In one week in London, in September 1665, no fewer than 47 different causes of death were reported, including consumption, fever, dropsy, being frighted, a fall, grief, worms, vomiting and plague.

We know this information thanks to a record called a Bill of Mortality, a broad sheet that was printed to list the number of burials in and around the city of London by district and the causes of those deaths.

Having ourselves experienced Covid, we've had our fair share of statistics about infection and mortality used to chart the spread of the pandemic.

They determined government policy, they also spread fear and sometimes hope.

It was the same true of the bills of mortality collected some 400 years ago, who made them, how, why and who read them.

What can we make of the strange causes of death they record? And what do they tell us about life and death in early modern London?

I'm delighted to say that today's guest is Professor Vanessa Harding, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society who has spent a lifetime studying early modern London.

She has a particular interest in housing and the built environment and its trusty and honorary secretary of the historic town's trust.

She has directed or co-directed three major research projects on early modern London and has also written a huge number of articles, chapters and books, including the Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500 to 1670.

You're in for a treat.

Professor Harding is a wonderful scholar. There is little she does not know about early modern London and I am delighted to welcome her today to share her knowledge about the bills of mortality.

Professor Vanessa Harding, welcome to Not Just the Tudors. It's an absolute delight to talk with you again and to think about this most interesting of sources and what it has to tell us.

Thanks very much Susanna.

I suppose given that we can't see them right now or the listeners can't see them right now, it might be worth starting with what a 17th century deal of mortality looked like as a physical document and what sort of information it conveyed.

Well, the bills of mortality, the way we normally talk about them are, as you say, 17th century documents, the hand bills, which means their single sheets printed on both sides.

They're a bit smaller than a four and on the top side, the front side, there is the date, there is a list of the London parishes and there is a list of against each parish.

How many people died in that week and how many people died of plague in that week and then on the reverse side, there's a list that aggregates together the causes of death.

So how many people died in childbirth, how many people died aged, how many people died of the spotted fever.

And we'll come back to how the information for them was collated in a moment.

But what was their intended purpose and I suppose did they take on different purposes for different groups of people?

I'm sure that's the case. Yes, I mean originally the collection of information is for official purposes, but the printed ones that we know are clearly being circulated to the public.

So in a sense it's a recognition that there's a demand for information out there and an attempt to meet it in what proves to be a very popular and interesting and widely circulated way.

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