0:02

and shop

0:26

Add however you like. That's

0:29

k8japi.com/ACAST. Go to

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kajabi.com slash ACAST. In

0:41

our world today, there are major

0:43

wars being fought. We

0:45

have recently gone through a global

0:48

pandemic, and there are still places,

0:50

shamefully, where people go hungry and

0:52

starve. I imagine, however,

0:54

that most of you listening are not

0:56

facing these realities on a daily basis.

0:59

And I believe that the study of

1:01

history has the capacity to sharpen our

1:04

critical faculties and to

1:06

enlarge our empathy. Today

1:08

on Not Just the Tudors, we are

1:10

thinking about the brutal realities of life

1:12

in the 16th and 17th centuries, the

1:16

almost total war, and the

1:19

development of means of warfare that made

1:21

war catastrophic for civilians as well as

1:23

soldiers. We're considering not

1:26

just one pandemic, but multiple

1:28

epidemics that recurred with

1:30

ruthless regularity. And

1:33

we're thinking about both man-made and

1:35

natural famine. It's

1:37

a wonder that anyone survived the period at

1:39

all. To introduce

1:41

us to these grim facts is

1:44

Professor Ole Peter Grell. His

1:47

book, co-written with Andrew Cunningham, The

1:49

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse –

1:51

Religion, War, Famine and Death in

1:53

Reformation Europe, has long been a

1:55

touchstone of mine and I highly,

1:57

highly recommend it. It

1:59

considers... Today

2:02

our discussion says his own. Just three

2:05

of them. the rode horses more. The

2:07

Black Horse of Famine and the Pale

2:09

Horse of Death and Disease that the

2:12

fourth Horseman. The. Threat of apocalypse

2:14

that hung so heavy over the lives

2:16

of the Tudors in their contemporaries. Was.

2:18

As a companion. After

2:21

fifteen years University of Cambridge professor

2:24

Grow became professor of Early Modern

2:26

History at the Open University. He's

2:28

the author of numerous books exploring

2:30

the impact of the European Reformation,

2:32

midst and disease, and his cat.

2:35

And the impact of epidemics and climate

2:37

change in mood and you and delighted

2:39

that he joins me to the. Professor.

2:48

Got welcome to not just the

2:50

Tudors. Thank you Know your book

2:52

has been one that I have

2:54

been returning to for many years

2:56

because I think it really gives

2:58

a sense of the overwhelming level

3:00

of threat and the spectre, the

3:02

food of fear under which the

3:04

people who lived in the sixteenth

3:07

and seventeenth centuries and you are

3:09

considering your four horsemen of the

3:11

Apocalypse in your work. But we're

3:13

going to take just three of

3:15

them today, and the first one

3:17

is the. Red Horse with his

3:19

warfare in the years. Fifteen

3:21

hundred to seventeen hundred. the.

3:24

Major. Countries of Europe were at war

3:26

night five percent of the time. Can

3:28

you tell us a bit about how

3:30

warfare was developing in these years? I

3:33

the probably limited to the hundred

3:36

and fifty years. From fifteen hundred

3:38

to the into the so two

3:40

years war a peters out after

3:43

then quite a bit with these

3:45

whirlpools. Years and warfare was endemic

3:48

across Europe and as a result

3:50

of it you got what you

3:52

know. the amongst historians is called

3:55

to belittle resolution which meant love

3:57

saw arm is. Better.

3:59

equipped of a more

4:01

lethal nature of course because canons in

4:03

particular are coming in to play a

4:06

particular role and causing more

4:08

devastation than ever seen before. You

4:11

also have in this period

4:14

sieges became longer and

4:16

they caused of course famine,

4:19

they caused disease and

4:22

a higher degree of death

4:24

in populations in and

4:26

around. I

4:28

suppose this is a period in which

4:30

as you described we have got this

4:33

kind of technological innovation and another feature

4:35

that really strikes me of the military

4:37

revolution is the size of

4:39

armies is just growing exponentially.

