Resumen
Resumen de La Gran Peste (1348–9 d. C.)
Para quién es
For readers who love history built from documents, medieval England and its Church, and accounts of how people lived through disaster.
De qué trata este libro
The Great Pestilence is a study of the Black Death, the plague that swept across Europe in 1348 and 1349 and killed a very large share of the people in its path. It was written by Francis Aidan Gasquet, an English Benedictine monk and historian, and first published in 1893. Gasquet wrote at a time when many readers thought of the plague as a vague horror from a distant age. He wanted to show it as a real event with dates, places and names.
His method is to go to the records. He reads the registers of bishops, the chronicles kept in monasteries, and the legal and manorial papers of the time. From them he builds a picture of how the disease arrived, how fast it moved, whom it struck, and what it left behind. You will meet the harbour where it landed, the parishes left without priests, and the fields left without hands. You will also meet his larger claim, that the plague changed English religion and rural life for generations. Let us begin with the world the plague entered.
En este resumen
- 1A crowded Europe meets a disease from the EastFree
- 2The plague lands on the English coast
- 3Towns and villages are emptied of people
- 4The bishops' registers count the dead clergy
- 5Fear, flight and faith in the face of death
- 6What the plague changed, and how his case has fared
Idea clave 1 de 6
A crowded Europe meets a disease from the East
Gasquet begins with the wider scene. The plague, he explains, was reported to have come out of Asia, along the trade routes that joined the East to the ports of the Mediterranean. Chroniclers of the day wrote of vast numbers dead in lands far to the east before the sickness ever reached Christian shores. Merchants and sailors carried news of it, and they carried the disease itself.
From the Italian ports the plague moved north and west. Gasquet draws on the account of the Italian writer Boccaccio, who describes the sickness in Florence in the opening pages of his Decameron. There the dying filled the streets, the sick were avoided by their own relatives, and burial could hardly keep pace with death. Gasquet uses such witnesses to show that the fear was real and that it spread as fast as the disease.
He also follows the plague into France, where the papal court sat at Avignon under Pope Clement VI. Reports from that city tell of heavy losses and of the pope's efforts to comfort and protect his flock. The point Gasquet wants you to see is scale. This was not a local outbreak but a single wave that crossed a whole continent within a few years.
He then turns toward England, which he knows best and where his sources are richest. Before the plague, he argues, the country was settled, busy and fairly prosperous in its villages. That picture matters, because it sets up the contrast he draws later between what was lost and what remained.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about La Gran Peste (1348–9 d. C.)
What is The Great Pestilence by Gasquet about?
It is a history of the Black Death of 1348 and 1349, focused mainly on England. Gasquet uses church registers and chronicles to show how the plague arrived, how many died, and how it affected clergy, villages and daily life.
When did the Black Death reach England?
Gasquet follows the chronicles in saying it came ashore in the summer of 1348 at Melcombe Regis in Dorset. It then moved through the west and on to London, and was widespread through 1349.
Who was Francis Aidan Gasquet?
He was an English Benedictine monk and historian who later became a cardinal. He wrote widely on the history of the English Church and monasteries, and first published this study of the plague in 1893.
How many people died in the Black Death according to Gasquet?
After studying the English records, Gasquet concluded that nearly half the population may have died. Many modern historians think a third to a half is more likely, but they agree the loss was enormous.
Is Gasquet's account of the plague still reliable?
It is valuable for its use of bishops' registers and monastic records. Later scholars have revised his death figures and questioned his view of the Church's decline, so it is best read as a pioneering study.