Speaker: Eric Schneider (with Charles Udale, Max Satchell, and Henry Yeomans)

Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science

Date: 14:00 BST, 25th June, 2026

Talk Title: Transport and the Transmission of Plague across Settlements in Early Modern England

Abstract: Plague was the most lethal disease in early modern England. However, there is limited large-scale quantitative evidence about the factors that allowed plague to spread between settlements. This paper analyses a novel dataset of aggregated monthly burial totals covering more than 4,000 parishes between 1557 and 1667. We measure how frequently settlements experienced plague epidemics and analyse the factors leading to outbreaks, particularly whether the transmission of plague was affected by the transport network. We find that plague affected relatively few settlements in this period, did not spread in the characteristic wave of the Black Death, and was not strongly linked to transport. Settlements on arterial roads running from London to other major towns had an increased chance of having a plague outbreak, but settlements on other principal roads and on rivers did not have an increased chance of a plague outbreak. We also find that the spillovers from locations on arterial roads were non-existent. These findings suggest that plague was not spreading via human-to-human transmission in England in our period. The low share of settlements affected is also in striking contrast to the Black Death and to early modern plague epidemics on the continent such as those in Northern Italy in the 1630s. Our finding that the transport network was not that important highlights that the rat-flea transmission chain of plague was fragile and therefore could be broken with only partially effective quarantines.

Bio: Originally from Denver, Colorado, Professor Schneider received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound with a major in History and a minor in Biology. He then studied for an MPhil in Economic and Social History at St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford before moving to Nuffield College for his doctorate. He has worked at LSE since 2015. In his spare time, he enjoys travelling, gardening, hanging out with his dog, and hiking.