4:41

Yes, there is no doubt

4:43

that armies are growing quite

4:46

fast and what

4:48

we tend to possibly forget

4:50

in our day is

4:52

that with the extra number of

4:54

soldiers we get extra number

4:56

of animals. So

4:59

you would have had colossal

5:01

numbers of troops with

5:03

them probably double the number of animals to

5:06

sustain the transport and

5:08

the cavalry and you

5:10

would have had army followers who

5:12

were basically providing a lot of

5:15

the provisions, the logistics and

5:17

making a living out of actually

5:19

supplying individual regiments.

5:22

So army camps would have been colossal and

5:25

an army of a certain size

5:27

travelling through the countryside would have

5:29

laid it bare and it is

5:31

quite clear from the evidence we

5:34

have that it is completely devastating.

5:36

An army travelling through your neighbourhood

5:38

would result often in

5:40

horrible disease and famine apart from

5:43

all the other incidents. Yes,

5:46

I think that is so important because

5:48

it is not just having an effect

5:50

on those who are soldiers. This is

5:52

something that is having an impact on

5:55

civilian life and I wonder

5:57

also if there is something to be said

5:59

about the dominant of war in the way

6:01

that it affected social and cultural life at the

6:03

time? It undoubtedly did.

6:05

You can see it from

6:08

the writings that the fear

6:10

of actually being roped into

6:12

war was devastating in kind

6:14

of social life and

6:16

what to expect. So people would

6:18

abandon areas if they thought they

6:21

were at risk of being invaded

6:23

or laid seeds to. And there

6:25

was of course a natural discussion

6:27

within cities on the seeds what

6:29

to do because the fear

6:31

of course of being taken

6:33

by storm, whereby everything was

6:35

open to the storming soldiers, rape

6:38

and pillage and everything which went with

6:41

it was scary. So we have of

6:43

course throughout this period many

6:45

incidents where the besieging armies

6:47

paid off to go away

6:50

to avoid the further consequences

6:52

of what could happen. I mean what's

6:54

very striking as you speak is as

6:56

we'll see that the links between

6:59

these different manifestations, these different horsemen

7:01

of the apocalypse certainly ride together

7:03

don't they? Because the black horse

7:06

that of Samin is crucial when

7:08

we're thinking about military strategy. I

7:11

wonder if you can tell us about the siege

7:13

of Saint-Cer of 1573 because

7:16

I'm always surprised how few

7:18

people know about this and

7:20

it is you know this extraordinary

7:23

eight-month siege by

7:25

Catholic royal forces against

7:28

this Protestant town or the Huguenot town we

7:30

might think of it as and over 500

7:32

people die. I'm particularly interested in the French

7:35

wars of religion and the impact they have

7:37

on people but this is

7:39

an extraordinary example that we have such

7:41

good evidence of as well. It

7:43

is a particularly strong example

7:46

of the collapse of

7:48

civil structure. You

7:50

start by eating your last

7:53

provisions and then you start focusing

7:55

on dogs and horses and whatever

7:59

and in some cases In some cases, there is of course

8:02

the idea that or the fear that

8:04

you're starting to eat fellow human beings

8:06

who died. And

8:08

the significance of something like that of

8:10

course is that everything breaks down. We

8:13

tend to think about modern warfare

8:15

in the 21st century as involving

8:17

more civilians than ever. But

8:19

I think that's probably a complete illusion. It

8:22

involved civilians to an extent some of

8:24

us would have found absolutely

8:26

amazing in that period. Because

8:29

there really is nothing left in Saint-Sere

8:31

towards the end. Yes,

8:34

I mean I was so struck by the

8:36

fact that they're trying to eat leather, and

8:38

then they're trying to eat books and paper,

8:40

and trying to boil them up. The

8:42

30 Years War is full of little

8:44

pamphlets claiming that these kind of sieges

8:47

have led to people eating their fellow

8:49

citizens because there was nothing else to

8:51

eat. And it's probably an overstatement in

8:53

some cases, but there's no doubt that

8:56

you eat to a point where there's

8:58

nothing left. Everything is broken down, human

9:00

relations, civil structures, and it's

9:03

just amazingly horrible, so to speak. Yes,

9:06

and you're absolutely right. This is one of the

9:08

instances where we do have records

9:10

about the cannibalism, the eating of

