Introduction

The French studies of the mortality in the Black Death have the same strongly lopsided territorial character as the Italian. With one exception they relate to southern or south-eastern France, the exception being a town on the south-central plateau of Forez that can be considered adjacent to the areas of the other data. Provence and the County of Savoy are covered by a surprising number of good or at least fairly good data. This means that we have at best good data for roughly 6–7% of France’s territory of today; in addition, extant sources allow good mortality estimates for three quite large urban centres west and north of Langue-doc. In all, good mortality estimates are available for around 10% of France, and probably a roughly corresponding proportion of France’s population. Clearly, these estimates provide valuable information on the ravages of the Black Death in three French regions containing large populations, vital urban centres and a productive agriculture that can be considered quite representative of urban and rural France at the time. The extant sources underlying these mortality estimates are unselected by humans and the historical work on them is inspired by scholarly curiosity and quest for knowledge. The available mortality data can, therefore, be said to be indicative of the population mortality of France, also because they agree with mortality rates in other countries, not only in Southern Europe or Mediterranean regions but also, for instance, in England.

Mortality in Provence in the Black Death

Baratier’s study on the historical demography of Provence is still the centrepiece of information on the demographic impact of the Black Death and later plague epidemics in this region. The source used to estimate mortality rates in the Black Death is a type of fiscal register called hearths d’albergue (‘feux d’albergue’), which was intended to record the whole population according to hearths/households, including the poor and destitute. Only the generally tax-exempted clerical and noble classes were left out as a matter of principle – social elites that constituted around 8% of the Provençal population. It seems that the parish priests and the regular clergy of monks suffered much the same mortality rates as the general population.