All language subtitles for Lucy.Worsley.Investigates.S01E02.The.Black.Death.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX - No HI

In 1348, the Black Death
struck the British Isles

and spread like wildfire.

It's believed to be the most
deadly pandemic in history.

Before the Black Death,
the population of mainland Britain

was around six million.

Two years later, only an estimated
three million were left alive.

Why did this disease claim so many,

and how did the awful death
toll change Britain?

In this series, I'm reinvestigating
some of the most dramatic

and brutal chapters
in British history.

It wasn't just one generation.

It was three generations
losing their lives.

Bam, bam, bam.

These stories are part of our
national mythology,

harbouring mysteries that have
intrigued us for centuries.

It's chilling to think that this
could actually be evidence

in a murder investigation.

But with the passage of time,
we have new ways to unlock

their secrets, using scientific
advances and a modern perspective.

It's a horrible psycho sexual
form of torture.

Absolutely.

I'm going to uncover
forgotten witnesses,

re-examine old evidence,
and follow new clues

to get closer to the truth.

It is one of the great
British mysteries.

It's one of those moments,
I'm afraid, for a historian,

that makes the hairs stand up
on the back of your neck.

Bubonic plague...

...the pestilence,
the great mortality.

There's lots of different names
for the Black Death,

infamous for the horrible
boils or buboes

that break out on people's skin.

It struck Britain many times,
famously in London in 1665.

But I'm interested in the first
and the worst outbreak in 1348,

when something like half of the
population got wiped out.

I want to investigate how the Black
Death transformed society.

What happened to it during and after
this terrible medieval pandemic?

But first I want to understand
what the Black Death was,

and why the outbreak in 1348
was so deadly.

After all this time, science
is still uncovering new evidence.

Stored in this underground vault
in London are 600 skeletons.

Each box contains the bones
of someone buried in a mass grave

at the height of the plague,
outside the old city walls.

This plague pit was unearthed
in the 1980s during building work

and excavated by archaeologists.

Strangely beautiful thing!

It is.
His teeth, look at his teeth!

I know, they're fantastic,
aren't they?

Osteologist, Jelena Bekvalac,
is curator of this collection.

These are definitely
Black Death victims.

But for centuries,
science was uncertain

what caused the disease.

Then, in 2011, DNA taken from
the teeth of these skeletons

confirmed what had actually
killed them.

This has been a great mystery,
hasn't it, for 700 years at least?

Yeah. We had these individuals,
and then scientists

used the DNA analysis,
recreating and reconstructing

an ancient genome.

And by doing that, they were
able to identify

that the actual causative agent
was a bacteria

and it was Yersinia pestis.

What did you say? Yersinia pestis.

Yersinia pestis. Yes.

And why was this particular
bacterium quite so dangerous?

This one was particularly virulent
to us because we, as a population

at that time, had never been exposed
to that bacteria.

So there was no immunity within us.

And therefore, when you're exposed
to something that's new,

it really then impacts
on to the population.

And subsequently, after that episode
of the Black Death that we know

killed so many people, there were
other outbreaks,

but it didn't have that same impact.

Because of herd immunity?

Because of herd immunity, yes.

So you're building up that lovely
sort of immunity to it.

We all know what herd immunity
is now! Yeah, yes.

So just at the moment he was going
into the plague pit to be buried,

I imagine that he would have had big
swelling buboes on him,

is that right?

Yes, that would be where you get
the swellings in the armpits

and the groins.

What is that exactly,
these swellings?

What, is there something
inside them?

Well, there'd be nasty dead
cells and pus and poison.

So very uncomfortable, be very sore.

Probably have horrible headaches,
feel very sort of fatigued.

You might feel sick, sweats.

You'd feel really very, very unwell
and under the weather.

And where did this particular
bacterium come from?

Well, they believe that it probably
came from Central Asia

and then it would travel across,
because also, we have to remember

at this time that you've got trade
routes and people are moving around.

So you've got quite a lot
of movement of people.

So it probably started from there.

Emerging global trade routes
in the 14th century exposed Britain

to a deadly new disease.

It had raged through Asia
and Europe, wiping out millions

before arriving on these shores.

Catch it and you could be dead
in days, even hours.

So how did this bacterium
spread so aggressively

and kill so many people?

There were some images of life
in London that got burnt

into my mind at an early age,

and this is one of them.

It's a scene from the kiddie
version of the story

of Dick Whittington and his Cat.

Dick Whittington, being a lad
who came to London to seek

his fortune, but who had to sleep
in a horrible attic

infested with rats.

Here they all are,
running over his bed,

climbing out of the window.

And I'm pretty sure it's images
like this, if not this very one,

that made a link in my mind
between the spread

of the plague and rodents.

