Table of contents for February 2023 in History Revealed

In the mid-14th century, the world was brought to its knees by a devastating disease. First recorded in 1346, this deadly illness - now known as the Black Death - ripped around the globe, decimating populations and causing untold anguish and misery. In this month’s Essential Guide, we’ve enlisted the help of Professor John Hatcher, who helps us answer some of the big questions about the Black Death, including how the disease was spread, its terrifying symptoms, the astonishing death rate, and how medieval society responded to the arrival of plague in their towns and villages. Turn to page 27 to get started. Elsewhere, we explore 10 status symbols from history that would have made you the envy of your neighbours - from pineapples and tulips, to follies and wigs…

Alexander Selkirk is finally rescued Marooned on a remote desert island for more than four years, Scottish mariner Alexander Selkirk survived against all the odds, gaining fame, fortune and a lasting influence on popular culture Born in Lower Largo, Fife, in 1676, Alexander Selkirk never quite shook off his reputation as a tearaway. In 1695, a summons to appear before a church court over his misconduct during a service was postponed when it was discovered he had gone to sea, possibly joining a colonising mission to Panama. His return, in 1701, courted further controversy after he assaulted several family members. Adept at mathematics and geography, Selkirk then enlisted as a navigator for privateer William Dampier's expedition to South America: a decision that would condemn him to more than four years…

The French Wars of Religion In the late 16th century, France was torn apart by a series of violent religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, with several noble families competing for mastery over the kingdom’s salvation WHAT WERE THE FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION AND WHY DID THEY BREAK OUT? Beginning in 1562, the French Wars of Religion were a series of eight civil wars fought between Roman Catholics and Protestants (or Huguenots) that engulfed the country for 36 years. With the arrival of Protestantism earlier that century into France, a kingdom whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic, years of mounting suspicion and sporadic violence between the two faiths soon divided French society. Efforts by the Crown to tolerate the Huguenots were tentative, although the Edict of Saint-Germain, adopted in January 1562,…

HISTORICAL CONSULTANT FOR THIS MONTH’S ESSENTIAL GUIDE JOHN HATCHER is emeritus professor of economic and social history at the University of Cambridge and the author of numerous books, including The Black Death: An Intimate History (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008) PODCAST For a range of podcasts on the Black Death, including a new, six-part series on the topic, visit historyextra.com/podcast…

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BLACK DEATH LIFE DURING THE BLACK DEATH The boats that docked in 14th-century Europe’s bustling ports brought with them a dizzying array of exotic goods: furs from Russia, nutmeg from southeast Asia, sapphires and rubies from the Indian subcontinent. Yet in this increasingly globalised world, merchants also carried a commodity that you couldn’t buy over the counter: news. And in 1348, that news began to send waves of anxiety pulsing across the continent. Sailors arriving from the far east, India and western Asia brought with them apocalyptic visions of death and suffering on an unprecedented scale. Soon, tales of worms with eight legs dropping from heaven and killing thousands with their stench, and of a contagious smoke striking hordes of people dead, were filling Europeans with…

BLOODLETTING The practice of bloodletting - draining a significant quantity of blood from the body in an attempt to remove infection and ailment - was a cover-all cure in medieval times, used to treat a wide array of afflictions, from fever to epilepsy. Also long adopted as a treatment for plague, it was naturally applied to victims of the Black Death. The blood was withdrawn in one of two ways: either through the use of a blade to the forearm (the blood would then be collected in a bowl, as seen above) or through the application of bloodsucking leeches on the patient’s boils. Unsurprisingly, draining blood from the body was no way of banishing the fatal bacteria. In fact, this cure had the opposite effect. Not only were patients likely…

The Piazzetta, Venice For centuries, the romance and beauty of Venice has inspired artists of all mediums - from Canaletto to Renoir, Monet to Dalí. Little surprise, then, that English Romantic painter JMW Turner fell in love with the city when he first visited in 1819, four years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, at a time when Venice was part of the Austrian empire. “Turner only came to Venice three times, but the city recurs in his works over and over again,” says Charlotte Topsfleld, senior curator of British drawings and prints at the Scottish National Gallery. “And what could be a better subject for an artist who dedicated his life to studying light, air, atmosphere, and capturing the effects of light on water, than Venice?” “Turner was…

The First Punic War ended in 241 BC, with Carthage, led by Hamilcar Barca, defeated by the Romans. The Second Punic War broke out 23 years later, when Barca’s son, the military general Hannibal, marched his troops (and a large number of North African war elephants) over the Alps into Italy. Rather than attack Rome outright, Hannibal made gains in central and southern Italy, instead encouraging a civil revolt against the city-state. This suited the Romans, who were conscious of Hannibal’s tactical prowess and simply picked minor skirmishes rather than a full-throttle battle. These smaller encounters would leave him short-armed and, without the required manpower commitment from Carthage, the general withdrew his men after 15 years in Italy.…

