Introduction

In Chapter 18 above on the Black Death’s history in Belgium, it is explained why the history of the Black Death in the Low Countries has not only been divided between the two constituent countries but also has been separated in time and space: the territory of the southern part of the Low Countries, here inaccurately called Belgium, was invaded in the main from France, while the territory of the northern part of the Low Countries, here inaccurately called the Netherlands, was infected from other directions (see below).

Formally, the historical territory of the modern state of the Netherlands consisted, like Belgium’s, of a number of dukedoms and countships, in this case all held by the German emperor, the Prince-Bishropic of Utrecht, Geldern, Overijssel, Zeland, Friesland and Groningen, and the countships of Holland and Drenthe. These territorial divisions correspond largely to the present-day division into provinces. The territory of the present-day Kingdom of the Netherlands comprises 32,600 km2 but, historically, the northern half of the Low Countries did not include the province of Northern Brabant or some small areas on the southern shores of Western Scheldt that at the time constituted the northernmost parts of the ‘Belgian’ County of Flanders. On the eve of the Black Death’s arrival, the northern part of the Low Countries, here inaccurately called the Netherlands, comprised about 27,000 km2.

With a population of roughly 1 million inhabitants in 1469, and, presumably, at least double that figure on the eve of the Black Death, the population density must have been at least 80 persons/km2 before the great epidemic catastrophe, more than double the figure for England, France or Italy. In the Low Countries as a whole, the degree of urbanization in 1469 was a remarkable 34%, in South Holland even 54%. On the eve of the Black Death, when at least twice as many people were living within the same territory, the degree of urbanization must have been significantly higher. In the century preceding the Black Death, many former villages would have grown to contain more than one thousand inhabitants, perhaps several thousand inhabitants, and would have made the sociological transition from village community to a (small) town.