This is the story of a national trauma, a journey through pain and misery that utterly transformed Britain - and produced an unexpected class of survivors. It is the mid 14th century, and the ships are busy unloading their cargoes. But alongside the casks of wine and the spices, came the rats and their cargo of fleas and bacteria.
Medieval documents are full of the names, dutifully recorded of whole families wiped out by disease.
Nowhere and no-one is safe. It spread irresistibly to Scotland, and across the sea to Ireland. It was truly a national disaster. But this is a new country, of higher wages, and the peasants have a determined sense of their own worth. These are the farmers and trades people who form the backbone of the Peasants' Revolt.