1938 THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL Released in cinemas on 4 February 1938, Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an instant box office success, seen by millions of children across the globe. In fact, such was the film’s cultural impact that - many months after its premiere - the managers of this south London department store decided it would be canny publicity to hire its own cast of characters to serenade shoppers with Christmas carols. Whether the ploy worked isn’t known, but the movie’s popularity certainly didn’t wane. At the 1939 Academy Awards, Walt Disney was presented with a special Oscar in recognition of the film’s commercial and technological achievements, consisting of one regular-sized statuette and seven miniature ones. 1942 FLORAL TRIBUTE Standing on the beach at Kaneohe, Hawaii,…

Pauli Murray: civil rights lawyer Trailblazing attorney Pauli Murray devoted her legal career to tackling racial and gender discrimination in the US. But what drove the civil rights icon and LGBTQ+ pioneer to take up the fight in the first place? When Pauli Murray attempted to enrol at the University of North Carolina in 1938, she was refused due to her race. She went on to study civil rights law at the historically black Howard University in Washington DC, committed to ending Jim Crow, the system of racial segregation in the US. Graduating top of her class, Murray then tried to enrol at Harvard and was again refused, this time due to her gender. Highlighting the plight of black women, she wrote: “What I’m experiencing is Jane Crow.” In the…

Q: When did the Black Death start and end? A: The Great Pestilence is thought to have started in 1346 in the high steppes of Mongolia or eastern China. It then went on a massive circuit of the known world, moving largely eastwards and southwards, across the Mediterranean, working its way down into north Africa, and up through Italy and Spain. In England it arrived in Dorset in the summer of 1348. By the end of 1349 it had spread throughout the rest of England and Ireland and into Scotland. Thereafter the plague moved northwards into Scandinavia and then eastwards, arriving in Russia in 1352-53. In just seven years it had traversed the whole of the known world. The plague spread at two speeds, moving at its fastest as it…

When it started sweeping across the country from 1348, the Black Death destroyed countless families up and down England. The vast majority are lost to history. Yet, occasionally, the written record offers a snapshot of the pain, grief and dislocation experienced by those at the sharp end. One such snapshot is buried in the court rolls for the village of Walsham le Willows, deep in the Suffolk countryside. Those records introduce us to William Cranmer, the head of a family of farmers, who held a tenement from the local landowner. Life, it seems, had hardly been easy for the Cranmers before the Black Death struck their village. Famine had hit Walsham le Willows repeatedly in the 1340s, and William was, the records tell us, fined for keeping too many animals…

While the Black Death swept across towns, cities and countries, people desperately looked to the heavens for salvation. They also looked to God for an explanation for the plague, and went to extreme measures to call upon divine favour. Town squares all over continental Europe teemed with flagellants: men dressed in white robes marked with red crosses on the back, wielding whips and chanting in solemn tones. As their chorus rose to a crescendo, they would get on their knees and start lashing themselves. The whips, which had metal studs or nails tied to the leather thongs, flayed the skin, hut the barbaric self-punishment would continue until the blood sprayed across the square. Flagellants believed that there was a connection between enduring physical pain and avoiding the ravages of plague.…

QUAYSIDE, c1928 Newcastle's quayside bustles with activity in the shadow of the newly completed Tyne Bridge. Taking nearly three years to build, the famous structure was, at the time of its construction, the world's longest single span bridge. Thousands gathered for its official opening ceremony on 10 October 1928, watching as King George V and Queen Mary became the first to travel across it in their landau horse-drawn carriage. CATHEDRAL VIEW, c1890 The living conditions within these old buildings, located on either side of Castle Garth - some dating from the 17th century - were often squalid and unsanitary, and housed some of the city's poorest residents. The famous 15th-century Lantern Tower of St Nicholas Cathedral can also be seen in the distance, looming over its surroundings. INTO THE LIGHT,…

How was Derinkuyu underground city discovered? SHORT ANSWER Strange things can be found during house renovations a city fit for 20,000 people, for instance LONG ANSWER Beneath the volcanic rock of Nevşehir Province, Turkey, a vast warren of tunnels and chambers has existed for many thousands of years. It was once the sprawling underground city of Derlnkuyu, which was expertly carved, expanded and lived in by a long line of different peoples, from the ancient Hittites around the 12th century BC to a variety of Christian groups during the Byzantine period. Historically known as Elengubu, it was the largest of the surprisingly numerous subterranean cities in the region: delving down 85 metres - and 18 levels - was a fully functioning settlement, complete with food stores, stables, ventilation systems, wells…