But I agree this isn't exactly solid
scientific or historical evidence.

I'm going to have to do better
than the Ladybird version.

What can the latest science
tell me about how this disease

might have spread?

A study from 2018 argues that the
Black Death was also spread

by human fleas and lice,
infecting people

as they bit into their flesh.

One of the researchers was
epidemiologist Dr Fabienne Krauer.

She's in Switzerland, so this
will be an online consultation.

So Fabienne is in my waiting room.

Let me admit her.

There she is, Fabienne!

So there's these human fleas
that can take the plague

from one human being to another
human being?

Yes, infestation of lice and fleas
was very common in 14th century.

Would that be through people's
bedding or their clothes,

or how can you see that working?

Yeah, so body lice and human fleas,

they typically live in clothes,

in the seams
or in the foldings of clothes.

So we know that in the 14th century,
the handing down of clothes,

that was a real thing.

And we think that this is how
the plague could have spread,

because people were passing
on clothes of someone

who died of plague, and then they
got themselves infected.

This is so heartbreaking because
people wouldn't

have known, would they?

They wouldn't have known that this
is how they were actually

killing their friends and relatives.

No, people had no idea.

But there are also other forms of
plague, such as pneumonic plague,

which is transmitted
directly between people,

through coughing, through
infectious droplets...

Sorry, sorry, sorry, Fabienne,
just pause a second.

This is all so new to me, you're
taking me into new ground here.

Did you call it the pneumonic
version of the disease,

like pneumonia?

Yes, exactly.

So pneumonia happens when someone
who has a plague infection,

when these people cough,
they expel infectious droplets.

And these can be inhaled by other
people which cause

primary pneumonic plague
in these people.

And that's a very fatal
and rapidly progressing disease.

So it spreads, it can also spread
through the air from someone

you're living with, someone
you're in the same room as,

and it's to do with breathing
the disease, one person to another?

Yes, it requires a rather
close contact.

So it's usually people within the
same households that are infected,

or people who care for someone
who is sick.

That's a horrible idea, isn't it?

Someone who's taking care
of somebody could be infecting

themselves through their
compassion.

Yeah, that's indeed horrible.

And if someone had pneumonic
plague,

then their fate
was basically sealed.

So they were going to die,
for sure.

And the fatality for pneumonic
plague was about 100%.

100%?

Yeah.

So much new information here.

I hadn't realised that there
were these different

variants within plague.

There's the bubonic plague
where you get the swellings

in the armpits, but also
the pneumonic plague,

which is lung to lung.

And Fabienne's talking about so many
different vectors of transmission.

We've got the rats and the fleas,
but also...

...body lice
and the second-hand clothing,

and just being together
in a small space.

No-one was immune to this disease,

rich or poor, young or old.

The Black Death ripped through all
levels of medieval society.

Now, what I do know about medieval
society is that at the top of it,

we have the king.

And then, below him
we have his knights.

Here they are.

These gentlemen give him
their loyalty,

he gives them their land.

But the vast majority,

90% of the population,

are, in fact, made up of all these
guys - the peasants.

And most of them aren't free.

They're tied to the land from which
they scratch a living,

land that's owned by the local
lord of the manor.

And the whole of this social
structure is reinforced

by the church.

Each Sunday, the priest
preaches to his parishioners

that this is the way the world is.

This is God's grand design.

How did the Black Death transform
this rigidly structured society?

I want to investigate the world
of the vast majority

of its victims -
the rural peasants.

But contemporary descriptions
of how they lived can be misleading.

According to these images,
it rather looks lovely.

Here's a happy agricultural
worker enjoying the spring air,

sowing his seeds in the ground,

surrounded by birds and leaves.

And here are some farmers bringing
in a wonderful crop of corn!

Looks blissful.

But these images are from
the Luttrell Psalter.

It's a really fantastic illuminated
manuscript,

commissioned by Luttrell
himself, a landowner.

He wanted to make living
on the land look like

it was a lovely thing to do.

I'm not sure how reliable
these images are

as a guide to everyday life.

First hand accounts of 14th century
peasant life don't exist.

Most people were illiterate.

There are no gritty life
stories to consult.

But they did pay taxes and rent
to their noble overlords.

To understand how the majority
lived 700 years ago,

you follow the money.

In 14th-century England,
rural peasants were summoned

before a court of the manor
on which they lived and worked

to pay rent and tax.

These transactions were recorded
in court rolls

and they covered every aspect
of peasant life.

Fines were paid for disobedience
of any kind,

like leaving the manor
without permission.

Tax was paid on crops grown
on the parcel of land

you leased from the lord.

