Posted on 06/01/2007 6:38:06 AM PDT by Daffynition
For centuries, rats and fleas have been fingered as the culprits responsible for the Black Death, the medieval plague that killed as many as two thirds of Europe’s population.
But historians studying 14th-century court records from Dorset believe they may have uncovered evidence that exonerates them. The parchment records, contained in a recently-discovered archive, reveal that an estimated 50 per cent of the 2,000 people living in Gillingham died within four months of the Black Death reaching the town in October 1348.
The deaths are recorded in land transfers lodged with the manorial court which – unusually for the period – sat every three weeks, giving a clear picture of who had died and when. The records show that 190 of the 300 tenants holding land in the town died during the winter of 1348-49, at a time when a form of bubonic plague spread by rat fleas would have been dormant.
Experts now believe that the Black Death is more likely to have been a viral infection, similar to haemorrhagic fever or ebola, that spread from person to person.
The records came to light after they were donated to the Dorset History Centre by a firm of solicitors in whose office attic they had been stored.
The historian Dr Susan Scott, of the University of Liverpool, said the documents backed up her theory that the outbreak was not caused by bubonic plague.
She said: “Bubonic plague relies on fleas breeding and it is too cold during winter in Britain for this to happen.”
(Don't bother telling him there was no U.S. Army in the 16th Century - you'd expect a fake Indian to produce fake scholarship.)
Fascinating idea, I bet you're onto something there!
Sorry I wandered on to this thread so late in the discourse, but there was a warm period in Europe from about (if memory serves me) 1100 to 1300. We’re talking major warm winters and stifling summers. You could even call it G——l W-——g. No, seriously, fleas could have survived those winters.
Not so.
No? It's a common take on the song & I didn't know there was any other. Do tell.
Is this another case of junk science?
It’s possible.
America hasn’t always been as attractive a place as it is right now. Ice sheets, asteroids, hurricanes, megavolcanos, plagues of all kinds, drought, earthquakes, etc. It’s probably going to come around again at some point.
If I'm wrong & so much of what's written is wrong, I'd like to know what's corrrect.
(hope it's a good story)
see #53
What experts? I never heard that. Where are they? What do they say? What have they published?
Ha. Just what I suspected- yet another rat-basher.
There is no end to the oppression.
LMAO!
|
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discover Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
|
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
|||
I can’t get the link to work. :(
No wonder the link doesn’t work the article is OLD. lol
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
