{"id":2495,"date":"2017-06-09T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T19:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tostevin.net\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2017-07-04T20:05:01","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T19:05:01","slug":"boo-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/?p=2495","title":{"rendered":"Book Review : The Black Death-A Personal History by John Hatcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>The Black Death: A Personal History<\/a> by John Hatcher<\/a>
\nMy rating: 5 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

A very readable historical book.
One commentator described this book as “History written from the inside” & I’d agree.
The book covers an interpreted narrative around the events as recorded in the Sussex village of Walsham’s Manorial Court records from 1345 up to 1350.<\/p>\n

From these basic Manor records – recording fines, land transfers, deaths, marriages etc – along with John Hatchers extensive knowledge of life and attitudes during this period – he constructs a narrative around the lives & deaths of real people in a real place.<\/p>\n

Where he has to infere something from the records he draws on sources from other comtemporray authors and locations. He details these sources in a separate Source List at the back of the book (cross referenced to each story vignette in the main narrative). <\/p>\n

I found it really brings alive this horrifically fascinating event from the point of view of the peasants, Lords & Clergy alike, building a sense of apocolyptic anticipation as they realise its drawing near through to the actual pestilence and the social upheavals of the aftermath.<\/p>\n

I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to attempt to get inside the medievel mind of the time in a very readable style.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a>
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Book Synopsis<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

‘Official’ Book Description<\/b><\/h2>\n
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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-14th century rural English village.<\/p>\n

By focusing on the experiences of ordinary villagers as they lived – and died – during the Black Death (A.D. 1345 – 50), Hatcher vividly places the listener 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 events – and how they tried to make sense of it all.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Black Death: A Personal History by John Hatcher
\nMy rating: 5 of 5 stars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[74],"tags":[77],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/51tPFx0wv0L1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p26Fp9-Ef","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2595,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions\/2595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showmethecode.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}