With her knowing smile and whiff of head-girl mischievousness, Lucy Worsley has always had the air of a detective from a cosy costume drama. Something set in 1955 and featuring a vicar murdered on the croquet lawn. And in Lucy Worsley Investigates (BBC Two, Tuesday), the BBC had given the hyper-enthusiastic historian the perfect vehicle for her sleuthing talents.
In part one, she explored the torch-waving misogyny behind the witch-burning epidemic of the Puritan era (plot twist: it turned out the real baddie was toxic masculinity). And for the second of four episodes, it’s back in time several centuries to the 1340s and the Black Death. This is, of course, a grisly topic, with the population of Britain falling during that time from around six million to an estimated three million (in Ireland between a third and a half of people perished).
Worsley goes full sleuth as she delves into the archives at the wonderfully named Suffolk village Walsham the Willows
Worsley does not make light of the suffering. Nonetheless, she approaches the subject with a sense of derring-do. Her excitement as she delves into the archives has a … well, “infectious quality” probably isn’t the best way of putting it given the context but, goodness, she draws in you in all the same.
The spread of the plague carries obvious echoes of our recent experiences with Covid. Mercifully, Worsley doesn’t condescend to the viewer by making a song and dance about the parallels. We all remember what we’ve just gone through and are fine with not being reminded about it constantly.
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She instead goes full sleuth as she delves into the archives at the wonderfully named Suffolk village Walsham the Willows (sounds like the setting of an obscure folk horror film from the Seventies).
One surprise is that, rather than encouraging the populace to abandon their faith, the Black Death had the opposite impact. Religion was something to cling to as England became hell on earth and there was an upsurge in pilgrimages to holy sites such as Canterbury Cathedral.
Ghoulish though it may sound, there were upsides, too, to half the population perishing in a wave of pestilence. When the apocalypse was over, labour shortages allowed the great unwashed to command higher wages.
“If I were at the peasant level of society, ironically the Black Death might be good for me, if I survived,” says Worsley.
Women’s names are appearing [in the records]. For the first time, they are economically relevant
This view is supported by Professor John Hatcher, an economic historian. “Land becomes abundant and people become scarce,” he says. “Wages rise because workers are scarce. The consequence of that of course is that landowners have the threat of a disorderly peasantry demanding far more in pay — to quote one of the commentators, ‘the world is turned upside down’…It was a transformation.”
The Black Death even made new opportunities available to women. “There are lots of examples of women inheriting land from men,” says Worsley. “Women’s names are appearing [in the records]. For the first time, they are economically relevant.”
Worsley doesn’t go so far as to wrap up the episode in a big happy bow. But this is a nuanced exploration of a great calamity — and a showcase for the presenter’s ability to bring the past engagingly and endearingly to life.