When you died, your family
paid a death tax

to inherit the lease
on that parcel of land.

Stored in a temperature-controlled
vault in Suffolk Archives

are some of Europe's rarest
medieval manuscripts.

They're the court rolls
of a small Suffolk village

called Walsh am le Willows.

I do know my way to the Suffolk
Archives because I've been there

before but the stuff I normally
look at is much later than this.

These court rolls cover the period
before, during and after

the Black Death struck England
in 1348.

What can they tell me about
the peasantry and the impact

of the pandemic on their lives?

Oh, wow! Look, they're all out
on the table for me already.

Oh!

And aren't they fantastic?

So we're looking at lots and lots
of very neat Latin here.

It's so neat, it's got a sort of
Excel spreadsheet quality to it.

But I know that buried
underneath that,

are real human beings,

even if they're treated here as...

...units of taxation, almost.

Now I know that this set of
documents is so important

because it's so comprehensive,
it goes on

for years and years and years
in the same village,

and you don't normally get that...

...that sort of longitudinal view
into the life of a community

because one bit might survive,
another bit, not.

So this is just remarkable,
the completeness of this record

for 14th-century Walsh am.

The rolls are written
in medieval Latin.

Fortunately for me, there's
an English translation.

Hmm, I did study medieval Latin,

but a long time ago

and not very seriously.

So I'm having to rely
on my translation here.

The population of Walsh am prior
to the Black Death was around 1,200.

Plague strikes the village
in June 1349.

The court session for that month
shows a huge spike

in death tax being paid.

And it was a very busy court
session

because basically,

103 people have all died.

So that's in the last three weeks
in this particular sitting

of the court, they had to deal
with the business of 103 deaths.

It's extraordinary.

And you can see that the clerk
has run out of room.

He's gone down the first piece.

He's had to attach another
one to keep going.

And...

...what's kind of chilling
is that he doesn't care

that these people have died,
what he cares about

is that there's business to be done
because every time you die,

when you are a serf,

your family has to pay a tax

to the landlord, and that tax
is called a heriot.

And in some cases,
the heriot is...

...a horse.

And in other cases, it's a ewe.

So basically, when your father dies,
you have to give the landlord

one of your animals.

But these 103 deaths listed
in this court session

are just the heads of families named
as land lease holders,

younger men, women and children.

A good 80% of the community
aren't recorded.

They're not economically
relevant to the records.

Factor them in, and the deaths must
number close to 600.

So that's half of the village dying
of plague, matching estimates

for the whole country.

These roll are a micro study
for all of Britain

during the pandemic.

And here's a particularly
interesting family

who are marked out with a cross
for some reason.

I can make out their name
is Cranmer.

There's William Cranmer,

who's the patriarch of the family.

He's the grandad.

And he held a messuage...

...that means a piece of property,
possibly with a house on it.

And it says he also held
a tenement and...

...he's died and he has to pay
a heriot, the death tax.

Then his son and heir,
a second generation...

...he dies, and then there's a third
generation who die.

His son Robert dies,
and the heriot has to be paid.

But this time they haven't got any
horses left, they have to pay a cow.

It's a less good animal, but that's
because the lord's

already got the two horses.

But this particular family, the
Cranmers, they stand out here...

...because of the awfulness
of what happened to them.

It wasn't just one generation
or two generations.

It was three generations losing
their lives, bam, bam, bam.

All within the same few weeks,
in the same...

...in the same village.

The Cranmer clan seem like a typical
peasant family.

I want to investigate their life
experiences to understand

how Britain was changed
by the plague.

Armed with my copy of the
court rolls,

next stop for me
is Walsh am le Willows.

20 miles inland from the Suffolk
coast, the present day village

of Walsh am still clusters around
the local church, St Mary's,

just as it did 700 years ago.

So far, I've looked at Walsh am
during the time plague struck

the village, but now I'm going
to wind the clock back to the years

just before the Black Death.

What was pre-pandemic life
like for the Cranmers?

And is there any surviving
trace of them left today?

I need some local knowledge.

Oh, hello, Frances. It's Lucy here.
I am in Walsh am.

Left and look for the school.

I'm off to see a lady
called Frances Jenner.

She's the chairperson of
the local history society.

And she's one of those
people who says,

"Oh, I'm only an amateur historian."

But actually, I suspect
that she knows everything

that there is to know.

Like me, Frances is fascinated by
the court rolls of Walsh am,

and she's been studying
them for years.

It was pretty agricultural
in the 14th century.

Is it still quite agricultural
around here?

It is, very much so,
still a very rural community.

So where are you bringing
me, Frances?

I'm bringing you to Cranmer farm.