9:12

a child as a three-year-old girl

9:14

you talk about here. And

9:17

I suppose what's particular about this famine is that

9:19

we have such good evidence of it. And

9:22

I suppose most of the time people aren't

9:24

keeping records. The last thing they're thinking about

9:26

when they're absolutely starving is, let's write this

9:28

down. But in this instance, we have a

9:30

Hugo minister in the camp who

9:32

at some point then or later writes

9:35

down the details. So we get that kind of granular

9:38

information about the number of

9:40

people dying each day, the

9:42

vulnerability of the young, and

9:44

this turning to such

9:47

desperate measures even to the

9:49

point of eating a young girl. Yeah. We

9:51

are, of course, quite fortunate to have

9:54

that detailed record of what happened. In

9:57

many cases, I think there may well have been similar

9:59

records. court if you take the

10:01

30 Years War but they have

10:03

simply not survived. What has survived

10:06

there is popular pamphlets which in

10:08

some cases seem to quote similar

10:10

kind of events but

10:13

this of course is so detailed and

10:15

over the whole stretch of the siege

10:17

that it stands out and

10:20

of course as always the sources we

10:22

have to be lucky to have something as good as

10:24

that to tell us what happened. So

10:26

this is a famine that clearly

10:28

looks like it's man-made. More

10:31

generally speaking were famines man-made

10:33

or were they natural? What

10:36

is interesting about this period which

10:38

of course is as we point

10:40

out the first time since the

10:42

Black Death that the European population

10:44

is seriously increasing and

10:46

in this period I think we can

10:48

justifiably say that the population of Europe

10:51

more or less doubled. So that's

10:53

quite a dramatic event and

10:55

it was clearly problematic for food production

10:58

to keep up with that and

11:00

it takes I think the

11:03

whole period for most

11:05

food production to catch up and

11:07

obviously in the most well-organized countries

11:09

like the Netherlands and England they

11:11

catch up earlier so we

11:13

don't get towards the end

11:15

of the period peace time famines in

11:18

these countries but

11:20

you certainly have them across

11:22

Europe more significant to start

11:24

with than towards the end of

11:26

the period and

11:28

of course if you go to

11:30

something like a major European incident

11:32

which is well recorded and covered

11:34

across Europe like the Peasants Wars

11:37

that is preceded by three

11:39

very serious famines in

11:42

peacetime across southern Germany.

11:44

Yes and of course we have to

11:47

understand it's absolutely a cause of these

11:49

revolts. I want to ask you

11:51

what we should know about the diet of

11:53

the lower orders of society at this time

11:55

that would have made it more vulnerable to

11:57

famine and starvation than they might otherwise be.

12:00

have been? The

12:02

kind of agricultural production

12:05

had been basically the

12:07

same for a very long period after the

12:09

Black Death and to

12:12

actually expand it and cover that

12:14

kind of population growth in

12:16

terms of serial production and so on

12:18

would have been very difficult. There

12:21

is of course that to be said about famine

12:23

that of course it's the lower

12:25

orders of society who suffer. Nothing

12:28

new in that and in many

12:30

respects nothing has changed but

12:32

at the higher up of course where

12:35

you could afford a better diet, more

12:37

kind of dairy products, more meat and

12:39

all these things the effects

12:41

were minimal. To a great

12:43

extent I think the changes which we have

12:45

in this period too in

12:48

how you socially construct society

12:51

it is clear that the attempts to

12:53

improve poor relief and

12:55

assistance in crisis is

12:58

something which is closely linked to that. There's

13:00

a realisation at least in some quarters that

13:02

we can't just leave this undone

13:05

and nothing happening and just wait

13:07

for people to die. We have

13:09

to then make sure that for

13:11

instance some cities would buy in

13:13

corn supplies in order to keep

13:15

the price low and

13:17

also introducing ways

13:19

and means to help the down and outs

13:22

so they didn't die immediately. So things

13:25

are improving, the situation is ameliorating over

13:27

the course of these two centuries but

13:30

could you give some idea

13:32

of how regular

13:35

an occurrence famine was in this period?

