Introduction to the project

The roleplay is based on a real event: the plague epidemic that threatened York in 1631. This particular epidemic was one of a number of epidemics of plague affecting England between the fourteenth century (the Black Death) and the end of the seventeenth.  The outbreak in York did not produce exceptionally high mortality in comparison with other outbreaks, but it was fairly typical of the regular episodes of plague that affected towns in Britain over the 400 years when plague was present. Plague spread extremely rapidly, producing its highest death rates in relatively short periods and generating panic very quickly.

The late date of the epidemic that this roleplay is based on is important: by 1631 most town officials had developed understandings of the causes of the disease and the best methods for its containment. The town councillors, or city aldermen, of York were a particularly active group when it came to the control of plague. They met frequently as a body to discuss the progress of the disease and swiftly implemented an array of surveillance and control techniques once plague had been identified in the city population. These included a draconian policy of household containment where the sick were compulsorily boarded up in their homes with the other members of their family, often for many weeks (generally until all were dead). A guard was often placed outside the house.

The objective is to engage an audience of young people and adults with some key ideas from the history of medicine. These are:

1. that disease in the past was often understood in very different terms to the way in which it is understood today, and that there existed a range of explanations for disease. These included supernatural causes, most frequently disease as a punishment by God for sin, as well as the belief that contamination was caused by foreigners and other marginal groups, miasmatic explanations (disease caused by malignant odours) and the idea of contagion passing from one person to another.
2. that epidemic disease was (and of course, still is) a source of great fear, and the consequences of plague epidemics were often terrible, both at the individual family level but also for the wider city. The consequences for individuals who survived the death of their families could be destitution. The wider community faced riots, economic collapse, and increased surveillance and intrusion by city authorities.
3. fear of disease and the wider social and economic problems that it caused meant that there were a great number of measures that were recommended to avoid plague and its consequences. Wealthy individuals often fled the city. Clergymen urged people to fast and observe special prayers. Physicians sometimes profited through the sale of herbs for burning and the popular use of theriac as a prophylactic. By the seventeenth century a range of interventionist and authoritarian measures had been introduced by city authorities. These included the compulsory boarding up of entire families within their homes once disease was identified in a single family member.

The event takes the form of an enquiry by city aldermen into the causes and possible method of containment of the plague epidemic. A number of characters, in role and in costume, are interviewed one at a time by city aldermen. The event requires the participation of the audience, who play the rest of the 'board of enquiry' and therefore also ask questions.

The characters are a young woman from a poor area, who has seen her entire family lost to plague; a clergyman; a physician; and a draper, whose consignments of cloth from Hull seem to have some link with the origins of the epidemic. The interviews, conducted by the lead alderman and audience members, explore of some of the ideas of disease and its control and avoidance that were current at the time. Of course, none of the characters mentions rats or fleas at any point.

The event works well with ice-breakers at the beginning and a debrief at the end with the audience. It should last approximately 45 minutes.

Sabine Clarke

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