Oh, my goodness. Yes.

Cranmer farm, still got their
name on it.

It does, yes.

700 years later! It does, yes.

Though it's been rebuilt since?

It has. It's been rebuilt later.

But they would have had a dwelling
here and they farmed

the lands around here.

Do you think they farmed
in this very field, then?

We're totally in their neck
of the woods?

It's quite possible that they did,
we are actually walking on

where they farmed and lived.
Excellent.

And having spent a lot of time
combing through the court rolls,

have you developed in your mind,

the character of this
William Cranmer, the eldest one,

the grandad of the family?

I have, because actually,
if you look at him, he actually

has more entries than anybody else.

And there are lots of instances
of him being fined for various

breaches of grazing too many
sheep on the verges

and all sorts of things.

And I just get the impression that
he was a bit of a one, really.

Oh, really? Yeah, I do.
A sharp operator?

I think so. Yes, definitely.

That's what we would call
him today. Yes.

And how hard or difficult
do you think the lives

of the Cranmers were, living here?

Prior to the Black Death,
there'd been seven years of famine

due to the unseasonably
odd weather conditions -

excessive rains, storms.

And we have to also remember
that in those days,

the wheat wasn't the wheat
that we know today,

it was really tall.

So storms would basically
flatten it,

and then it would just rot
in the fields.

So that would mean hardship.

That would mean no food,
no, no crops to sell.

They would still have to pay
the taxes to the lord of the manor.

So they were being squeezed
basically from both sides.

They weren't actually making
any money, but they still

had to pay their taxes.

So life would have been hard,
they would have been hungry,

they would have been poor.

Life, really, would have been
pretty miserable.

In these years of pre-pandemic
hardship, old William Cranmer

is frequently fined for keeping
more animals than permitted,

for taking firewood
without permission,

even for not informing
on a neighbour

when THEY broke the rules.

William might have a few acres
of land, but there's three

generations - his son, his grandson
and their extended families -

all living on it.

Perhaps there's just too many
of them for the land to support.

The Walsh am court rolls
list numerous villagers

in the same situation.

While they struggle, they're also
duty-bound to work the lord's

personal farmlands,
as well as their own.

It's the same across swathes
of Britain.

But as I work through
the court rolls,

I come across another strain
on the Cranmer clan's

hard-pressed resources.

You don't often get women mentioned
in these court rolls

because it's mainly about
the tenants.

But if you travel back in time...

...we seem to have a granddaughter...

...of wily William Cranmer,
the grandfather of the family.

Her name's Olivia.

And the reason that she comes
up in the court records

is because of a scandal.

She's had to pay a child white,
which is a special fine,

of two shillings and eight pence.

And she's had to pay this because
she gave birth outside wedlock.

She's had an illegitimate child.

Having a child out of wedlock
in medieval society was condemned

by the church,
but it wasn't uncommon.

The problem was more practical.

It was another mouth to feed.

Who would provide?

In Olivia's case,
it was swiftly solved.

Shortly after she's fined, the court
rolls record Olivia marrying

a Robert Hayes, a peasant
with his own land-holdings.

Was Robert the father?

Was this a forced marriage?

The rolls make no mention.

Now that I've learnt more about the
Cranmers, I'm intrigued to know

how they, and so many like them,

reacted as plague approached.

In the summer of 1348, plague had
spread across the English Channel

aboard trading ships.

Contemporary accounts agree that
the first outbreaks in Britain

were in Weymouth and Bristol.

The disease caught fire and spread
from the coast into the countryside.

Now Walsh am might feel like it's
in the middle of nowhere,

but it isn't, and it wasn't in the
14th century either.

It was connected, as the world was,
through global shipping routes.

Walsh am is 100 miles away from
London, but crucially,

it's only 26 miles, or a day's walk,

from the international port
of Ipswich.

Ipswich was just a day's
sail from France.

News of the Black Death's horrors
found their way across the Channel.

Most accounts coming from Europe
were utterly apocalyptic.

And this sounds frankly implausible.
He describes here,

"a rain of frogs, snakes,
lizards and scorpions,

"thunderbolts and lightning"
this sounds like crazy pub talk.

But then, much more believably,
he talks about the plague

travelling via Genoese ships
to Marseilles.

And then to Avignon, where,
oh, golly, where half

the people have died.

So once it's got to France,
that's roughly only 24 hours'

journey away from this village,
from this pub.

You can imagine people here
laughing, maybe,

speculating, maybe,

really frightening themselves
as they talked about it

on a Friday night.

Accounts like this reached
Britain throughout 1348,

well before the Black Death
struck Walsh am.

But is there evidence in the court
rolls that even rumours

about plague changed
people's behaviour?