13:38

I think if you start thinking of

13:40

famine as something which could occur quite

13:43

easily within a decade or two in

13:46

most societies to start with that

13:49

is harvest failed, the

13:51

weather, whatever meant that suddenly there

13:54

was a crisis and

13:56

because society with a growing population

13:58

was living quite closely. Ever

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18:10

How did they understand salmon? What did

18:12

they think caused it? They

18:15

were obviously alert to

18:17

what we would call natural developments

18:20

like lack of rain, disease

18:23

of whatever nature. At the same

18:25

time, of course, they understood it

18:28

very much as the book points

18:30

out in a religious context. So

18:33

you would have interpreted

18:36

your kind of natural disasters as

18:38

part of God's plan. And

18:41

of course, in this period, with

18:43

a strong apocalyptic flavor that

18:45

the more of it you got, the closer we

18:47

were to the second coming. And you could of

18:50

course find plenty of evidence in the Bible for

18:52

that. Yes, I suppose these two

18:54

centuries very much look

18:56

like you're approaching the end

18:58

days. You mentioned disease as

19:00

well. And I want to pick up

19:02

on that. Obviously famine, obviously, the sort

19:05

of siege warfare that we have going

19:07

on is going to add to the

19:09

likelihood of epidemic disease, super

19:11

spreader events, I suppose one could think of

19:13

them as in modern terms. And you

19:15

look in your book at the pale horse,

19:17

which is disease and death. And

19:20

one of the diseases that appears

19:22

in this period for the first

19:24

time is very true referred to

19:26

as the Neapolitan disease or the

19:28

great pox or the more Biscalicus.

19:31

How and where was this new

19:33

disease first identified? And what were

19:35

its symptoms? The

19:37

symptoms seem to have been much

19:39

more dramatic to start with. And

19:42

the pox or some people thought it's

19:44

very similar to syphilis, but as a

19:46

historian, I would avoid to make that

19:48

comparison. But it clearly is a

19:51

disease of that nature. It

19:53

seems to spread very rapidly in the

19:55

first couple of decades of the 16th

19:57

century. would

20:00

seem to have had a slightly different

20:02

shape. It killed more

20:04

people, it killed them faster, but it

20:06

was easily identified, of course, because

20:09

of the smell and the tendency

20:11

of your sexual organs to rot

20:14

away. And there was, of course,

20:16

a big industry in trying to deal with it, which

20:19

never was that successful. And

20:21

to some extent, you could say that the

20:23

pox became the stepping stone for a new

20:26

physician like Para Celsus to

20:28

step forward and offer different

20:31

solutions. But gradually, it settled

20:33

down the pox. It

20:35

was there and a problem well into

20:38

the 17th century, but it had

20:41

then become a slower disease, which

20:44

obviously started with some of the

20:46

early signs of it, which could

20:48

be identified. But then people didn't

20:50

die from it until within 20

20:53

years often. So it

20:55

changes its nature over time. There is

20:57

a general idea that this is a

20:59

new disease, which of course, there's

21:01

a feeling it's originate from the new

21:03

worlds, and has been brought

21:05

back as a punishment in these latter

21:07

days. So many interesting

21:10

things you said there. I want to first

21:12

of all ask you about this idea that

21:14

as a historian, you talk about it in

21:16

a different way, because we

21:18

get the name syphilis emerging in the

21:20

1530s. Is it appropriate to

21:23

use that terminology for the disease that

21:25

has developed over 40 years or so

21:27

by that point in time? And

21:29

what causes you to feel

21:31

wary of applying labels to

21:33

previous pathogens? I

21:36

quite like the original labels,

21:38

which of course, have geographical

21:40

or national significance. So

21:43

the French pox clearly

21:45

is very much the way it's

21:47

portrayed from England, and

21:49

is possibly because people

21:51

have encountered it first there. Syphilis

21:54

is of course, a more modern

21:56

concept of similar or same disease.

21:59

But for contemporary it was known

22:01

as the Pox, often with a

22:03

geographical addition and whatever, but that

22:05

was what they saw it as.

22:07

And it clearly again

22:10

was seeing an apocalyptid light

22:12

because this was a new disease which

22:15

had suddenly arrived. There was of

22:17

course within the medical textbooks, there was

22:20

nothing there to help you. Galen

22:22

had never seen anything like that, so there was

22:24

nothing about it. And that of

22:26

course opened up the possibilities of treatment.

