THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 37, Fall 2009
William A. McEachern, Editor
DARK TIMES
During these troubled times, it might add perspective to consider an even darker period. No, not the Great Depression—far worse—One of the most devastating pandemics in human history. The Black Death killed nearly half the population of Europe as the disease crossed the continent during a four-year stretch in the mid-14th century. To give us some feel for what that was like, John Hatcher, a professor of economic and social history at the University of Cambridge, recreates everyday medieval life in an English parish, or village. Based on the remarkable number of documents that survive, he has written what he calls a "literary docudrama."
In The Black Death: A Personal History (Da Capo Press, 2008), Hatcher draws on extensive manorial court records detailing transactions such as fines, taxes, and death duties between lords of the manor and their tenants. From these and other accounts, he concludes that the "great pestilence," as it was then called, reached the Suffolk parish of Walsham about Eastertime 1349, then proceded to kill more than half of the population of about 1,500 in two months.
Hatcher supplements court records with other timely accounts of the day such as sermons and chronicles to weave the personal narratives. This allows us to view events through the eyes of Walsham residents, revealing in horrifying detail what it was like to live and die in these times. Clearly, Hatcher's imputations involve much guesswork, and he acknowledges that. But it's educated guesswork from one of the world's foremost scholars of the period, someone who has been researching and writing about the Black Death for four decades.
His narrative of lord-tenant relations offers rich implications about principal-agent problems, property rights, labor contracts, taxes, death duties, and incentives, as in the distinction "between the deserving poor—those who were entitled to alms because they could not support themselves—and the plethora of false beggars and idlers who sprang up in the aftermath of the great pestilence" (p. 250). Not to diminish the devastation, but one sentence reminded me of reactions during the recent financial meltdown: "As the pestilence persisted, stoical resignation and even lethargy progressively overcame panic and hysteria" (p. 186).
The Black Death had long ranging economic and social consequences. Although authorities tried to reimpose serfdom once the pestilence ended, the depleted workforce meant laborers could command higher wages. Workers thus came to rely less on land tenancy, thereby eroding the feudal system. Events also weakened religious fervor and the central role of the Catholic church in village life, as the many prayers and penitential rituals seemed ineffective. "It was commonly observed in conversations that none of the prayers, professions, confessions, censings, kindling of candles, and ceaseless masses had given any protection against the pesitlence and its force. Rather, death had raged ever more fiercely" (p.186). Indeed, the central figure of Hatcher's tale, a thoughtful and caring parish priest, was at a loss to make sense of things (not unlike some of today's macroeconomists).
Hatcher's "experiment in combining history and fiction" was years in the making and has been crafted with utmost care for historical accuracy. Is his experiment a success? There is much to be said for the approach; the level of recorded detail is astonishing. But, in my reading, Hatcher is not enough of a storyteller to make the narrative sing. In a sense, he seems overburdened by the very facts, events, feelings, and inner life that he tries to convey. Perhaps it's asking too much to be both a world-renowned scholar of the period and an engaging novelist. A lifetime of specialization does not turn on a dime. Still, the facts and events are compelling enough that those with an interest in this sad period will overlook any shortcomings of the narrative.