Introduction

The best source material and the best estimates of mortality in the Black Death relate to Spain, Italy, France and especially England. North Africa, the Near East, the Middle East and Central and Northern Europe have little or nothing to offer in the form of demographically valid estimates of mortality based on (some type of) population registrations. M.W. Dols renders many narrative Islamic sources that mention or refer to great mortality but not sources suitable for mortality estimates. He has made a heroic but, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempt at producing an estimate of the mortality in Egypt and Syria. In the case of these countries and regions, we are dependent on the chroniclers, who regularly claim high but also highly varying mortality rates. This provides a sort of flimsy and impressionistic notion of high or dramatic mortality. It is also clear that the recurrence of plague epidemics reduced the populations throughout these regions still further, according to a pattern that in an impressionistic manner suggests considerable similarity to the demographic developments in Europe.

Sources for estimation of population size and mortality rates

Mortality rates can only be estimated from a known number or proportion of deaths in a population of known size. Only data based on registrations of populations living in the same area shortly before and shortly after the Black Death can come into consideration for mortality estimates. The concept of ‘population’ is here used in the demographic meaning of any category of people living within a defined area. It can refer to total or general populations, for instance, national populations, regional populations, diocesan or parochial populations, urban populations or rural populations. It can also refer to special social segments of people living within a defined area, including nobility, gentry, upper classes, peasants, children, women, bishops, parish priests, town councillors, burghers, artisans or subgroups under that concept such as bakers or smiths, and so on. (It may even refer to animals, in our case rat populations or flea populations.) Differential mortality according to age, gender or social class can reveal information on the Black Death’s epidemiology and on the social structures that conditioned the social behaviour of various social groups or segments. Dramatic mortality in the upper classes may affect the mentality of the time and its artistic, cultural and religious expressions with particular social impact.