Crudely executed cross of lead, said to have been placed on the corpse of a victim of the Black Death, London, 1348-1349

The Black Death was a pandemic of bubonic plague which swept across Asia and Europe between 1346 and 1353. It killed many millions, possibly around half of those living in the areas affected and had a huge and lasting impact on those societies,

The disease struck the UK in 1348 and this simple lead cross was believed to date from that period. However, later research has suggested that this and other crosses in the museum’s collection may date from a later era. It was possibly made for a prisoner who had died of typhus, referred to historically as ‘gaol distemper’, during the 1700s.