New Articles: Dr. Philip Slavin on Plague Studies
Project investigator Dr. Philip Slavin has published two articles in 2024 on plague studies. Find links to read them below.
Plague Strikes Back: The Pestis Secunda of 1361 – 62 and Its Demographic Consequences in England and Wales, The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Philip Slavin
This article looks at the demographic contours and impact of the pestis secunda—the second wave of the Second Plague Pandemic—which ravaged England and Wales in 1361–62. The study is based on a rich corpus of statistical data deriving from manorial records—primarily court rolls, but also inquisitions postmortem and episcopal registers—on a national level. A close analysis of the data reveals that the wave in question tended to discriminate across regions, socioeconomic statuses, and genders. The study's findings are then considered within a wider context of ongoing historiographical debates related to the total size of the English population before and after the Black Death. It argues that the population size of England on the eve of the Black Death was higher than often argued, and that the impact of the pestis secundawas harsher than often assumed. The evidence suggests that it was the pestis secunda, rather than the Black Death, that had severe, long‐term demographic and socioeconomic repercussions for England and Wales.
Dying of pestilence: Stature and mortality from the Black Death in 14th-century Kyrgyzstan, American Journal of Biological Anthropology
David W. Hansen, Sharon N. DeWitte, Philip Slavin
Bioarchaeological studies have provided important information about mortality patterns during the second pandemic of plague, including the Black Death, but most to date have focused on European contexts. This study represents a spatial contribution to plague bioarchaeology, focusing on Central Asia, the origin of the second pandemic. We examine the relationship between stature and plague mortality during an outbreak of plague at Kara-Djigach in northern Kyrgyzstan in 1338–1339, the earliest archaeological site known to contain victims of the Black Death in Eurasia.