Black Death - Knowledge

2235:"looking back into the past, the history of the Church during the Middle Ages in England appears one continuous and stately progress. It is much nearer to the truth to say that in 1351 the whole ecclesiastical system was wholly disorganised, or, indeed, more than half ruined, and that everything had to be built up anew. To secure the most necessary public ministrations of the rites of religion the most inadequately-prepared subjects had to be accepted, and even these could be obtained only in insufficient numbers.The immediate effect on the people was a religious paralysis. Instead of turning men to God the scourge turned them to despair In time the religious sense and feeling revived, but in many respects it took a new tone, and its manifestations ran in new channelscharacterised by a devotional and more self-reflective cast than previously. 2282: 836: 53: 1850:

samples across Europe from 1250 to 1450 was used to estimate changes in agricultural output before and after the Black Death. The authors found great variability in different regions, with evidence for high mortality in areas of Scandinavia, France, western Germany, Greece, and central Italy, but uninterrupted agricultural growth in central and eastern Europe, Iberia, and Ireland. The authors concluded that "the pandemic was immensely destructive in some areas, but in others it had a far lighter touch ... invalidates histories of the Black Death that assume Y. pestis was uniformly prevalent, or nearly so, across Europe and that the pandemic had a devastating demographic impact everywhere."

5123:, describes quite plausibly how plague was transmitted by the Mongols by throwing diseased cadavers with catapults into the besieged city, and how ships transporting Genovese soldiers, fleas and rats fleeing from there brought it to the Mediterranean ports. Given the highly complex epidemiology of plague, this interpretation of the Black Death (which might have killed >25 million people in the following years throughout Europe) as stemming from a specific and localized origin of the Black Death remains controversial. Similarly, it remains doubtful whether the effect of throwing infected cadavers could have been the sole cause of the outburst of an epidemic in the besieged city." 1828: 2153: 654: 8577: 1987:

without divine offices ... great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds both day and night ... And as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug ... And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.

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to the Blessed Virgin, to the Five Wounds, to the Holy Name, and other such manifestations of a more tender or more familiar piety.At the close of the fourteenth century and during the course of the fifteenth the supply of ornaments, furniture, plate, statues painted or in highly decked "coats," with which the churches were literally encumbered as time went on, proved a striking contrast to the comparative simplicity which characterised former days, as witnessed by a comparison of inventories.

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skeptical about such an interpretation. Nonetheless, the remarkably high mortality rates during the Datong mortality should discourage us from rejecting the possibility of localized/regional outbreaks of plague in different parts of China, albeit differing in scale from, and unrelated to, the pandemic mortality of the Black Death. What we lack is any indication of a plague pandemic that engulfed vast territories of the Yuan Empire and later moved into western Eurasia through Central Asia.

12952: 1225:, and its widespread appearance in that region probably postdates the European outbreak. Additionally, the Silk Road had already been heavily disrupted before the spread of the Black Death; Western and Middle Eastern traders found it difficult to trade on the Silk Road by 1325 and impossible by 1340, making its role in the spread of plague less likely. There are no records of the symptoms of the Black Death from Mongol sources or writings from travelers east of the 10049: 1955:). In the first outbreak, two thirds of the population contracted the illness and most patients died; in the next, half the population became ill but only some died; by the third, a tenth were affected and many survived; while by the fourth occurrence, only one in twenty people were sickened and most of them survived. By the 1380s in Europe, the plague predominantly affected children. Chalmel de Vinario recognised that 640:). Muslim religious scholars taught that the pandemic was a "martyrdom and mercy" from God, assuring the believer's place in paradise. For non-believers, it was a punishment. Some Muslim doctors cautioned against trying to prevent or treat a disease sent by God. Others adopted preventive measures and treatments for plague used by Europeans. These Muslim doctors also depended on the writings of the ancient Greeks. 10059: 2298:

data). The second pandemic was particularly widespread in the following years: 1360–1363; 1374; 1400; 1438–1439; 1456–1457; 1464–1466; 1481–1485; 1500–1503; 1518–1531; 1544–1548; 1563–1566; 1573–1588; 1596–1599; 1602–1611; 1623–1640; 1644–1654; and 1664–1667. Subsequent outbreaks, though severe, marked the plague's retreat from most of Europe (18th century) and North Africa (19th century).

2046: 1915: 1911:, northern Germany, and areas of Poland. Monks, nuns, and priests were especially hard-hit since they cared for people ill with the plague. The level of mortality in the rest of Eastern Europe was likely similar to that of Western Europe in the first outbreak, with descriptions suggesting a similar effect on Russian towns, and the cycles of plague in Russia being roughly equivalent. 3244: 692: 5406: 3232: 2559:

Europe to England in north-western Europe. The data is sufficiently widespread and numerous to make it likely that the Black Death swept away around 60% of Europe's population. The generally assumed population of Europe at the time is about 80 million, implying that around 50 million people died in the Black Death.

