Fear and faith: coping with the Black Death

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.3 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For those who lived through it, the Black Death left a legacy of fear, loss and uncertainty. But how did people cope with such overwhelming catastrophe? And what do contemporary records reveal about the disease’s emotional impact? In this second episode of our three-part Sunday Series on the devastating disease, Emily Briffett and historian Thomas Asbridge – author of new book The Black Death: A Global History, published by Allen Lane – step into the medieval world at the height of the pandemic to explore human stories of despair, hope and survival. ––––– GO BEYOND THE PODCAST If you’d like to find out more about the Black Death and its impact on the medieval world, Emily Briffett has put together some essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra archive to help deepen your understanding: https://bit.ly/4mVQu01 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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