Here's a meeting of the court
from the autumn

before the Black Death,
and here we've got...

...how many men? I think it's...

Yes, it's 11 men in total
who are in trouble

because they've not turned
up to work.

They get fined for not doing
their duties,

including William Cranmer, actually.

What might they have been
doing instead?

Well, this might be my imagination,
but just up here, we've got some

other men who were fined,
who were punished for brewing

and selling ale in breach
of the assize.

I am tempted to think that these
11 men thought,

right, the plague is coming,
we're with jolly well not

going to go to work, we're going
to go to the pub instead.

Let's make merry,
because tomorrow...

...we die.

It might have seemed to many
that doomsday was approaching.

How did those in power try
to prepare the population

for what was coming?

What was their message
to the people?

Belief in God and his will
was central to medieval life.

Everyone attended church
to be guided in all things,

both on Earth and spiritually,
by their local priest.

With rumours of bodies
piling up in the streets

in the West Country,
an official Black Death briefing

was made from church pulpits
in the autumn of 1348.

The king, Edward III, tells the
Archbishop of Canterbury

to write a letter with instructions
for the people.

It's to be read out from the pulpit
across the country.

And historians usually called
this letter after its first word,

which is, "Terribilis..."

...terrible.

This was a mass communication,
filtered down from king...

...to bishop, to priest, to peasant.

"Terrible is God towards
the sons of men.

"He allows plagues to arise,

"to torment men
and drive out their sins.

"It is now to be feared that this
kingdom is to be oppressed

"by the pestilence and wretched
mortalities which have flared

"up in other regions."

The message is,
it's real, it's here,

it's coming to get us, and it's
coming because you've all sinned.

This announcement affected everyone.

Everyone sinned!

Breaking any of the
Ten Commandments was a sin.

But the medieval church was
particularly obsessed

with fornication.

Olivia Cranmer was fined
and would have served penance

for having a child out of wedlock.

There were tens of thousands
like her across the country.

They were an easy target.

Some clergy were quick to blame
plague on immoral women

and their choice of dress.

OK, here we've got some very
naughty, sexy, 14th-century ladies

who have got slashes
in their dresses, revealing

their figures and what they've
got on underneath.

And this lady here, her robe
has got great big holes,

enormous armholes in it, so you can
see her shape through it.

And the name of these holes
is brilliant -

they were known
as windows into hell!

The church maintains that only
prayer could quell God's wrath

and stop the pestilence.

But no amount of praying
could halt the progress

of this terrible disease.

By November 1348, the Black Death
had spread eastward.

Accounts claim that in Bristol,
only one in ten survived.

Plague had struck London
and broken out in York.

Everywhere, communities
were decimated.

Church cemeteries overflowed.

Across the country,
plague pits were dug.

This is just the most
heartbreaking image.

It's one of the very earliest
depictions, it's from 1349,

of a plague pit,
here are bodies being buried.

Look at the grief on the face
of this man here, with the spade.

And here are crowds of new
coffins being brought.

And this would have been the scene
all over Britain,

all over Europe,
where the plague spread.

And to these poor people, it must
have felt like the end of the world.

Getting a decent burial was a hugely
important medieval ritual.

So plague pits were a shocking
and sudden change in this society.

With people surrounded
by so much death,

surely their spiritual beliefs
were shaken?

How did the church cope
during the crisis?

Medieval historian Dr Claire Kennan
specialises in the impact

of the Black Death on faith
and the church in Britain.

So, Claire, explain this to me.
People are suffering,

they're praying,
the prayer isn't working,

but they still go on doing it.
Why is that?

So in the 14th century,
everyone's very concerned

with the health of their souls.

And the belief is that when you die,
you will inevitably spend some time

in purgatory, which really isn't
a very nice place.

So what people want to do is really
lessen the amount of time

they're going to spend there,
and they do that through prayer,

through acts of repentance, and
through giving money to the church.

So people are saying prayers, not
necessarily to save their life,

but to have a better death?

Exactly.

When the Black Death happens,
then, how's the church

going to respond,
what are they going to do?

Obviously, you've got a clergy
who are effectively

at the front line of this disease.

They are working with people
who are dying from a very,

very transmissible illness.

They're getting in very
close contact.

They're leaning in to listen
to that last whispered confession.

And so we do see a huge
number of clergy dying,

approximately 50%, generally.

But in some places
this is much higher.

And of course, this leads
to extreme shortages.

So there's a big problem
here for the church.

How are they going to solve it?

The church brings in some really
interesting emergency measures.

What I've got here is actually
a papal license, which is granted

to the Archbishop of York so that
he can recruit more priests.

