...I doubt there were very many of them.
The findings have parallels with the Covid pandemic where, early in the crisis, it emerged Black people were four times more likely to die than white people, mainly because they had a higher risk of infection. Such disparities in mortality decreased as the pandemic wore on. “Medieval England was a diverse population and, like today, issues around people’s heritage [and] wealth have health outcomes,” said Dr Rebecca Redfern, a co-author of the research at the Museum of London.
A 'diverse population', eh? OK, I'm not great with numbers, so...what are the numbers, here?
Writing in the journal Bioarchaeology International, Redfern and colleagues report how they analysed remains from 145 individuals buried at East Smithfield emergency plague cemetery, St Mary Graces and St Mary Spital in London.
145 out of the hundreds of thousands of plague victims, eh? And how many were black?
Of these, 49 died from plague and 96 died from other causes.The results reveal nine plague victims appeared to be of African heritage, while 40 seemed to have white European or Asian ancestry.
Nine? Well, I might be no better than Diane Abbott at maths-related stuff, but I know a miniscule percentage when I hear one.
Dr Onyeka Nubia, a historian at the University of Nottingham and author of Blackamoores, about Africans in Tudor England, said for some, it remains a challenge to accept that people of different ancestries and heritage were an established part of England’s past.
No, it's not a challenge at all, what's a challenge is the attempt to make it sound as if a time traveller to medieval London would find it no different to today in terms of 'cultural enrichment'.
But, he cautioned, historical evidence must be treated objectively. “We have a responsibility to make sure that this information does not get divided between left and right in a culture war,” he added.
If there's a culture war, who was it who fired the first shot, hmm,,?
I would like know if that miniscule percentage applies further away from port cities. One would expect the east end of London to have a large number of transients from all over the world. Perhaps lockdowns would have saved more lives.
ReplyDeleteIf so many non whites were in London in medieval times can anyone name a single non white who fought in the war of the roses?
ReplyDeleteThere is, amongst people who actually know what they are talking about, much debate about whether "The Black Death" was in fact an haemorrhagic fever (a la ebola) and spread by 'people' rather than the supposed bubonic rat spread fallacy (based mostly on much later, and usual, lies about how stupid our ancestors were as compared to the 'enlightened' idiots of today. Actual contemporary facts show they were more than aware of the truth, and the whole 'rats' thing was, like the whole "everybody thought the earth was flat" common knowledge, a blatant later slander).
ReplyDeleteMy point? It began in China (sound familiar) and arrived with ... successive waves of 'immigrants' fleeing the outbreaks in their own countries (ditto).
So ... wouldn't that include a larger than normal, and unusual, number of "diverse" people, all of whom would be both 'already exposed/infected' and thus more likely to die? (in the port cities, but only after infecting actual innocents).
We'll gloss over the whole (never to be mentioned) fact that these 'diverse' people were the very ones who ... brought the plague to these shores in the first place, and thus aren't the "innocent and unfairly singled out victims" but ...the cause and effectively mass murderers.
[I promise I wont mention the current ongoing resurgence of TB, measles, mumps, etc., and certainly not what happened in 2019. I do seem to remember the "poor immigrants hardest hit" propaganda over the last few years though (failing to mention it was those who brought the damn thing here in the first place). History rhyming yet again].
"I would like know if that miniscule percentage applies further away from port cities. "
ReplyDeleteGood point!
"...can anyone name a single non white who fought in the war of the roses?"
Well, the disabled are overrepresented there, at least!
"There is, amongst people who actually know what they are talking about, much debate about whether "The Black Death" was in fact an haemorrhagic fever..."
Ooh, I've not heard that theory. Do the claimed effects fit the typical progression of such viruses though?
Try (for a quite good précis of the research) "Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest Serial Killer" by Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan. It's a 'populist' book (i.e. readable, enjoyable - if you like being scared spitless- and only references most of the research rather than drearily quoting it verbatim).
ReplyDelete