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published online Sunday, they conclude that all three of the great waves of plague originated from China, where the root of their tree is situated. ... The likely origin of the plague in China has nothing to do with its people or crowded cities, Dr. Achtman said. The bacterium has no interest in

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The new religious spirit found outward expression in the multitude of guilds which sprang into existence at this time, in the remarkable and almost, as it may seem to some, extravagant development of certain pious practices, in the singular spread of a more personal devotion to the Blessed Sacrament,

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In 1348, the disease spread so rapidly that nearly a third of the European population perished before any physicians or government authorities had time to reflect upon its origins. In crowded cities, it was not uncommon for as much as 50% of the population to die. Half of Paris' population of 100,000

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in the Caucasus region previously thought to be restricted to China. There is also no physical or specific textual evidence of the Black Death in 14th century China. As a result, China's place in the sequence of the plague's spread is still debated to this day. According to Charles Creighton, records

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In Britain "the special symptoms characteristic of the plague of 1348–9 were four in number:— (1) Gangrenous inflammation of the throat and lungs; (2) Violent pains in the region of the chest; (3) The vomiting and spitting of blood; and (4) The pestilential odour coming from the bodies and breath of

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The most widely accepted estimate for the Middle East, including Iraq, Iran, and Syria, during this time, is for a death toll of about a third of the population. The Black Death killed about 40% of Egypt's population. In Cairo, with a population numbering as many as 600,000, and possibly the largest

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calculated the number of dead in Christian Europe at 23,840,000. With a preplague population of about 75 million, Clement's figure accounts for mortality of 31%-a rate about midway between the 50% mortality estimated for East Anglia, Tuscany, and parts of Scandinavia, and the less-than-15% morbidity

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The evidence does not suggest, at least at present, that these mortality crises were caused by plague. Although some scholars, including McNeill and Cao, see the 1333 outbreak as a prelude to the outbreaks in Europe from the late 1340s to the early 1350s, scholars of the Yuan and Ming periods remain

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Medieval homeowners were supposed to police their housefronts, including removing animal dung, but most urbanites were careless. William E. Cosner, a resident of the London suburb of Farringdon Without, received a complaint alleging that "men could not pass for the stink . . . horse dung and horse

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The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and political structure than later epidemics. Despite a significant number of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of Florence continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of elected representatives were

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lost 30,000–50,000 inhabitants to it in 1620–1621, and again in 1654–1657, 1665, 1691, and 1740–1742. Cairo suffered more than fifty plague epidemics within 150 years from the plague's first appearance, with the final outbreak of the second pandemic there in the 1840s. Plague remained a major event

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in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and southern Europe that were associated archaeologically with the Black Death and subsequent resurgences. The authors concluded that this new research, together with prior analyses from the south of France and Germany, "ends the debate about

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and city-states frequently managed by the Catholic Church. The pandemic completely restructured both religion and political forces; survivors began to turn to other forms of spirituality and the power dynamics of the fiefs and city-states crumbled. The survivors of the pandemic found not only that

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One irate Londoner complained that the runoff from the local slaughterhouse had made his garden "stinking and putrid", while another charged that the blood from slain animals flooded nearby streets and lanes, "making a foul corruption and abominable sight to all dwelling near." In much of medieval

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Researchers are hampered by a lack of reliable statistics from this period. Most work has been done on the spread of the disease in England, where estimates of overall population at the start of the plague vary by over 100%, as no census was undertaken in England between the time of publication of

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Detailed study of the mortality data available points to two conspicuous features in relation to the mortality caused by the Black Death: namely the extreme level of mortality caused by the Black Death, and the remarkable similarity or consistency of the level of mortality, from Spain in southern

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The third plague pandemic (1855–1859) started in China in the mid-19th century, spreading to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone. The investigation of the pathogen that caused the 19th-century plague was begun by teams of scientists who visited Hong Kong in 1894,

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The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. According to Jean-Noël Biraben, the plague was present somewhere in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671 (although some researchers have cautions about the uncritical use of Biraben's

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By the early 14th century, so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde, the French word for "shit". There were rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, rue Merdusson, rue des

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While contemporary accounts report mass burial pits being created in response to the large number of dead, recent scientific investigations of a burial pit in Central London found well-preserved individuals to be buried in isolated, evenly spaced graves, suggesting at least some pre-planning and

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However, other researchers do not think that plague ever became endemic in Europe or its rat population. The disease repeatedly wiped out the rodent carriers, so that the fleas died out until a new outbreak from Central Asia repeated the process. The outbreaks have been shown to occur roughly 15

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that became predominant in different parts of the world. Mongol records of illness such as food poisoning may have been referring to the Black Death. Another theory is that the plague originated near Europe and cycled through the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and Russia before making its way to

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Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest,

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There are no exact figures for the death toll; the rate varied widely by locality. Urban centers with higher populations suffered longer periods of abnormal mortality. Some estimate that it may have killed between 75,000,000 and 200,000,000 people in Eurasia. A study published in 2022 of pollen

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The 1347 pandemic plague was not referred to specifically as "black" in the time of occurrence in any European language, though the expression "black death" had occasionally been applied to fatal disease beforehand. "Black death" was not used to describe the plague pandemic in English until the

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Demographic historians estimate that China's population fell by at least 15 per cent, and perhaps as much as a third, between 1340 and 1370. This population loss coincided with the Black Death that ravaged Europe and much of the Islamic world in 1347–52. However, there is a conspicuous lack of