And it says, "Because of
the mortality from plague,

"which overshadows your province
at this time,

"not enough priests can be found
for the cure and rule of souls,

"or to administer the sacraments."

And this is actually a list
of novices who are currently

being pushed through the
system, if you will. Oh!

So it's sort of like sending through
the medical students

to do the work of doctors?

Exactly, and what happens is that
we actually get quite a lot

of complaints about these
new priests.

One chronicler even says quite
scathingly that they're no

better than laymen.

But it's important to remember that
this isn't everyone's experience.

And actually what we see during
and after the Black Death

is people turning to the church,
possibly more than before.

So we have lots of people
going on pilgrimage to earn,

what I like to think of as brownie
points, so that when they do die,

they're not in purgatory
for too long.

So the pandemic didn't shatter
religious faith,

it strengthened it.

Pilgrimage, especially,
was an act of devotion,

involving a long journey on foot.

It was one of the few things
a peasant was permitted

to leave their manor for.

And during the Black Death,
thousands trekked to sacred

sites across Britain.

Perhaps the most sacred
of all was the awe-inspiring

Canterbury Cathedral.

It's utterly overwhelming in here.

It's a...

...it's a splendid visual feast,

even for a 21st-century person!

Imagine what it would have been like
coming here 700 years ago,

maybe from a rural village,

where your church was much
smaller than this.

Must have blown your mind.

Canterbury offered more than
just salvation of the soul.

It promised a cure for the plague.

Pilgrims coming here in 1348 would
have seen this stained glass window.

The peasant classes might have been
illiterate, but they could read

the story in this window's pictures.

It tells of a boy
struck down by disease.

He dies.

But when he drinks holy water
from Canterbury,

he's miraculously revived.

The water itself is holy
because it comes from Canterbury,

but it's also supposed to contain
diluted drops of the blood

of St Thomas, so that's what's
done the business.

It's like a fantastic
advertisement, really.

"Our holy water will bring
your dead son back to life."

A booming trade grew around
pilgrimages during the Black Death.

Peasants would have been able to buy
a flask of holy water to take home.

They were sold for a few
pence in vast quantities

in the cathedral grounds.

A collection of these flasks,
or ampoules, as they're called,

is housed in the local museum.

This is the most fabulous
little thing.

It's so collectable because there's
the tiny little saint there.

It's like a little toy, but it also
has a totally serious purpose.

You would put your holy water
inside your tiny flask.

You'd stopper it up and you'd take
it home and you would treasure it.

And it's easy to pour scorn
on this and say,

"Oh, they were flogging tat
to tourists",

or, "Oh, how did they think
that would keep them safe?"

But to a 14th-century person,

desperately frightened
about what was going to happen,

this was a way of making
yourself feel better,

and that's not to be underestimated.

But with thousands travelling
across the country to places

like Canterbury, to me there's
a clear risk

with so many people mixing
at a time of plague.

I'm heading to see a surviving
14th-century shelter

used for overnight stays
by Canterbury pilgrims.

- Hello.
- Hello. Welcome to East bridge.

- Thank you.
- Come in.

Whoa! What a splendid place.

Welcome to the Undercroft.

The Undercroft? Yeah.

Mm, it smells a little damp!

It's very damp, yeah.

And I can imagine
with pilgrims staying here,

it would have been really grim.

It would not have been a nice stay,
but it would have been safe.

You were off the high street.

You didn't need to worry
about being robbed,

but this wouldn't have been
a pleasant stay at all.

Would you have packed a lot
of people into your...

Yeah, there probably would
have been 30, 40 people

down here, all sharing hay beds.

And it depends on who'd stayed
there before,

the state of the hay
that you slept on.

So you could have picked up lots
of creepy crawlies and bugs.

The pilgrims sleeping in here
in the straw 700 years ago,

I'm sure they were feeling
good about themselves.

They'd finished their pilgrimage.

They'd protected themselves
against sickness.

But from my perspective,
there's a terrible,

horrible irony here,
they're all crammed in together.

People were coughing, they were
sleeping in hay and straw

that was days old, it had had other
people sleeping in it.

Imagine the fleas, and the body
lice, and the rats.

And then, you know, they were all
planning to go back

to their villages the next day,
villages like Walsh am.

Sounds like a super-spreader event.

By New Year 1349,

plague had infected
so many in London

that the English Parliament
was prorogued -

it was shut down.

For a moment, no-one, it seems,
had oversight of the country

as the Black Death
ripped through England.

By Spring, plague had reached Wales.

Leicester and Lincoln
had been struck.

Estimated casualties in Norwich
were horrendous.

Every day, it was getting
closer to Walsh am.

The court rolls suggest plague
hit Walsh am in April 1349.

