The Black Death

A Personal History

By: John Hatcher

Narrated by: Geoffrey Centlivre

In this fresh approach to the history of the Black Death, John Hatcher, a world-renowned scholar of the Middle Ages, recreates everyday life in a mid-14th-century rural English village.

By focusing on the experiences of ordinary villagers as they lived - and died - during the Black Death (A.D. 1345-50), Hatcher vividly places the listener directly into those tumultuous years and describes in fascinating detail the day-to-day existence of people struggling with the tragic effects of the plague. Dramatic scenes portray how contemporaries must have experienced and thought about the momentous events - and how they tried to make sense of it all.

©2009 John Hatcher (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This book uses a bit of fiction, mixing it with [Hatcher's] vast knowledge to illuminate that catastrophe." (Bookviews.com)
"The core of the story - the plague's effect on the lives of everyday people - is as true as can be surmised, nearly 700 years later." ( Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Pretty Dry for Something Called a Personal History

Listened to this during the coronavirus pandemic. It was very dry for something marketed as a "personal history" and contained less information than "The Great Mortality" by John Kelly. I would recommend the John Kelly book over this one. That one had both more facts and was more readable.

an iteresting and informative account

this book gives a face to counless numbers who died in the black death.d
one feels the strugles of the survivers as well as the overall social and political changes that followed the plague.

The worst narration ever

This book has the worst narration I've ever gotten from Audible.

The narrator mumbles a lot of the time. I listen while working in the kitchen and/or house and to understand him, I've had to increase the volume well beyond what is comfortable.

I bought the book without listening to the sample. That was a mistake.

The content of the book appears so far to be great.

Informative on many levels!

This is a great read (listen). Hatcher does an excellent job of fleshing out 14th century Catholicism in England. He successfully portrays the efforts the Church and individuals performed to escape the oncoming plague. He then details the horror of the plague and its aftermath. He then shows how the nobility and the church tag teamed to keep down a rising peasantry who wanted more freedom and greater wages. This would be a great read for a class on the Middle Ages. The audible narration was also excellent.

good story

Where does The Black Death rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

middle

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

to much time spent at the beginning explaining to his academic friends that he was not writing a historical novel when he actually was. Way too much time.