

Most, though not all, scientists believe bubonic and pneumonic plague caused the world’s deadliest epidemic – the Black Death, which killed perhaps a third of Europe’s population and countless more in Asia from about 1334 to 1351. 

Black Death WAS plague - official

When I was at school, there was no doubt about it.   We were taught that the Black Death – perhaps the most lethal disease ever to afflict humanity – was bubonic plague.    Then some scientists came up with revisionist theories that it might have been an ebola-type virus, or anthrax, or some combination of infections.

Well now a group of Canadian researchers from McMaster University in Toronto believe they have proved the epidemic really was bubonic plague.   They analysed bones from the 14^th century, and were able to extract the plague bacterium, though in a different form from the one we know today.

They hope also to throw light on why the disease carried off so many.    From its first appearance in Central Asia in the 1330’s, it spread right across Europe and Asia, killing perhaps a third of the population.   In some places it was even more deadly.    Siena in Italy was said to have lost half of its people.  Nearby San Gimignano, with its famous towers, even more.

The Black Death was a dreadful blow to the prestige of the Church which had failed to warn the faithful that God was about to inflict this dreadful punishment on them.   It also produced a labour shortage, and as wages for the working class rose, the kings of England and France quickly imposed a wage freeze.

The holocaust in context

Just back from Berlin, where I visited the Jewish Museum for the first time. Not to be missed. The holocaust, of course, provides the prism through which you view every exhibit, and the red thread that guides you through the collection moves relentlessly towards it, but there is more, much more.

We know Jews settled in Germany as early as Roman times. Routinely, they faced discrimination. They were banned from craftsmen’s guilds, and there were professions they could not enter. Handily, though, they could lend money at interest which, for a long time, Christians were not allowed to do. Now there was always plenty of demand for borrowed money, especially among ambitious or improvident princes, so, not surprisingly, many Jews did become moneylenders , and, in the grand old tradition of “blame the victim”, were stigmatised for it.

Three German cities – Mainz, Speyer and Worms – became Europe’s centres for Jewish erudition in the Middle Ages. Persecution and murder, though, really began to take off around the time of the Crusades. Then the Jews got the blame for the Black Death in the fourteenth century (see my blog of March 31), and suffered more massacres.

When the German Empire was founded in 1871, Jews notionally became full and equal citizens, but anti-Semitism remained a powerful force. Twelve thousand Jews died fighting for Germany in World War One. (It was, incidentally, a Jewish officer who recommended Adolf Hitler for the Iron Cross.) That, though, counted for nothing when roaring inflation and mass unemployment swept the Nazis to power.

About half of Germany’s Jewish population managed to escape, but the Nazis murdered 200,000. After World War Two, around 20,000 Jews settled in Germany, and today there are more than 100,000 – many of them recent arrivals from the Soviet Union.

Black Death exhibition

An interesting little exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London. It goes by the name of Treasures of the Black Death, and features Mediaeval jewellery and coins found at Erfurt in Germany in the 1990’s and at Colmar in France in the 19th Century. They were almost certainly buried by Jewish families at the time of the Black Death.

This pestilence was perhaps the worst disaster ever to afflict humankind – killing off maybe a third of the population of Europe. In the panic, the Jews often got the blame, and there were massacres at Frankfurt, Narbonne, Carcassone, Basel, Mainz and many other places. (In a variation on this theme, the islanders of Cyprus murdered their Arab slaves instead.)

As for the places featured in the exhibition – the city council at Colmar announced on December 29, 1348 that the cantor of the Strasbourg synagogue had admitted to sending someone to poison the wells at Colmar (this was a fairly standard accusation). The townspeople then burned the Jews outside the city gates.

More than 100 Jews were massacred at Erfurt in March 1349, and the rest were driven from the town. Later the town council invited them to return, though they added that they could not guarantee their safety. However, some clearly were brave enough to come back. In 1357, they built a new synagogue and by the following century, Erfurt had one of the most important Jewish communities in Germany.

The exhibition runs until May 10.

Iraq + strangest anniversary

It was six years ago today that Labour launched its illegal, ill-judged, unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq (see my blogs passim) – a classic example of invade in haste, repent at leisure. Any fool can start a war, it’s ending one that’s difficult. The Iraq madness has now gone on longer than the Second World War.

The anniversary has been marked by fresh demands for a full independent inquiry into the war. Now you can’t depend on Labour MP’s for many things, but you can be sure that they will pull out all the stops to ensure that no one is called to account for the Iraq disaster. How did the party of Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson transmute into this shower?

Another anniversary today, and perhaps the most bizarre I have ever had to record. It was an unfortunate astrological configuration on March 20, 1345 and it caused the Black Death. At least, that was what the medical faculty of the University of Paris said when the French king told them they had better come up with an explanation of perhaps the greatest disaster mankind has ever had to endure, though they had the good grace to admit that some things were “hidden from even the most highly trained intellects.”

For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Return of the Black Death

Reports today that the “Black Death” – bubonic plague – has broken out in a training camp for al-Qaeda insurgents in Algeria. The disease, which swept through Europe and Asia starting in the early 1330’s, was perhaps the biggest disaster in human history, wiping out around a third of the population in the areas it attacked. It reached Britain in the summer of 1348, allegedly first appearing at Melcombe Regis in Dorset.

With death rates at this level, it is hardly surprising that many people thought they were witnessing the end of the world. A dying Irish monk compiled an account of the epidemic, saying he had written it just in case “any man survive.” Nowadays some scientists question whether the Black Death was actually bubonic plague, and argue it may have been some other viral infection.

Whatever the truth of that, the plague lives on. In 2006, an outbreak claimed at least 50 lives in the chaos of the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and there are fears it may soon appear in Zimbabwe.