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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.

Medievalist Dr Stephen Baxter takes a fresh look at the Middle Ages through the eyes of children. At a time when half the population was under eighteen he argues that, although they had to grow up quickly and take on adult responsibility early, the experience of childhood could also be richly rewarding.

Wikipedia article on Middle Ages

The international effects of Black Death Death and disease were familiar features of life in the Middle Ages, but previous epidemics were dwarfed by the arrival of the Black Death. It erupted out of central Asia to create a pandemic greater even than the Plague of Justinian 800 years earlier. Present in bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic forms, the Black Death had killed millions by the time it finally declined. Europe may have lost a third of its people, China perhaps half. Besides death, the disease brought fear, panic and very often a complete breakdown of society.

In 1347 news reached England of a horrifying and incurable disease that was spreading from Asia through North Africa and Europe. The Black Death struck London in the autumn of 1348. No one knew how to stop the disease. During the next 18 months it killed half of all Londoners - perhaps 40,000 people.

The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, religion, economics and even social class were affected. Contemporary accounts shed light on how medieval Britain was irreversibly changed.

The majority of the population lived in the countryside at the time of the Black Death. Dr Mike Ibeji traces the plague's devastating impact on the rural communities.

The conflicts with England's neighbours dragged on, draining the economy. Maintaining the basic border forts in France, Scotland and Ireland cost £46,000 pa and by 1381 three regressive poll taxes had been passed by parliament and extracted from an unwilling population, barely recovering from the ravages of the Black Death.