The Black Death

First published in 1969, this history reconstructs the plague that reached Europe in 1347-50 and its course in England in particular. Ziegler follows the disease from the East through Mediterranean ports to English towns and manors, using chronicles, bishops' registers, and manorial records to show death rates, labour shortage, and the breakdown of ordinary government and worship. He weighs what contemporaries thought the cause was and what later medicine can say. The book is a narrative social history of one epidemic, not a general history of the Middle Ages.

Bound in black cloth with a design in red and gold by Francis Mosley. 12 pages of colour plates reproducing medieval manuscripts and paintings. Map endleaves. Black slipcase.