The Black Death A Personal History

In this fresh approach to the history of the Black Death, John Hatcher, a world-renowned scholar of the Middle Ages, recreates everyday life in a mid-fourteenth century rural English village. By focusing on the experiences of ordinary villagers as they livedand diedduring the Black Death (134550 AD), Hatcher vividly places the reader directly into those tumultuous years and describes in fascinating detail the day-to-day existence of people struggling with the tragic effects of the plague. Dramatic scenes portray how contemporaries must have experienced and thought about the momentous eventsand how they tried to make sense of it all.

John Hatcher, a leading expert in medieval and early modern social and economic history, is Professor of Economic and Social History and Chairman of the History Faculty at the University of Cambridge.