Reading John Kelly’s “The Great Mortality” last week reminded me of a thought experiment that I have to go through every time I think about the Black Death.

Given what we know about infectious disease and the transmission methods of plague (via flea bites; directly contagious in its pneumatic form, etc.), if you were plunked down in the 14th century right now, as you are, do you think that you could avoid coming down with the plague? Or at least have a better chance? Or would the filth surrounding you make you as easy a target as anyone else?

I have these dark visions of scrubbing the dirt floor of my hut until my body hurts, scrubbing my clothes, boiling my bed linens, avoiding piles of dead people, not letting anyone “bleed” me…but is this just me fooling myself that I’d be in any way immune?

Tags: bacteria, black death, medicine, plague

Kelly’s sweeping popular look at the cause, course and story of the Black Death doesn’t break new academic ground so much as it filters and beautifies the centuries of discoveries by plague scholars. Through evocative description and very human narrative, Kelly builds an immediacy of the horrendous experience: bursting buboes, violent, bloody vomiting and, at times, the near extinction of towns and cities, the love and chaos of family members and the clergy.

The first third of the book is nothing short of fascinating as Kelly winds back the clock and the geography of the origins of Y. pestis, the plague bacteria. It starts in the high steppes of central Asia, among lands and peoples he describes with enough care and detail that one feels almost present in the high grasses with the lurching, infectious “tarabagans,” marmot-like rodents that may have been the source of the scourge.

We as readers get to watch, as a terrified audience, as Kelly brings the “death and death and death” (so described by Elizabethan playwright John Ford) barreling down on western Europe. Individual stories: a physician, Petrarch, a Roman usurper, a reeve, royals–these tragedies unfold nuanced and detailed. Occasional rollicking asides are so fun that one hardly notices the digressions.

Towards the last third of the book, some of the focus is lost, or perhaps the structure (following the plague’s geographic sweeps, generally chronologically) has become a bit too fixed. Kelly’s explanation of the dreadful anti-semitic pogroms carried out by misled, angry Christians are interesting (and important) as part of the plague’s tragedy, but a 20-page full history of Jewish persecution seemed a bit long-winded. Occasionally he repeats himself, telling snippets of the same story multiple times–it’s surprising that a sharp-eyed editor didn’t pick those out.

All in all, Kelly isn’t posing a new thesis as to the cause or havoc of the Black Death. What he does, and does well, is synthesize the story into something approachable by all. A very enjoyable read.

Tags: 14th century, black death, european history, history, plague, popular history