#my other big niche is the russian revolution but that’s wayy more complicated and i’m lazy

[wander-wren]

i’m back again. i told you i have 3-5. we’ll see how long my focus hangs out. the second historical niche i really love is the Village of Eyam. this one is for the black plague babes. under a cut this time, sorry i messed up and didn’t do it on the last reblog and now it’s too late to fix. pls forgive me.

i believe it did the rounds on tumblr at the start of the pandemic, which is how i learned about it, so bear with me if you know the story.

the village of eyam is a tiny community in derbyshire, england. as we all know, the bubonic plague wiped out most of europe in the 13-1400s, but it remained an intermittent problem for centuries after. this story takes place in 1665 & 1666.

in september of 1665, a tailor named george viccars visiting eyam ordered a bale of cloth. unbeknownst to anyone, the cloth arrived carrying fleas which were carrying the plague. within days, he began to show symptoms, and the disease started to spread. over the winter and spring, 42 villagers died, and many were preparing to flee their homes. the new reverend, william mompesson, stepped in. h decided the town needed to quarantine.

(if you’ve heard anything about eyam inventing quarantine that’s a lie. i believed that for a bit, so i’m not sure how common it is. quarantine comes from a french word referring to sending plague victims out on a boat for four weeks and seeing who had survived after, iirc. but that was centuries earlier.)

he wasn’t very popular and of course no one was eager to agree to stay to die. but they were convinced eventually, and everyone settled in to wait. a well at the outskirts of the village was set up, filled with vinegar, and coins were left there to pay for supplies that were dropped off so as to avoid contamination. church was held outside, socially distanced. everyone was confined to their houses.

in fourteen months, out of a village of anywhere from 350-800, 260 people died. burials in the churchyard were prohibited in the summer of 1666, when deaths were coming every single day. we know the exact dates of every single death thanks to william mompesson’s record keeping.

sorry seeing this makes me so fucking emotional. eyam hurts me. i’m not sure how much tumblr bungled the quality, so i’ll link the list at the bottom, but if you can read that i want to direct your attention to a few different stories.

first, i know i read this but can’t currently verify it, so i don’t have names. but i remember reading about a boy and girl who snuck out to walk in the hills together, only to bring the plague down on both of their families.

teenagers. trying to take a walk. and everyone died for it. even if it isn’t exactly true, fuck, you guys.

but about the actual confirmed deaths and stories. all of these are from august, the worst month for deaths.

first, august 27th and 30th—joan and william howe. marshall howe was an early survivor of the plague and buried many of the victims, believing he could not catch the plague twice. his wife and son were likely killed when he brought home contaminated objects stolen from the dead. i have no information as to whether this was a malicious graverobber and an act of karma, or a man trying to survive and find a little light with dubious morals. either way, he killed his family. and that’s. yeah.

also august 25th: catherine mompesson, 27 years old, william mompesson’s wife. the day before she died, they took a walk in the hills. she was the only person during this time to be buried in the churchyard, by her husband himself. he thought he would be sick before long and join her, but he managed to survive the plague. she was one of his first and only supporters in quarantine, but she may have initially wanted to leave if some sources are to be believed. it was his decision to stay. i get so torn up about it.

now, my personal favorite eyam story and the one that makes me want to cry.

august 3rd. john and elizabeth. august 7th. oner, john, and william. august 9th. alice. august 10th. anne.

elizabeth hancock buried her husband and six children in eight days. they’re buried behind her house, in a field, currently known as “the riley graves” for the owner of the field. this image is used everywhere as a depiction of her, but i haven’t managed to find the artist.

i just. god. i can’t imagine.

i mean, in a way, we know covid, right? but the plague moved so much faster, and these people had little to no understanding of how it worked, no treatment. just empty houses and a whole lot of graves.

it’s said that others from nearby villages sometimes stood on the hills to look at eyam from afar. i keep wondering about elizabeth hancock. wondering if anyone was watching her in those eight days. if she was angry at them, if she had room to be. if she was too busy grieving and preparing for her own death. i wonder if the other villages pitied them, or grieved them, or wondered about their stories. or if they were just grateful to be saved by sacrifice and stopped there.

god, eyam rips me up inside. it’s so fucking sad. and we have so many personal stories because of the records that were kept, but we also have so many mysteries.

link 1, link 2. again, i already knew most of this off the top of my head, but those are starting points for more info. the second link includes a better image of the death list and a transcribed version with more information gathered from other records.

let’s talk historical niches

i firmly believe most people have a historical time period or event or trend they are extremely interested in and know a lot about. someone alluded to one of mine in class today and i have not calmed down about it, so let’s share! reblog and infodump about your niche history interest <3