The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

A thorough account of the Black Death in Europe. Kelly's description is excellent, especially when he recounts the movements of Y. pestis (the plague bacillus). It almost becomes personified at points, "stopping to admire the view" in a given area, attacking "with renewed fury" after "resting for the winter". This plus the descriptions of the lives of typical folk at the time as they encounter the plague makes the devastation wrought by the plague that much more shocking.

Rather squirm-inducing are the descriptions of poor medieval hygiene: one character in Boccaccio's Decameron is quoted as saying that he will do something he hasn't done for a very long time -- undress. We are also reminded of Thomas a Becket and how the fleas and show more vermin poured off him when his attendants stripped him after his death. EW FLEAS. There's so much talk of fleas in this book that more suggestible folk may find themselves feeling itchy just reading about it, as well as wanting to douse everything in their houses in bleach.

Still, there is no shortage of interesting tidbits or even macabre items of amusement. The idea of flinging plague-ridden corpses into a city as a form of biological warfare is so bizarre that I just had to find it funny. Also the scatological names of Parisian streets, inspired by the disgusting sanitary conditions, are sure to amuse your inner five-year-old.

Along the way Kelly contrasts medieval accounts of the plague (sometimes unreliable, especially when it comes to adding up the number of people killed) with modern understanding of the plague as gathered from another outbreak in Victorian times. The differing behaviours and symptoms, primarily the reduced lethality and the lack of nasty gangrenous smells coming off the afflicted in the more modern outbreak, lead some people to believe that the plague wasn't actually the cause of the Black Death, but rather something along the lines of Ebola, a hemorrhagic plague of some kind. Kelly deals with these arguments in an afterword but comes out in favour of the more established plague hypothesis. More of the evidence appears to point to the plague as we know and understand it, and it is conceivable that after 700 years the bacillus' method of attack might have changed a bit. The book also contains notes for further reading.

The only thing preventing me from rating it a full five stars is that there was some rather careless copyediting: extra words, like saying "the a plague", and instances of "were" when the writer meant "where". Minor distractions on the road to an overall compelling read.

Recommended for people who are interested in the medical field, and perhaps those who have read The Plague, by Albert Camus -- after reading this I think I'm due for a reread of that book! show less

This is a fascinating and in-depth look of the Black Plague that swept through Constantinople, Asia Minor, North Africa, and all of Europe in the 14th Century. It seemed fitting to read it now in 2021, in part to remind myself that we've been here before, and to understand more of what went on way back then.

Kelly does a phenomenal job with explaining where the Plague came from, which rodent on the plains of Mongolia carried the flea, and how there were really two kinds of Plague: pneumonic and Bubonic. I had no idea. He also uses contemporary sources as a way to point out that what was "every living soul" in medieval writing was, in truth, closer to 30 percent or 40 percent and why. Because there were different death rates in different show more areas.

And how the plague spread from Mongolia through trade routes (think: bags, packs, pack animals, minimal hygiene) to Caffa on the Black Sea, and then from there to Constantinople. Again, the hyperbole of "everyone on board the ship was dead when it was in port" gets a modern historical review.

The amount of death and destruction, though, is immense. Town by town and city by city he leads us, up water routes and across land routes, and writings by those who survived and those who didn't. Also part of the history are the economic and ecological disasters that happened in different parts of Europe; England was especially hard hit with torrential rains that resulted in widespread famine 20 years before the Plague, with resulting lowered immune systems of the children who survived the famine only to die so quickly of the Plague.

What kept me from giving this book the full 5 stars was the author's commentary and interjections of "he must have thought" and occasional pulling together of threads that too jumbled to make a great deal of sense. show less

Very thought-provoking on a lot of levels. I found the history fascinating. Descriptions of day-to-day living, common perceptions of the working world, ideas about cause and effect were all enlightening. The descriptions of the disease itself were frightening. One interesting side note was the history of Jewish persecution, both apart from and associated with the plague. In this context, what occurred during WW II can be seen as a continuation of the brutality that was inflicted routinely over the centuries preceding the modern world. Just goes to show that human nature doesn't change all that much.

The author addresses the plight of each Europe as a whole, instead of only one country. The reader begins with a chapter on how the disease attacks the body, the three types and how it is spread. Then a timeline of how he disease crossed Europe, examining each country in turn. The author also covers the political drama, horrific Jewish persecutions, the Flagellant movement and natural disasters (earthquakes, flooding) that occurred simultaneously with the Black Death. It is still debated today as to why the Black Death devastated the human population to such an immeasurable extent in the 14th c, and why at that particular time. Kelly seems to be in favor of Nature's far-reaching and corrective hand. The human population was booming and show more the opportunistic rodent populations essentially bred themselves into a "Malthusian pruning mechanism." I'm not sure I'm in agreement, but the author provides an excellent argument.

