What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
I recently finished reading The Black Death: A Personal History by John Hatcher. It was a fictionalized depiction of events in an English town during the plague of the late 1340s.
Historical fiction is my favorite genre, and the Black Death has always held a morbid fascination for me. So, when Hatcher's book popped up in my weekly BookBub offerings, I couldn't resist downloading it.
The book's format was both creative and informative. Hatcher researched an English town that kept good records and wove his story from that foundation. The chapters are written as though by a contemporary narrator, with the town's pastor serving as the main character around whom the panic and trauma of the time swirls.
The descriptions of the townspeople isolating themselves from their neighbors and being fearful of social interactions reminded me exactly of how people behaved during the Covid lockdowns.
In the aftermath of the Black Death, the social and economic structures changed. Prior to the plague, farmers who lived on the manors were subservient to the ruling lords and accepted small payments for working the land. Afterwards, with so many dead in the villages, the farmers knew they could charge more money, and the lords had no choice but to pay if they didn't want their large harvests to go to waste. In addition, the peasant classes were trying hard to maintain their own farms and gardens; they were not inclined to prioritize the manor in these circumstances.
Many of the farmers now enjoying a larger payday languished in the taverns rather than do more work. In response to the pleas of his desperate ruling class, the king issued an edict ordering the farmers to work the lands of what was often called "their betters."
This rapid social change put me in mind of our modern-day vaccine mandates, remote work schedules, dampened work ethic, and companies demanding that employees return to the office.
The Black Death: A Personal History was a sage reminder that times and circumstances do change, but human nature does not.
