In the Wake of the Plague
The Black Death and the World It Made

Norman F. Cantor

New York: Perennial; ISBN: 0-06-001434-2; Pages: 245, index, annotated bibliography

Review © 2003 Branislav L. Slantchev

In the middle of the 14th century, an epidemic spread throughout Europe wiping between 30 and 50 percent of its population, or about 20 million people. The contemporaries referred to this biomedical disaster as "the pestilence" and we refer to it by its 19th century designation, as The Black Death. Judged on its deadliness, this epidemic was probably the worst to hit humanity in its brief history and the European population did not recover to its pre-pestilence levels for almost four hundred years.

Cantor, an Emeritus Professor of History at New York University, offers an eminently readable, if somewhat chaotic and overly erudite, account of the epidemic and its effects on the social, political, economic, religious, and artistic organization of European society. The book is divided into three parts, with the first taking stock of our current knowledge about the disaster's biomedical aspects. Cantor concludes, basing most of his arguments on a book by Graham Twigg, that the epidemic was not exclusively bubonic plague, as most commonly accepted, but rather a combination of diseases, including either anthrax or some similar cattle disease. This is an important qualification because, if proved correct, it would explain several puzzling details about the Black Death, including its astonishingly quick spread and, more interesting from a social perspective, why the Jews seemed relatively immune to it (better diet), which in turn explains why they were singled out for persecution by the superstitious Christians.

In the second part, Cantor analyzes the effects of the plague on various strata of society, starting with the political (kings), going through economic relationship between lords and peasants, and then dealing with the clergy and the impact on the Church. Perhaps more interestingly, he also deals with the economic position of women (who tended to survive their husbands) and the persecution of the Jews for their alleged conspiracy to poison the wells. There is not much that is new here but the material makes for fascinating reading, especially given the authors penchant for the dramatic. For example, would you have guessed that the entire fortunes of the Plantagenet dynasty hinged on Princess Joan's marriage in Spain and when the plague got her at Bordeaux, the family's fortunes were sealed along with the ending of the Hundred Years War? A bit stretched perhaps, but intriguing. The economic consequences of the plague for feudalism are better described in North and Thomas's The Rise of the Western World. I did find it surprising that monks ate so much meat though.

The last part of the book covers some odds and ends that don't neatly fit with the rest. In one chapter, Cantor discusses medieval and modern superstitions purporting to explain the epidemic. He lumps together both mystical causes (serpents, even stating at one point that modern journalists lapse in similar mysticism when discussing the probable consequences of natural disasters, a rather tenuous assertion) and more serious scientific hypotheses (e.g. the theory that cosmic dust causes periodic outbreaks of various deadly diseases). In the next chapter he muses on the probable origins of the various plagues that have afflicted Europe and points to Africa as the cradle of both humanity and its worst biomedical enemies. The last chapter summarizes the various arguments and attempts both a critique of existing works that attempt to trace the impact of the Black Death on art and a somewhat unsuccessful synthesis, again going a bit far in asserting how the fate of civilization was altered by the pestilence.

Although an entertaining read, the book is hard to follow because the author goes for pages covering a complicated history bristling with names and dates without giving a clue about his argument and the purpose of the exercise. Sometimes it seems as if he delights in simply showing off how many allusions to classical (or obscure) authors and events he can cram into the narrative. The accounts are both too detailed and hurried. There's too much for such a short book and too little to do the subject justice. Of course, integration of such diverse material is always difficult but could have been done better nevertheless. The main subject of the book is also been done better by William McNeill in his ground-breaking book on the effects of epidemics on civilization. Still, a worthwhile read for those interested in that bleakest period for Europe. It is, of course, astonishing that less than a century after the devastation Spain was busy conquering the New World with great success (incidentally wiping out most of the native population in the process with diseases to which the Indians had no immunity, like smallpox).

October 10, 2003