Popular British historian Lucy Worsley continues to explore some of British history’s most haunting mysteries in two new installments of LUCY WORSLEY INVESTIGATES. In each episode, Lucy uses historical and contemporary evidence and expert testimony to reframe the past and deepen her analysis. Lucy also reveals how the attitudes of the time towards gender politics and class often helped obscure the truth, uncovering new victors and victims, challenging perceptions, and providing fresh insights.
The Black Death | Sun, Sept. 25 at 7pm
Lucy re-examines Britain’s deadliest pandemic, the Black Death, which struck in 1348 and killed an astonishing three million people — half of the country’s population. Scientists, historians and other experts help Lucy explore the wide-ranging effects of this unprecedented calamity on British society.
Tune in Sun, Sept. 25 at 7pm on the WSIU stations: WSIU 8.1, WUSI 16.1, WSEC 14.1, WQEC 27.1 and WMEC 22.2 or access the WSIU local broadcast livestream online at pbs.org or via the PBS Video app. Watch with WSIU Passport.
About the Program
For centuries, no one could be certain what caused the 1348 plague. Then, in the 1980s, a vast mass grave containing the skeletons of 600 victims was uncovered in London. Lucy learns how DNA extracted from the teeth of these skeletons enabled scientists to finally identify the cause of the Black Death, a bacteria called yersinia pestis — a pathogen to which the population had no immunity. Lucy then travels to a small Suffolk village where rare court rolls reveal how the plague affected the lives of ordinary people. These fragile documents provide a unique window into the epidemic’s social, political and psychological impacts, revealing how the enormous death toll transformed religious beliefs, class structure, work and women.