Food for thought:
"Technological innovation that included the horse collar, the carruca plow, the watermill and the windmill increased agricultural productivity, thus a population boom and protective, isolating forests came down."
"In the later Middle Ages death...was seen as the moment at which the individual...took stock of the meaning of life...The plague pit was the antithesis of this idea: it made death anonymous, casual, and left the individual unrecognizable."
"Many people seem to have died not because they had a particularly virulent case of the plague, but because the individuals who normally cared for them were either dead or ill...The farmers who grew the food and those who carted it into the city were also being decimated by plague."

There are parts that could've been trimmed, but overall an easy read and an excellent starter for anyone learning about the Black Plague. show less

On the plus side, this was an interesting and obviously well researched history of the Black Death, being particularly strong on the scientific background and origins of the plague bacillus. On the minus side, the author’s journalistic use of overly colourful and sometimes anachronistic phrases and putting imaginary words and actions into the mouths and hands of persons grated rather on me. Also in places I felt he digressed a little too far from the main narrative into interesting but not directly relevant (at least not in so much detail) historical developments. Overall though, well worth reading.

This may well be the funniest book I've ever read about the Black Death. Kelly's a good writer with a wry sense of humor. I also enjoyed the way he personified the plague- it's something I've always done in my head, too. I can just see Yersinia pestis striding through the countryside, scythe in hand.

I've read a lot of plague books, so much of the information was familiar to me- but there's a lot of fascinating first-hand reporting from various sources, much of it new to me. The last chapter, about the revisionist theories regarding the actual identity of the plague-causing organism, was entirely riveting.

Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.

In the bonus section of The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague of All Time author John Kelly discusses three people who brought the period of Europe's Black Death to life for him. The first is Jacme De Podio, a peasant from Marseille. After Jacme's son, grand-daughter and daughter-in-law all died from the plague, he decided he should inherit his daughter-in-law's estate. To do so he had to find two witnesses who would swear out in court that she had died. Jacme spent two years searching the plague ravished city of Marseille, finally found the witnesses he needed and inherited the estate. Carpe Diem.

The second was Queen Joanna of Naples and Sicily. One of the major celebrities of 14th show more century Europe, Queen Joanna stood accused of murdering her husband so she could marry her lover. Her trial in the Papal court at Avignon was the must see event of the day, drawing a crowd from every corner of the continent in spite of the plague that ravaged the land. She was found innocent, though later her former in-laws invaded her kingdom forcing her to flee to Provence where she was reuinted with her lover. The third is Agnolo di Tura called Agnolo the Fat. Agnolo, a hard-working man who rose from the lower classes to the upper middle class prior to the plague, wrote one of the better chronicles of the Black Death which sums up the plagues full horror, "And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the fat, buried my wife and five children with my own hands."

The Black Death, called the Great Mortality by those who lived through it, was the greatest tragedy ever to befall Europe. (Whether or not its death toll was worse than that of World War II depends in part on how you manipulate the statistics.) While it brought about an end to the lives of millions, the Black Death changed the course of European history and laid the groundwork for the Renaissance.

Mr. Kelly's book is a thorough and entertaining account of the Black Death from its origins to its after effects. While he presents the historical facts and the scientific details along with the numbers needed to understand the profound effects the Black Death had, Mr. Kelly's focus on the individual people of the time brings the story home as it brings the story to life. The story of the Black Death is full of scoundrals, heroes and everyone in between. Agnolo di Tura will be familiar to anyone who remembers what they studied in middle school, but others, like Queen Joanna of Naples have been kept out of the history books for one reason or another. Hers is one of many fascinating stories in The Great Mortality.

The Great Mortality is a history book for both lovers and non-lovers of history. While there is enough detail in The Great Mortality to answer all but the most obscure questions anyone might have about the Black Death, the book never becomes lost in arcane information or bogged down in academic language. The story of The Great Mortality is always interesting, often moving, and at times inspiring. That all of Agnolo di Tura's children died moves the reader, but so does the knowledge that he carried on in spite of this. In fact, he remarried and became successful enough to complain about his worker's demands for higher wages. show less