Medieval village self-isolated for 14 months to prevent plague spread

Ayam is a picturesque English village of less than 1,000 people in Derby Shadales. Through a series of accidental events, Eyam in 1665 was one of the pioneers of the concept of self-quarantine and social distance.

That summer, a fluffy cloth arrived at a local tailor shop. Within a week people started dying of plague. Of course, they did not know the cause of the Black Death. All they knew was that the blood in their bodies appeared to have clotted, the lymph glands (hormonal tufts) had swollen and turned dark blue. Death followed immediately by what was known as glandular plague.

They blamed everything from swamp steam to impure life. However, they knew that physical proximity to a sick person suffering from plague often caused the infection.
Eyam dates back more than 2000 years from Roman times, but still exists today. Rev. William Montpeson and Rev. Thomas Stanley led a local church, and when the village asked for answers, they decided to isolate them from the rest of the world.

Other regulations include what is now called social distance. People should have had as little contact with each other as possible. The family decided to bury their dead, preferably in their own land. Church worship was considered essential, and was held outdoors at the nearby natural amphitheater, Kackletderf, leaving people away.

Self-quarantine, inferred by village leaders, will prevent the disease from spreading outside. According to history, several inhabitants of Eyam left in resistance, but it has not been recorded whether they spread the plague across village boundaries.

The quarantine period was 14 months. Out of about 350 villagers, 83 survived. The Eyam Church lists the names of the 273 people who died.

Numerous stories and myths have grown around the quarantine. The story of a young Eyam woman who fell in love with a young man in the next village. They will meet on the other side of the field and will shout their love for each other. In the story, at least, the young man died of a plague, but the lover lived and remained a spin star many years later until she died.

Another likely story about how Eyam villagers purchased goods from outside. They left a note with a “shopping list” on the border stone at the edge of the village. Money put it in a bowl and believed that the coin “sterilized.” Later, brave merchants left supplies for the villagers to receive.

The old children’s rhyme, “The London Bridge Falls Down,” is a plague that struck Europe many times during the Middle Ages. One of the words, “poise full of pockets,” describes the idea that keeping fresh flowers and herbs nearby can help prevent disease. Of course, “all of us fall” is common in infected people.

In the mid-1980s, I became familiar with Eyam when I led a walking tour in the Peaks District National Park area. After listening to local guides many times, I began to tour my village, cemeteries, and local places. Many of my guests were familiar with polio epidemics and quarantine during the late 1940s and early 1950s, but even small villages as small as Eyam understand the size of the whole village that has been isolated for more than a year I couldn’t do that. Part of the wonder was that the villagers had sacrificed themselves to contain and prevent the spread of the infection.

Over the years, there have been many poems, books, films, operas and plays about Eyam. One of the best (and latest) books is the Year of Wonders by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks. Historical fiction. A story of a maid isolated in Ayam, he is romantically involved with his married Rev. Montpethson and helps heal the people around him. The book was available on the Amazon in the United States and was so popular in the UK that it was sold out at some bookstores.

True history also records unlikely people who seem to have been immune to plague. One woman buried her husband and seven children, but survived. Local tomb miners handled many sick bodies and did not fall.

When considering a newly cleaned garage, a clean closet, and freshly trimmed hedges, you have to do something useful in all of this forced downtime-in world history, pandemics are new. You need to remember that it is not an event. The infamous Black Death of the 1300s killed 200 million people. We must also remember that nature, as we humans, still surprises us. And we villagers have to stay on the course, just as Eyam endured the plague about 400 years ago through social distance and self-isolation.

Although boring, cumbersome and inconvenient, emulating the villagers of Eyam may be the best plan in the long run.

John W Prince is a writer and villager. For more information, visit www.HallardPress.com. If you know someone with a good story, contact John [email protected]