Among the first to die
is William Cranmer the elder,

Olivia's grandfather.

Swiftly followed by Olivia's father,
and her brother.

Three generations of Cranmers,
dead in a matter of weeks.

For two months, the Black Death
tore through Walsh am.

Family after family
lost loved ones.

At some point, Olivia's husband
Robert also succumbs.

But I can find no mention
in the court rolls

during these terrible months
of Olivia dying.

Along with hundreds of other
victims in Walsh am,

younger men, women and children,

her name simply isn't mentioned.

It was a new bacterium.

There was no herd immunity.

People didn't really understand
how it spread.

But in any case,
there was no escape.

If you were a peasant, you could
not leave your community

without the permission of your lord.

You literally had to stay there,
working the land,

paying your tax, waiting to see
if you'd live or die.

By Autumn 1349,

the Black Death was raging
in Ireland and Northumbria.

Then the Scots invaded England,
believing that God had sent

the pestilence to punish
their English foes.

Unfortunately, they may have taken
plague back to Scotland with them,

where the disease flared up
soon after.

In 1350, the Black Death finally
died out in the British Isles.

In two years, the pandemic
had claimed the lives

of up to half the population.

But eyewitness accounts of what life
was like in the immediate aftermath

of plague, are scant.

Those that survive are mainly
written by clerics.

And these rare fragments hint at
a serious breakdown in society.

Now, this is one of the
best of them.

It's by a monk from Rochester.

His name is William Deane,
and he's writing in 1350.

So only just after the Black Death,
he's still very close to it.

His work's in Latin,
but here's the translation.

And this bit says, "Mortality
destroyed more than a third

"of the men, women and children.

"As a result, there was such
a shortage of servants,

"craftsmen and workmen, and of
agricultural workers and labourers,

"that a great many lords and people,
although well endowed with goods

"and possessions, were yet without
all service and attendance."

With millions of workers dead,
I want to find out what effect

that had on society
once the plague had passed.

Professor John Hatcher is an
economic historian at Cambridge,

specialising in how the Black Death
transformed Britain.

John, can you tell me what happens
when, potentially, nearly half

the population of a country dies?

Well, it's a very special
country at the time

because of how agricultural it is.

Land becomes abundant
and people become scarce.

So wages rise

because workers are scarce.

And the consequence of that,
of course, is the landowners

have the threat of the disorderly
peasantry, demanding far more

in pay, but also they're demanding
freedom from serfdom.

And just to quote one of the
commentators of the period,

"His world was turned upside down."

You'd think that it would cause
total societal breakdown and chaos,

but it doesn't really, does it?

No, it doesn't.
Why is that?

If you compare it with modern times,
what you've got is people,

the bulk of the population, 80%,
producing their own food.

Oh! So they're like...

They have to plough the land.

There may be death and destruction
all around them,

they have to keep supplying
their own land.

You haven't got huge supply lines
for the majority of people. Er...

Today, society would collapse
because you've got so few people

who are actually producing
their own subsistence. Yes.

But in those days, of course,
the situation is very direct.

And what evidence is there
that these people

in the lab our market
were demanding higher wages?

So the scarcity of lab our makes
itself felt immediately.

People can get work anywhere.

They can demand the wages
that they want.

And there's a splendid description
of a ploughman ploughing

in the finery of a noble.

He's been given it, it's got
a few holes in it.

But nevertheless there he is,
with his plough in the mud,

wearing the clothes of a nobleman!

And the clothes have been handed
to him as a bribe

to stay and work, to keep working.

Wow! So if I were at the peasant
level of society,

ironically, the Black Death might
be good for me if I survived

because I'd have more access
to more food?

Yes, absolutely.

And also, of course, you inherited
the property of your family.

Sometimes a large number of family
members would die in succession,

leaving the single person
with the property

of five or six people beforehand.

It was a transformation.

So did this new normal last?

Perhaps, as you might expect,
the ruling classes in England,

at least, tried to make sure
it didn't by rushing

through a new national statute,
or law.

This great long thing here, is a
copy

of the Statute of Labourers
from 1351,

so just after the plague.

A translation here tells
us what it's all about.

It says, "The King and the nobles
have passed the statute

"against the malice of employees

"who were idle

"and who were not willing to take
employment after the pestilence

"unless for outrageous wages."

It says that they have to take
employment for the same

wages as before

or else they were going
to get imprisoned.

Hmm, it also says that you're not
allowed to leave the town

where you work to go and work
elsewhere in the summer.

But then, they admit
that this isn't going to work.

You CAN go to help with the harvest
if you live in Staffordshire,

Lancashire, Derbyshire,
Wales or Scotland.