22:29

There was the Fugmer patients who were

22:31

basically cornering the mark and fuck Wicom,

22:33

the woods they would burn in bath

22:35

in order to help people. And

22:38

then of course eventually other treatments,

22:40

mercury, especially through people

22:43

such as Paracelsus come through. But

22:46

it was of course also a disease which people

22:49

could see quite quickly. It had

22:51

physical effects on people. You could see

22:53

that they were clearly affected by it,

22:56

and that was before they were mentally

22:58

affected by it too and then completely

23:00

mad. What was the social

23:02

impact of the Pox? I think

23:05

probably there would think it had

23:08

the greatest impact amongst the

23:10

upper echelons as opposed

23:12

to the lower echelons. The reason

23:14

for that is again that we have

23:16

more evidence preserved of that, and when

23:18

you go to the lower

23:21

groupings in society, their lifespan

23:23

was relatively short. So

23:25

in many cases we would not

23:27

know to what extent the Pox

23:29

had actually hit them as

23:32

seriously as we know, especially amongst

23:34

European royalty and nobility. And

23:37

obviously people are thinking of this, as you

23:39

said, in this kind of apocalyptic way. Is

23:43

there an added dimension to the fact that

23:45

this appears to be a sexual disease? The

23:47

association with sin? Do people have an idea

23:49

that what has caused it is that? Undoubtedly.

23:53

So again that would have added an

23:55

even stronger apocalyptic feel to it. general

24:00

human sin and lack of

24:02

morality was now being hit

24:04

directly by God by introducing

24:06

a new disease, the

24:08

pox, and no doubt

24:11

that would have shaped the way people

24:13

looked at it in contemporary terms. Talking

24:16

of new diseases, can we

24:18

discuss the sweating sickness? Yeah,

24:21

it's also known as the

24:23

English sweating disease in

24:25

continental Europe because it obviously

24:28

wheezed, especially Scandinavia and northern

24:30

Germany from England, and

24:32

was clearly a type of flu, but

24:35

quite devastating. It killed a

24:37

lot of people. It seemed

24:39

to have been prevalent in a

24:42

20-year period, but not more than that,

24:45

and then gone away again. But again,

24:47

a new disease which

24:49

has a dramatic impact because clearly

24:51

there was no resistance to it,

24:54

and again, a wonderful thing

24:56

to add an apocalyptic loss to.

24:59

Here we are in the latter days, and one

25:01

more disease is added to it. And

25:03

I suppose we might now understand

25:06

its disappearance, which seems so mysterious

25:08

that it comes and then goes,

25:11

as actually being what politicians

25:13

talked about as herd immunity. You reach

25:15

a point at which the virus can't

25:17

do any more damage or enough

25:19

people have been exposed. No,

25:21

I think it's a classic equivalent to flu.

25:23

It will kill dramatically

25:25

to start with, and then gradually

25:27

the immune base is building up, and

25:30

then it will disappear. It will disappear

25:32

also because it becomes less

25:34

virulent. You would imagine that the

25:37

leftovers, so to speak, of the sweating disease

25:39

or the English sweating disease was

25:41

there for another couple of decades, but

25:44

not causing any death serious

25:47

illness. And in those

25:49

early days when it is in its

25:51

more extreme form, obviously sweating is one

25:53

of the symptoms, but what are the others? The

25:56

sweating of the high temperatures is what we know. That's really

25:58

it. So people, people, people, people, people, people die from

26:00

either dehydration or basically the high temperature

26:03

will get them earlier than that. But

26:06

we don't really know much

26:08

about it. And I suppose

26:10

part of that is because people die so quickly. Isn't it

26:12

one of those ones that if they're going to die,

26:14

they often die within 24 hours? 24

26:17

or 48 hours. So it's fast. And

26:19

I would imagine that no one was

26:21

hanging around to find out exactly what

26:24

it was. In the

26:26

21st century way, you got people

26:28

buried as quickly as possible. And

26:30

that was it. And

26:33

also the other big one, I suppose, is

26:36

the plague. And people often think of the

26:38

plague as the Black Death of the 1340s.

