This
is an extremely informative text book on the plague that swept
through Europe and England in the late 1340s. Ziegler looks at the
causes and then traces the spread of the plague across Europe and
into England. He examines not only the immediate effects of such a
holocaust but also the far-reaching effects on society, politics,
religion and education.
Descriptions
of plague-infested villages and the horror inflicted upon the
inhabitants (most of them sourced from contemporary writings) are
interspersed with opinions and contra-opinions, observations,
historical facts and statistics. While The Black Death
is not a novel, it cannot fail to captivate and educate.
For anyone wanting to know more about this period of mediaeval
history, this is a definite must
read.