ONE TO WATCH Blood and guts Vikings: Valhalla / Netflix, streaming now At around the same time as Vikings: Valhalla debuted last year, Netflix announced there would be a second and then third series. It’s easy to see why. Although you would guess that much day-to-day life in the 11th century consisted of muddy subsistence agriculture, showing due respect to local bigwigs, and worrying about nasty diseases, life for explorer Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett) is considerably more exciting. Which isn’t to say it’s easy, and here we should warn you that mild spoilers for season one, which is also available to stream, lie ahead. If the first season was underpinned by the idea of Erikson, son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland, making…

COLUMNIST DR NELL DARBY TELLS THE TRAGIC STORY OF SEX-YEAR-OLD MARY JANE SEWELL, WHOSE UNSOLVED 1928 MURDER LED TO SPURIOUS ALLEGATIONS BEING MADE AGAINST HER OWN MOTHER AND FATHER Sometimes, an event as horrific as a murder, particularly when it involves a child, can have lifelong repercussions. In the ease of Mary Jane Sewell, her parents could not live with knowing that their child had died, that her murderer had not been caught - and that they had been suspected of the murder themselves. Mary Jane Sewell was six when she died yards from her family home in 1928. She lived in the mining village of Sunnybrow, County Durham, at 12 Hill Street, which was in a row of miners' cottages. Mary Jane's father, Anthony, had fought in World War…

1 KAISER WILHELM II WAITED NINE MONTHS BEFORE DECIDING TO LAUNCH THE RAID Following the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914, some people had expected Zeppelins to appear over Britain almost immediately, but most of the airships available at that time were either not up to the task or were required elsewhere. In addition, the German emperor - Kaiser Wilhelm II - initially vetoed the demands of the military to attack Britain by air. With his close ties to the British royal family and, believing like many that the war would soon be over, he did not want to be held responsible for destroying London’s cultural heritage. As pressure mounted on him, and more Zeppelins became available, the Kaiser finally approved the bombing of England in…

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BLACK DEATH ORIGINS OF THE DISEASE There seemed to be no cure. There was such a fear that no one seemed to know what to do. When it took hold in a house, it often happened that no one remained who had not died." This observation by the Florentine chronicler and statesman, the Marehionne di Coppo Stefani, encapsulates the sense of complete helplessness that pervaded all the regions under siege from the Black Death in the mid-i4th century, the most catastrophic pandemic in human history. The world had never seen anything like it before, and medieval society was utterly unequipped to deal with the spread. Now proven to have been caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, passed from the fleas on rats to humans, the killer…

QUARANTINE YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BLACK DEATH In May 1348, a ship glided into the port of Meleombe Regis in England, carrying a disease from the east that had already ravaged the western world. It had killed men, women and children in their thousands quickly and mercilessly. This was the bubonic plague, identified by the blackening ‘buboes’ that formed within the joint area of an infected person - the groin or armpit were the most common places. These were accompanied by bodily aches, cold, lethargy and a high fever. When the infection got into the bloodstream it effectively poisoned the blood, leading to probable death. Some survived the infection, but most people died within days, sometimes hours. This wave of bubonic plague became known then as the Great Pestilence -…

When he led his men and his elephants through the Alps in 218 BC, Hannibal had Rome firmly in his sights. But after several notable victories - most notably the Roman annihilation at Cannae two years later - and despite remaining on the Italian peninsula for the next 15 years, the Carthaginian general failed to conquer the city, suffering from a depletion in manpower and lacking the necessary equipment to breach Rome’s city walls. But what if Hannibal had been successful? How would European culture have been different? And would the Roman empire have still risen to dominate the continent for centuries? Greg Woolf - Ronald J Mellor professor of ancient history at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose books include The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A…

THE ROARING TWENTIES Separate fact from fiction and discover whether life during the 1920s - in Britain and the US - was really as decadent as popular culture would have us believe PLUS… IN PICTURES: VICTORIAN ZOOS THE MARCH OF THE BLANKETEERS SPOTLIGHT ON BESS OF HARDWICK SEVEN THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORY OF LONDON WHAT IF… THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN HAD ACTUALLY WORKED? AND MUCH MORE… CROSSWORD WINNERS The three lucky winners of the prize crossword in issue 114 are as follows: D Findlay, Shropshire H Griffiths, Hampshire J Sandiford, Berkshire Congratulations! You’ve each won a copy of Persians: The Age of the Great Kings by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. We will post your prizes out as soon as possible.…