26:42

How common was the plague in Europe in

26:44

the 16th and 17th centuries? It

26:46

was surprisingly common. And

26:48

most urban communities of a certain

26:51

size would be faced

26:53

with it within certainly

26:55

two decades, often within one

26:57

decade, and then repeated again.

27:00

So yeah, it never went away from Europe until

27:02

suddenly we get to the middle of the century

27:05

and it starts then disappearing. And the

27:07

last plague incident in Europe is must

27:10

say in the early 18th century, but

27:12

it's quite unique and standing out. And

27:15

plague, of course, was and remained

27:17

an absolutely horrific disease. On

27:20

average, every 10 years in London

27:22

killed about 20 percent of the population. And

27:26

the amazing thing is that London is growing at the

27:28

same time quite rapidly. So people

27:30

are streaming in from

27:32

the countryside to find opportunities

27:35

in the bigger cities. But as

27:38

a consequence of them packing in closely

27:40

together, there is an

27:42

enormous death toll at regular intervals.

27:45

You say in your book that

27:47

disease identity does not consist

27:50

solely in its causative microorganism, the pathogen,

27:52

and that a significant part of its

27:54

identity is constituted by how it's experienced

27:56

by those who suffer it. That is

27:59

to say people's perception of it. So

28:02

what was people's perception of the

28:04

plague given the enormity of the

28:06

mortality rate and the regularity of

28:08

its occurrence, how did they understand

28:10

its identity on a psychological level?

28:13

Again, I think the

28:15

Bible, which of course has

28:17

been made available in the vernacular,

28:20

became a great explanatory model for

28:22

what was going on. And

28:25

of course, it was linked into the

28:27

general apocalyptic expectations. Here we go again

28:29

with plague and we all visited all

28:31

these things. And they were of course

28:33

all nicely lined up in the relevant

28:35

parts of the Bible. So you could

28:37

pop in and get kind of support

28:39

for the way you interpreted it. The

28:42

way local communities tried to deal

28:44

with it in terms of isolation

28:47

and lockdowns had horrific

28:49

effects on it. Because of course, the moment

28:51

you had a plague case in one house,

28:54

you locked down the whole house with everyone in it

28:56

and put a red cross on the door. But in

28:58

most cases, of course, it meant that the plague took

29:00

the whole lot. But like

29:02

with our COVID experience, some

29:04

people were resistant and

29:06

survived it. It is

29:09

very much seen as a disease

29:12

you can't do anything about

29:14

except trying to put down

29:16

some walls between you and

29:18

it. And to

29:20

some extent, it worked, but

29:23

with quite horrific effects. Where

29:25

you could say that a lot

29:27

of the kind of plague incidents started

29:30

in the central cities. Gradually,

29:32

you find them towards the

29:34

end of the period, we're concerned, more

29:37

isolated in the

29:40

kind of poor dwellings in suburbia where

29:42

people are piled in together. And

29:45

it is quite interesting how the pattern

29:47

chains between the well-off

29:49

center towards the poor kind

29:51

of surrounding bits of the

29:54

city. And again, I think

29:56

if we look at it

29:58

quite closely, there's no doubt. like

30:00

most diseases in the period,

30:02

have a much stronger impact

30:04

on the poorer source in

30:07

society. I remember

30:09

during the pandemic watching some of the

30:11

footage coming out of Spain and the

30:15

funerals that were held were very few people in

30:17

attendance, possibly no one. And

30:19

it seems in terms of thinking about

30:21

the plague that one

30:23

of the awful effects for

30:26

people at the time is that it would have

30:28

prevented a good death and that

30:30

there was something identity stripping in

30:32

the way that corpses were piled

30:34

into common or graves. There isn't

30:36

any of the reverence around the

30:39

process of dying, the process of

30:41

being shriven and all of the

30:43

belief that exists around mortality that

30:46

normally sustains them through those rights.

30:49

Am I on the right track? No, you are

30:51

on the right track there. It is

30:53

where you keep a semblance of order.

30:55

And a good example could

30:58

be if you go to some of

31:00

the immigrant communities in London at the

31:02

time. They always

31:04

appointed a special

31:06

carer for the sick in plague

31:09

incidents. It was someone

31:11

who could provide care and assistance and

31:13

was willing to do so despite the

31:15

risks and was paid well for it.