That is going to be needed
to make the country work.

With the ruling classes trying
to reinstate the old social order,

but with the peasants gaining
opportunities for a new life,

what does this mean for farming
communities like Walsh am?

And what happened to Olivia Cranmer?

I know that all the male members
of her family are dead.

But Olivia survives.

A single entry in the Walsh am
court rolls describes her fate.

The lord of the manor wants rent
and tax from the Cranmer lands,

so a radical decision is made.

Olivia is listed as heir...

...and granted tenancy
of around 40 acres

of the Cranmer holdings.

Now, I had been thinking of Olivia
as a sort of a freak accident.

If this were a newspaper headline,
it might say,

"Amazing! Walsh am woman does well
out of Black Death."

But have a look at this.

You go through the court rolls,
there are lots of other examples

of women inheriting land from men.

Here we've got Agnes Wodebite...

...and Catherine Deith.

And over here we've got
Alice Rampolye.

And these women's names are
appearing for the first time

because for the first time,
they're economically relevant.

And I'm wondering if this is
happening on a super local

level in Walsh am, what's happening
across the nation?

Is it possible there's evidence
for other women coming

out of the shadows, if you like,
in the wake of the Black Death?

Professor Caroline Barron
has done extensive research

into opportunities for women
in post-plague London.

Inevitably, there was a great deal
of confusion afterwards.

But gradually, what you see
is that women are emerging,

holding down jobs, being apprenticed
as girl apprentices

to men and to women,
taking over workshops

and running them as successful
enterprises after the Black Death.

So where a business
owner had died,

his wife might sort of be forced,
economically, to take it over?

Yes, and you find after
the Black Death that the cities

expects a widow to continue to train
her husband's apprentices,

and they encouraged her to run
his business.

And in fact, they actually made
it possible for a woman

who was a widow to become
a free woman of London

and have the economic privileges
that a Freeman of London

- would have had.
- Interesting.

Are there specific women that you've
been able to research?

Well, in the immediate aftermath
of the Black Death,

quite interestingly, William Ramsay
was the chief Mason

of the king, the Master Mason.

He died in the Black Death,
and his daughter,

called Agnes, clearly took over
the business from him.

We find her running his workshop,
and although she was married,

she kept her own name, or her
father's name and ran

the father's business, yeah. Wow!

And she is called Dame Agnes Ramsay
in the records.

That's extraordinary! And they
recognised this position

that she's achieved, so it shows you
that women could do things.

Amazing. What's this record
you've got here?

Does this tell one of their stories?

Yes, this is the indenture
of Margaret,

the daughter of Richard Bishop
of Seaford, near Lewes.

And she's apprenticing herself
to a man called John Pritchett,

citizen and toll is or, which means
a toll collector, of London.

And Berger, his wife...

...a telder maker,
which is a tentmaker.

A tent maker? She's going to learn
to be a tentmaker?

She's going to learn the craft
of the said Berger,

so it's quite specific,
although she's apprenticed

to the husband and wife, it says
she's going to learn the craft

of the wife, and to be
the apprentice.

Was this a bit like during the world
wars of the 20th century?

The men weren't there,
the women had to take over?

Absolutely, it's like the munitions
factories in the First World War.

Or Rosie the Riveter in the
Second World War in America.

It's all to do with the shortage
of population.

As a new disease, the Black Death's
impact was horrific.

And for a short while, the death
of half the population

saw social order upended.

Britain's peasant class tasted
freedom and empowerment.

And despite efforts to return things
back to pre-plague conditions,

many had seen their prospects
change fundamentally.

None more so than Olivia Cranmer.

She does well enough out of her
inherited land to retire

with a pension in later life.

She never remarried.

The court rolls now name her
Olivia of Cranmer,

and it looks like she may have lived
into her 60s,

a ripe old age for the 14th century.

Plague would return
to 14th-century Britain.

With each new wave,
herd immunity built up.

But it took 300 years for Britain's
population to get back

to pre-pandemic levels.

And the psychological impact of
the Black Death lasted generations.

This image is the Danse Macabre.

It's one of the iconic images
of the Black Death, isn't it?

Skeletons enjoying themselves.

But it's really striking to me
that it dates from well

over a century
after the Black Death of 1348.

I think it shows the lasting
psychological impact of the plague,

which kept coming back and back
again, and it made

people re-evaluate life.

If life was a dance with death,

if death could come and take
you at any moment, well...

...then better enjoy life
while you can.

The princes in the Tower.

How did a power struggle
for the English throne lead

to the mysterious disappearance
of two young boys?

During the Wars of the Roses,
it's dog eat dog.

You are winning power
using violence, or you're toast.