I was reminded of this story by German Chancellor Merz (no, not his Skeletor-like appearance), more after the jump.
From The Conversation via ScienceAlert, 17 May 2026:
In our research in the British Library's medieval collections, we have identified a previously unnoticed document that provides fresh insights into the survivors of the outbreak of plague known as the Black Death (1346–53).
The document – a scrap of parchment inserted into an account of the Ramsey Abbey manor of Warboys in Huntingdonshire – records how much time peasants were absent from work when struck down by the plague.
It also reveals the names of those who survived and how long their employers believed recovery could take.
In our recent paper with Barney Sloane, we shed new light on a group of 22 tenants who probably contracted plague, languished on their sickbeds for several weeks, and then recovered.
As one of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history, it has been estimated that between a third and two-thirds of the population of medieval Europe died during the Black Death.
Given the sheer scale, many historians have focused on discovering details about those who died. Yet this has left the histories of those who contracted plague and recovered largely untold.
Despite the deadliness of the disease, it was possible to recover from plague, and medieval chroniclers mention the possibility – however unlikely – of survival. For example, Geoffrey le Baker, a clerk of Swinbrook in Oxfordshire, wrote in the following decade that he thought recovery depended on people's symptoms:
People who one day had been full of happiness, on the next were found dead. Some were tormented by boils which broke out suddenly in various parts of the body, and were so hard and dry that when they were lanced hardly any liquid flowed out. Many of these people escaped, by lancing the boils or by long suffering. Other victims had little black pustules scattered over the skin of the whole body. Of these people very few, indeed hardly any, recovered life and health.
But who recovered? Why did so many succumb to the disease when others survived? And just how long was this "long suffering"?
Unfortunately, there is remarkably little documentary evidence because most medieval sources record information about mortality rather than ill health.
Unique list of plague survivors
A unique inclusion in the account of the manor of Warboys details a group of people who fell ill between the end of April and the start of August 1349.The monks of Ramsey Abbey wrote a list of their tenants who had fallen sufficiently sick that they could not work on the lord's lands and detailed the length of time that they were absent.
People were clearly affected differently by their experience of plague.
The quickest recovery was that of Henry Broun who missed just a single week of work. By contrast, John Derworth and Agnes Mold had much more protracted illnesses and were both absent for nine weeks.
The average length of illness was between three and four weeks, with three-quarters of people returning to work in under a month. The speed of their recoveries is all the more surprising given that they were entitled to up to a year and a day of sick leave from work.
This list of survivors includes a preponderance of tenants who occupied larger holdings on the manor....
....MUCH MORE
Also at ScienceAlert, October 8:
Sexually Transmitted Diarrhea Is Exploding in The US. And It's Growing Resistant to Medicine
And Chancellor Merz? It was re-reading his sick leave edict:
Germany's Chancellor Merz: We can no longer accept the extraordinarily high levels of sick leave in our companies. We are abolishing sick leave by telephone and introducing the requirement to submit a medical certificate from the very first day of illness. We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford this competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 2, 2026
And Skeletor?
Skeletor is the main antagonist of the Masters of the Universe franchise, and is the most dangerous threat on Eternia. His only goal is power, and to that end, he will not rest until he possesses the secrets of Castle Grayskull, which will enable him to become master of the universe. This places him in direct conflict with the only man powerful enough to stop him, He-Man....— fandom