31:17

But it also was a way of

31:19

protect their ministers from actually

31:21

having to go out to the

31:23

different families infected and therefore possibly

31:25

die quite quickly. So

31:28

it was in a way of introducing a buffer, offering

31:31

some care, but perhaps not

31:33

the top quality you could have expected if

31:35

you got it. But these

31:37

were, of course, the instances

31:39

where the structure held up, so to

31:41

speak. There's no doubt that when whole

31:43

houses died out, they were all piled

31:45

up on carts and taken to mass

31:47

graves as quickly as possible. And

31:50

it cannot but have made the coherence

31:52

of society even less in that situation.

31:56

And once again, did they

31:58

have any idea what caused it? There

32:01

was, of course, ideas about

32:03

miasma. It came through the air.

32:06

It came through potentially touching

32:08

and so on. But

32:10

a clear idea was not there, so to

32:12

speak. The resolution was to go back to

32:14

the Bible and say, this is it. God

32:16

has sent this to us. We have to

32:18

get through it and deal with it. But

32:21

apart from trying to lock

32:23

down areas and communities, there

32:26

was really very little they could do.

32:28

Again, they tend to die quite fast

32:30

in many instances from the plague. Again, within

32:32

a few days, they caught it, got the

32:35

buboes, you were identified, and

32:37

then you died within two or three

32:39

days later. There is,

32:41

of course, cases of people surviving it. So

32:44

clearly must have had some resistance. They

32:46

get the indications they've got it.

32:48

They're ill, but they actually recover.

32:51

Just to finish, then, can you summarize

32:53

for us a sense of the way

32:55

in which these are all interlinked? We've

32:58

talked about them separately, but these

33:00

four horsemen are all riding together, aren't they, in

33:02

this period? That is, of

33:04

course, a starting point for the book in

33:06

the sense that Dürer creates his image for

33:09

the first time with the four horsemen riding

33:11

together. And if you look

33:13

at what we have of textual evidence,

33:15

pictorial evidence, and cheap print and whatever,

33:18

these things are seen as

33:20

coming together with a higher incidence.

33:23

There are signs and the stars

33:25

of increasingly new comets and all

33:27

sorts of things. And there

33:29

is, of course, the kind of disasters

33:31

flooding in Germany and the fear of

33:34

a second deluge. And there are all these

33:36

diseases, of course, for which you can do

33:38

very little and will kill an awful lot.

33:41

So this is all seen together that

33:43

there's more of it than we've ever

33:45

had before and buys that. The explanation

33:47

is there in the Bible that

33:49

it's adding up to the

33:51

last days. And there, of

33:53

course, you can expect either the thousand-year

33:55

kingdom or the immediate return of Christ.

33:57

There's a variety of options in that.

34:00

but it really is the way of

34:02

understanding the world for

34:05

early modern man and woman

34:07

at that point. This actually acts

34:10

as an explanation. One thing reinforces

34:12

the other. Apart from

34:14

the crises which are there, you

34:16

are then given the Bible in

34:18

the vernacular which adds an ideological

34:20

text, an explanation, which

34:22

gets a further concentration on

34:25

all these things that are now happening, must be coming

34:27

just around the corner. So it

34:29

all links it neatly and wonderfully together.

34:32

And you could see illustrations

34:34

of the Book of Revelation are

34:36

essential to a man like Luther

34:38

as a starting point, and you

34:40

can then see the

34:42

ending point with Matthew Miriam's, he

34:44

more detailed prints of the same.

34:47

Thank you so much for introducing

34:49

us to this idea. As

34:52

I said earlier, your book, which for those

34:54

who want to be reminded of the name,

34:56

is The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Religion,

34:58

War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe, has

35:01

been for me an absolutely

35:03

essential guide to understanding the realities

35:05

of living in early modern Europe.

35:08

So I would urge all

35:10

of those listening to get themselves

35:12

a copy of this beautifully illustrated

35:14

and wonderfully informative book. Thank you so

35:17

much for your time, Professor Grant. Pleasure. And

35:26

thanks to you for listening to Not

35:28

Just the Tudors from History Hit, and

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also to my researcher Esther Arnott and

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my producer Rob Weinberg. We're

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