Leicestershire: past plague parallels
Ruth Eardley
In late April, a church history lecture by Dr Lesley Rowe (Associate Fellow in History, University of Warwick) drew striking parallels with fearful plagues of the past.
The nations were gripped by fear and uncertainty; little wonder since the Black Death wiped out a third to a half of the population of Europe. In 1625, 38,000 died in London alone and the streets were eerily quiet. An eyewitness was struck by ‘the stillness of the city’. Many died ‘without the comfort of friends who dare not visit them’.
Reformation still matters in Leicester
Ruth Eardley
It was the week of the ‘Beast from the East’, but in late February around 80 people attended the first of three historical lectures at Little Hill Church in Leicester.
The focus was on John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384) and the Leicestershire Lollards, but the whole was a masterful exploration of pre-Reformation years in England. Under the title ‘Anticipating the Reformation’, Dr Lesley Rowe (Associate Fellow in History, University of Warwick) showed how God worked in and through men like Wycliffe and prepared the ground for the Protestant Reformation over a century later.
