- Title: World's Worst Century: Black Death
- Date: 27th September 2004
- Summary: Was the 14th century the worst time in history to be alive? The population of Britain was ravaged by a plague that drove mankind to the edge of extinction, convulsed by a war that lasted a hundred years and exploited and taxed by oppressive regimes. Yet, despite these world-class hardships, medieval society wasn't all grim and venal - it could be remarkably resilient. The World's Worst Century is a new season of films dedicated to the stories of ordinary people facing these terrible onslaughts. The first programme explores Black Death, an unprecedented human disaster on a mind-boggling scale. In three dreadful years over one third of Europe's population was wiped out. Everyone believed it heralded the end of the world. To the chroniclers of Padua the plague was devastation more final than Noah's flood. On the other side of Europe, in Ireland, John Clynn left blank pages at the end of his chronicle "in case anyone should still be alive in the future". The plague shook the wealthy, relatively well-populated, confident society of mid-14th-century Western Europe to its foundations. This film follows the spread of the plague and its implications for the Europe of the Middle Ages.
- Description:Opening the World's Worst Century season,this is the story of the 14th century apocolypse that swept through Europe killing half of the population and bringing mankind as close to extinction as it has ever been. Examining medieval society's response to the plague reveals not a cruel and venal world but a far more complex and subtle civilisation.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Granada Television Ltd.
- Programme Episode:Episode 1
- Transmission Date:27/09/2004
- Rights:Worldwide
- Decade: 2000s