Within the British Library’s medieval manuscript reserves, our investigation has uncovered an overlooked document offering novel perspectives on those who survived the devastating pandemic known as the Black Death (spanning 1346–53).
This particular artifact, a parchment fragment incorporated into an account pertaining to the Ramsey Abbey estate in Warboys, Huntingdonshire, meticulously details the durations of peasant absenteeism from labor due to afflictions from the plague.
Furthermore, it enumerates the individuals who recuperated and the estimated recovery timelines anticipated by their employers.
In our recent publication with Barney Sloane, we illuminate a cohort of 22 tenants who likely contracted the plague, experienced prolonged periods of incapacitation, and subsequently regained their health.
As one of history’s most catastrophic pandemics, it is widely estimated that the Black Death claimed the lives of between one-third and two-thirds of medieval Europe’s populace.
The immense mortality rate has led many historical scholars to dedicate their research to the individuals who perished. Consequently, the narratives of those who contracted the plague and recovered remain largely underrepresented.
Notwithstanding the disease’s lethality, recovery was indeed an obtainable outcome, with medieval chroniclers acknowledging the potential, albeit slim, for survival. For instance, Geoffrey le Baker, a clerk from Swinbrook in Oxfordshire, posited in the subsequent decade that recovery hinged on an individual’s symptomatic presentation:
Individuals who were vibrant one day were discovered deceased the subsequent day. Some endured torment from carbuncles that emerged abruptly on various body parts; these were so hard and dry that lancing them yielded minimal fluid. Many of these individuals survived, either through the lancing of the boils or by enduring prolonged suffering. Other sufferers manifested small, dark pustules across their entire skin surface. Of these, very few, in fact, hardly any, regained life and health.
However, the question remains: who managed to recover? Why did such a vast number succumb when others persevered? And what was the true extent of this “prolonged suffering”?
Regrettably, surviving documentary evidence is scarce, as most medieval records focus on mortality figures rather than the documentation of acute illness.
An Unprecedented Roster of Plague Survivors
A singular addition to the Warboys manor’s ledger chronicles a group of individuals who fell ill between late April and early August of 1349.
The monastic community of Ramsey Abbey compiled a register of their tenants who were too unwell to perform labor on the lord’s demesne, documenting their periods of absence.
It is evident that the plague’s impact varied significantly among individuals.
Henry Broun demonstrated the swiftest recovery, being absent from work for only a single week. In stark contrast, John Derworth and Agnes Mold experienced considerably lengthier debilitating periods, each absent for nine weeks.
The average duration of incapacitation ranged between three and four weeks, with three-quarters of the affected individuals returning to their duties in under a month. The celerity of their recoveries is particularly striking, given their entitlement to up to a year and a day of sanctioned sick leave.
This roster of survivors prominently features tenants who held larger landholdings on the manor.
The question of whether the plague afflicted indiscriminately, disregarding social standing, gender, or age, or if the impoverished and elderly were more susceptible, has been a protracted subject of discussion among scholars of history and archaeology.
The survival of a significant number of more prosperous tenants may suggest that their superior living conditions facilitated quicker recuperation compared to their less affluent neighbors, possibly by mitigating secondary infections and complications.
The predominance of men (19 out of 22 individuals) in this group should not be misconstrued as indicative of plague’s gender selectivity; rather, it reflects the prevailing patriarchal system of manorial land ownership.
While a group of 22 individuals might seem minor, in a typical summer of the 1340s, only two or three absences were recorded. This figure thus signifies a tenfold increase in routine illnesses across the manor.
Expressed differently, these ailing tenants accounted for 91 weeks of lost labor services within a mere 13-week interval.
Our comprehension of the Black Death’s ramifications has been heavily shaped by the catastrophic scale of mortality. However, it is only by reintegrating individuals who endured illness and recovered that we can fully grasp the profound societal upheaval caused by this pandemic.
It is plausible that in villages and urban centers across Europe, the deceased, the actively dying, and the infirm far outnumbered the living.
The repercussions of this scenario are documented in medieval accounts and chronicles, one of which reports an acute scarcity of servants and laborers, leading to an inability to identify necessary tasks.
This confluence of extreme mortality, widespread illness, and adverse weather conditions resulted in the harvests of 1349 and 1350 being characterized as the most severe experienced in medieval England, surpassing even those associated with the widespread famine of 1315-17.
This archival find enables us to reincorporate the history of sickness and recovery into our understanding of the Black Death, providing evidence that survival and subsequent return to productivity were achievable even during one of history’s most devastating pandemics.
This novel evidence testifies to the extraordinary resilience of medieval agricultural workers.
Many of them lay gravely ill, exhibiting buboes (painful, swollen, and inflamed lymph nodes in the groin and neck characteristic of the Black Death), vomiting blood, and wracked by fever, yet not only survived but were able to resume their labor within a matter of weeks.
