Pandemics have been a feature of human history for thousands of years, and St Albans has not been spared. Isolation was often the only weapon against virulently infectious diseases. But it was also a choice made by some religious people, like the anchoress Christina of Markyate.
Easter 1349 brought profound changes to St Albans, going well beyond the immediate havoc that the Black Death wrought on the townspeople and the monks of the Abbey.
An anchoress was a religious woman who chose to live an isolated life rather than become a nun. This article describes the evidence for anchoresses at St Peter's church as well as the boundaries of their isolation.
Outbreaks of plague were a common occurrence in England around 1600. How did our predecessors in St Albans cope?
One of the Society's Victorian predecessors, Dr Ridgway Lloyd, died from typhoid during the 1884 outbreak in the city, one of many typhoid epidemics in Victorian Britain. Tony Cooper explores its causes and effects.
The so-called Spanish influenza outbreak in 1918/19 killed many people worldwide. What were the effects in St Albans ?
A number of now controllable infectious diseases took their toll on the population of St Albans in the first two decades of the 20th century. How did the people of St Albans cope without access to modern medicines?