From One Mortality Regime to Another? Mortality Crises in Late Medieval Haarlem, Holland, in Perspective

This article employs a large database of 10,360 deaths taken from registrations graves dug and church bells tolled at Haarlem between the years 1412 1547—one largest samples longest series mortality evidence ever produced for medieval Holland—and systematically compares findings with seventeenth-century burial register same city. It concludes that we should put aside any lingering notion late Holland was very lightly affected by epidemic diseases: in fact, Haarlem, these crises were more severe than those seen seventeenth century. The data also reveal not one overarching “medieval regime” but distinct changes fewer spikes first half fifteenth century, higher frequency smaller later on—especially period 1480–1530—with number damping down after 1530. These tended to produce adult female victims male, supporting recent elsewhere Low Countries.