In the 1340s, word began to spread of a disease without cure, a disease that struck its victims with terrible symptoms and killed them within a matter of days.

For the people of Watford in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, their lives were already marred by hardship. They depended on fair weather and the state of their crops. When either of these things fell short of expectations, disease and starvation followed.

In 1257 when the harvest failed, Matthew Paris, chronicler of St Albans, wrote: ‘Owing to the shortage of food an innumerable multitude of poor people died and dead bodies were found everywhere… lying by fives and sixes in pigsties and dunghills in the muddy streets’.

Living a hand-to-mouth existence, the people of towns such as Watford lived in fear of anything that might make their lives even more difficult.

When the disease spreading rapidly through Europe reached England in 1348, they could not have known that it was to be one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.

It has been estimated that between a third and a half of people died: 75 to 200 million people worldwide.

The Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague, a disease caused by a bacterium carried by fleas living on wild rodents, particularly black rats. Unfortunately, the black rat likes to live close to humans.

The plague is supposed to have originated in China. It was first introduced to Europe at a port city in the Crimea, when the Mongol army catapulted infected corpses over the city walls during a siege. The people understandably fled, taking the plague into Sicily and the south of Europe.

From Italy, the disease spread to France, Spain, Portugal and England, before turning east to Germany and Scandinavia. It was introduced in Norway in 1349, then spread to Iceland. Finally, it reached Russia in 1351.

The most common symptom of the disease was the appearance of buboes in the groin, neck and armpits. This was followed by acute fever and vomiting blood. Most victims died two to seven days after initial infection.

Fourteenth century healers were at a loss to explain the cause of the disease. Transmission of diseases was not understood and many believed that the Black Death was a display of God’s anger at the sins of mankind.

Some people thought that loud noises could drive the infection out of a city or village. Town officials would ring church bells or fire cannons in the hope of forcing the plague out of their community.

With a modern viewpoint it is difficult to imagine just how terrified people must have been. They did not know what was causing the disease and so they didn’t know how to prevent it. They lived in constant fear of becoming ill. Once they became aware of displaying the first symptoms, there was nothing they could do to halt their own imminent death.

Fear became hysteria as the Black Death struck all levels of society. Edward III’s daughter, Joan, died of the disease, as did the Archbishop of Canterbury. It killed the Abbot of St Albans and 47 of his monks died in the following weeks. If even the most holy of men were not safe, what hope did ordinary people have?

People were desperate to find a way of stopping the disease. Some Europeans targeted groups including Jews, foreigners, lepers and Romani, thinking that they were to blame for the crisis.

The plague repeatedly returned to Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Great Plague, from 1665-66, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. The plague lasted until the cold weather helped to kill off fleas and halt the spread of the disease.