The plague in Penrith, Cumbria, 1597/8: its causes, biology and consequences

Using a family reconstitution study the biology of the plague in Penrith, Cumbria in 1597/8 is described in detail; it was an explosive epidemic that spread rapidly within families and 606 individuals died of the plague, some 40% of the population. The age-specific mortality corresponded with the calculated age structure of the population and infection appeared to be random. The sex ratio of victims was 1.37 females to 1 male. The plague spread from the northeast via Richmond and then exploded in the Eden valley, appearing almost simultaneously in Penrith, Kendal and Carlisle. The details of the epidemics and the location and the climate of these widely separated small market towns show that bubonic plague was not the causative agent, and the possibility that anthrax was responsible for the drastic mortality is briefly considered. The population rapidly built up after the plague, largely by immigration and not by increased fertility, and steady-state conditions were re-established within 5 years and continued for 150 years. This severe mortality crisis of the plague had a profound effect on the population at Penrith, triggering long wavelength oscillations in both baptisms and burials in this population living under marginal conditions and maintained in steady-state by density-dependent factors.