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href="/web/20060718164333/http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/">Contact Us</a><br/><br/><font size="1">Like this page?<br/><a class="bbcpageServices" onclick="popmailwin('/cgi-bin/navigation/mailto.pl?GO=1&REF=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/black_01.shtml','Mailer')" href="/web/20060718164333/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/navigation/mailto.pl?GO=1&REF=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/black_01.shtml" target="Mailer">Send it to a friend!</a></font><br/> </font></td><td class="bbcpageServices"><img src="/web/20060718164333im_/http://www.bbc.co.uk/f/t.gif" width="1" height="1" alt=""/></td></tr></table><table width="650" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="margin:0px;" style="float:left;"><tr><td><a name="startcontent" id="startcontent"></a> <div class="articlepad"><table width="620" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left"> <tr><td valign="top" colspan="3"> <h4>Black Death</h4>By Dr Mike Ibeji<br><br clear="all"> </td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> <table width="460" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left"><tr><td valign="middle"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left"><tr> <td valign="middle"><p class="standfirst">The Black Death was 'a squalid disease that killed within a week' and a national trauma that utterly transformed Britain. Dr Mike Ibeji follows its deadly path.</p></td> <td width="196" align="right" valign="top"><div style="width: 196px;"> <img src="/web/20060718164333im_/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/images/black_blackdeath_1348_1350.gif" width="196" height="223" border="2" class="border" alt="Image of British population during 1348 - 1350"><div class="caption" style="width: 196px;">The Black Death had spread across Britain by 1350 </div> </div></td> </tr></table></td></tr></table> <br clear="all"><br><table width="460" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left"><tr> <td width="105" valign="top"> <div class="smallertext">Page 1 of 10</div> <br><div class="smallertext bufright"> <a href="black_01.shtml" class="tocactive">1. The Plague</a><br><a href="black_02.shtml">2. The Arrival</a><br><a href="black_03.shtml">3. The plague spreads</a><br><a href="black_04.shtml">4. Plague reaches London</a><br><a href="black_05.shtml">5. London death toll</a><br><a href="black_06.shtml">6. Spread of the Plague: Durham and Scotland</a><br><a href="black_07.shtml">7. The Plague spreads: Wales</a><br><a href="black_08.shtml">8. The spread of the Plague: Ireland</a><br><a href="black_09.shtml">9. Plague recurrences</a><br><a href="black_10.shtml">10. How the plague spread around the British Isles</a><br><br><a onclick="openPrint('black_print.html'); return false;" href="black_print.html"><img align="left" src="/web/20060718164333im_/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/images/cached/print_icon.gif" width="28" height="21" border="0" alt=""></a><br clear="all"><a onclick="openPrint('black_print.html'); return false;" href="black_print.html">Print entire article</a> </div> </td> <td width="355" valign="top"> <h5>The Plague</h5> <p>The first outbreak of plague swept across England in 1348-49. It seems to have travelled across the south in bubonic form during the summer months of 1348, before mutating into the even more frightening pneumonic form with the onset of winter. It hit London in September 1348, and spread into East Anglia all along the coast early during the new year. By spring 1349, it was ravaging Wales and the Midlands, and by late summer, it had made the leap across the Irish Sea and had penetrated the north. The Scots were quick to take advantage of their English neighbours' discomfort, raiding Durham in 1349. Whether they caught the plague by this action, or whether it found its way north via other means, it was taking its revenge on Scotland by 1350.</p> <p>It would be fair to say that the onset of the plague created panic the length and breadth of Britain. One graphic testimony can be found at St Mary's, Ashwell, Hertfordshire, where an anonymous hand has carved a harrowing inscription for the year 1349:</p> <blockquote>'Wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain.'</blockquote> <p>The plague's journey across the length and breadth of Britain:</p> <blockquote>'Sometimes it came by road, passing from village to village, sometimes by river, as in the East Midlands, or by ship, from the Low Countries or from other infected areas. On the vills of the bishop of Worcester's estates in the West Midlands, they (the death rates) ranged between 19 per cent of manorial tenants at Hartlebury and Hanbury to no less than 80 per cent at Aston.... It is very difficult for us to imagine the impact of plague on these small rural communities, where a village might have no more than 400 or 500 inhabitants. Few settlements were totally depopulated, but in most others whole families must have been wiped out, and few can have been spared some loss, since the plague killed indiscriminately, striking at rich and poor alike.'</blockquote> <blockquote>'The World Upside Down', Black Death in England by J. Bolton, ed.Ormrod and Lindley 1996</blockquote> <br clear="all"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left" border="0"><tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> </td> <td align="right"><a href="black_02.shtml">Next</a></td> </tr></table> <br clear="all"><br><p class="smallertext">Published: 01-01-2001</p> <br><br> </td> </tr></table> </td> <td width="10" valign="top"><img src="/web/20060718164333im_/http://www.bbc.co.uk/furniture/tiny.gif" width="10" height="1" border="0" alt=""></td> <td width="150" valign="top"> <img src="/web/20060718164333im_/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/images/rhnav-head-related_links.gif" width="150" height="27" border="0" alt="Related Links"><table style="padding: 0px;" width="148" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="left" class="borderthin"> <tr><td class="rhnavhead">Articles</td></tr> <tr><td valign="top"><ul class="special"> <li><a href="/web/20060718164333/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/blackdisease_01.shtml">Black Death: The Disease</a></li> <li><a href="/web/20060718164333/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/plague_countryside_01.shtml">Black Death: The Effect of the Plague</a></li> <li><a href="/web/20060718164333/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/health_01.shtml">Mummy's Ruin? 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