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Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History, The English Historical Review, Volume CXXI, Issue 490, February 2006, Pages 197–199, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cej012
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The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History. By OLE J. BENEDICTOW (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 2004; pp. xvi + 433. £30).
TO call one's book ‘the complete’ history might be thought a hostage to fortune, but Professor Benedictow disarmingly points out that ‘complete’ is not the same as ‘final’. This study is complete in the sense that it aspires to cover all of Europe, although inevitably the paucity of sources for some regions means that coverage is not uniform. Even so it is an ambitious undertaking and one not attempted before, at least in this degree of detail. There is, of course, a price to be paid for the geographical range. Beyond the Nordic region the author is necessarily dependent on the work of others and has, unsurprisingly, proved unable to trawl all the most recent work in the field. The preponderance of older authorities perhaps explains the rather old-fashioned air of some of the contextualisation. It is also apparent, when he ventures beyond his central concern with the plague's epidemiology, that his grasp of detail can wobble. His discussion of the evidence from wills is vitiated by a blurring of the distinction between the dates of composition and probate, for instance. But it is for his investigation of the plague's spread and the ensuing mortality that the book will be read and its findings cited, most notably, no doubt, the author's insistence that across Europe mortality in the first outbreak of plague was of the order of 60 per cent, and probably higher. Estimates of plague mortality in that outbreak have been drifting upwards over the last decade from around a third to ‘approaching’ a half (most historians have seemed unwilling to commit themselves to a one-in-two death rate). Benedictow's recalculations, although part of that trend, would therefore, if accepted, entail a significant change to current thinking, particularly (although this is not primarily his concern) to debate about the plague's impact.