What a list of Black Death survivors reveals about the way people recovered from plague

Image: The Dance of Death by John of Kastav (1490) via Wikimedia Commons. Image is available from the National Gallery of Slovenia website under the reference number NGS1513. Public Domain. Article by Alex Brown and Grace Owen. The Conversation – May 13, 2026.

In our research in the British Library’s medieval collections, we have identified a previously unnoticed document that provides fresh insights into the survivors of the outbreak of plague known as the Black Death (1346–53). The document – a scrap of parchment inserted into an account of the Ramsey Abbey manor of Warboys in Huntingdonshire – records how much time peasants were absent from work when struck down by the plague. It also reveals the names of those who survived and how long their employers believed recovery could take. In our recent paper with Barney Sloane we shed new light on a group of 22 tenants who probably contracted plague, languished on their sickbeds for several weeks, and then recovered. […]

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