Wan, long-winded "docudrama" about a rural parish in
mid-14th-century England devastated by the plague.In order to
explore the "intimate social history" of villagers at the time of
the Black Death, Hatcher (Economic and Social History/Cambridge
Univ.) chose Walsham le Willows in Suffolk because of its
exceptionally good local records, then filled in the gaps with a
fictional narrative employing as protagonist a parish priest he
calls Master John. The author moves chronologically, from mid-1345,
when Walsham's 1,000-odd inhabitants struggled to subsist in a
makeshift agrarian economy, through 1350, when the long-feared
pestilence decimated half the hamlet, to the weeks and months
after, when the survivors took stock. Each chapter is introduced by
a factual precis, then the main text takes the reader through the
paces of Master John's duties in ministering to his flock,
particularly in assisting the dying sinner to "a good death." As he
became privy to testimonies of the plague's encroachment on
England, Master John had to address his parishioners' growing panic
and assure them this scourge of God could be mollified by
confession, penitential processions, pilgrimages to sacred sites
and Masses. Moreover, he relayed chilling missives from the bishops
and King Edward III on how to save and protect the realm. Hatcher
effectively portrays the collective hysteria that gripped the land;
when the disease finally struck around Easter 1349, people
frequently refused to go near the dying and dead. Once the plague
subsided by summer, it "let loose powerful forces that threatened
upheaval in the social order, affecting not just peasants and
laborers but clergy and lords." It wasn't all bad news: Survivors
sorted inheritances, and wages soared, offering new opportunities,
especially for women.Curiously leaden, achieving neither the
gravitas of history nor the liveliness of fiction. (Kirkus Reviews)
How the people of a typical English village lived and died in the
worst epidemic in history. The Black Death remains the greatest
disaster to befall humanity, killing about half the population of
the planet in the 14th century. John Hatcher recreates everyday
medieval life in a parish in Suffolk, from which an exceptional
number of documents survive. This enables us to view events through
the eyes of its residents, revealing in unique detail what it was
like to live and die in these terrifying times. With scrupulous
attention to historical accuracy, John Hatcher describes what the
parishioners experienced, what they knew and what they believed.
His narrative is peopled with characters developed from the
villagers named in the actual town records and a series of dramatic
scenes portray how contemporaries must have experienced the
momentous events.
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