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However, many labourers, artisans, and craftsmen—those living from money-wages alone—suffered a reduction in real incomes owing to rampant inflation. Landowners were also pushed to substitute monetary rents for labour services in an effort to keep tenants. Taxes and tithes became difficult to

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The overwhelming number of deaths in Europe sometimes made mass burials necessary, and some sites had hundreds or thousands of bodies. The mass burial sites that have been excavated have allowed archaeologists to continue interpreting and defining the biological, sociological, historical, and

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The trend of recent research is pointing to a figure more like 45–50% of the European population dying during a four-year period. There is a fair amount of geographic variation. In Mediterranean Europe, areas such as Italy, the south of France and Spain, where plague ran for about four years

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perished, and a similar percentage of Londoners may have died from the disease as well, leaving a death toll of approximately 62,000 between 1346 and 1353. Florence's tax records suggest that 80% of the city's population died within four months in 1348. Before 1350, there were about 170,000

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According to some epidemiologists, periods of unfavorable weather decimated plague-infected rodent populations, forcing their fleas onto alternative hosts, inducing plague outbreaks which often peaked in the hot summers of the Mediterranean and during the cool autumn months of the southern

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Twelve plague outbreaks in Australia between 1900 and 1925 resulted in over 1,000 deaths, chiefly in Sydney. This led to the establishment of a Public Health Department there which undertook some leading-edge research on plague transmission from rat fleas to humans via the bacillus

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shows no evidence of any serious epidemic in fourteenth-century India and no specific evidence of plague in 14th-century China, suggesting that the Black Death may not have reached these regions. Ole Benedictow argues that since the first clear reports of the Black Death come from

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From p. 24: "Norway, indeed, cannot be said to be entirely exempt from pestilential distempers, for the Black-death, known all over Europe by its terrible ravages, from the years 1348 to 50, was felt here as in other parts, and to the great diminution of the number of the

2308:, "France alone lost almost a million people to the plague in the epidemic of 1628–31." In the first half of the 17th century, a plague killed some 1.7 million people in Italy. More than 1.25 million deaths resulted from the extreme incidence of plague in 17th-century 4720:

The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century. ... In the issue of

4108:"Nous avon pratiqué un certain nombre de fois l'examen microscopique du contenu intestinal des puces recueillies sur les rats spontanément pestiférés, et dans plusieurs cas nous avons constaté la présence d'un bacille morphologiquement semblable à celui de la peste." 247:

causing bubonic plague. In 2022, it was discovered that there was a sudden surge of deaths in what is today Kyrgyzstan from the Black Death in the late 1330s; when combined with genetic evidence, this implies that the initial spread may not have been due to

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According to John Norris, evidence from Issyk-Kul indicates a small sporadic outbreak characteristic of transmission from rodents to humans with no wide-scale impact. According to Achtman, the dating of the plague suggests that it was not carried along the

2201:. As a result of the drastic reduction in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the increased need for labour, workers travelled in search of the most favorable position economically. 1178:

of epidemics in 14th-century China suggest nothing more than typhus and major Chinese outbreaks of epidemic disease post-date the European epidemic by several years. The earliest Chinese descriptions of the bubonic plague do not appear until the 1640s.

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He was able to adopt the epidemiology of the bubonic plague for the Black Death for the second edition in 1908, implicating rats and fleas in the process, and his interpretation was widely accepted for other ancient and medieval epidemics, such as the

263:) and is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of the European population, as well as approximately 33% of the population of the Middle East. There were further outbreaks throughout the Late Middle Ages and, also due to other contributing factors (the 603:

described a "malignant bubo" "coming in abruptly with high fever together with the appearance of a bundle of nodes beneath the tissue." The Chinese physician Sun Simo who died in 652 also mentioned a "malignant bubo" and plague that was common in

4110:("We carried out a number of times microscopic examinations of the intestinal contents of fleas collected from rats infected with plague, and in several cases we noted the presence of a bacillus morphologically similar to that of the plague.") 2228:, Croatia), a thirty-day isolation period was implemented in 1377 for new arrivals to the city from plague-affected areas. The isolation period was later extended to forty days, and given the name "quarantino" from the Italian word for "forty". 326:'the black death'. This expression as a proper name for the pandemic had been popularized by Swedish and Danish chroniclers in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and in the 16th and 17th centuries was transferred to other languages as a 1026:

Archaeologist Barney Sloane has argued that there is insufficient evidence of the extinction of numerous rats in the archaeological record of the medieval waterfront in London, and that the disease spread too quickly to support the thesis that

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Spyrou, Maria A.; Musralina, Lyazzat; Gnecchi Ruscone, Guido A.; Kocher, Arthur; Borbone, Pier-Giorgio; Khartanovich, Valeri I.; Buzhilova, Alexandra; Djansugurova, Leyla; Bos, Kirsten I.; Kühnert, Denise; Haak, Wolfgang (15 June 2022).

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China. Other historians, such as John Norris and Ole Benedictaw, believe the plague likely originated in Europe or the Middle East, and never reached China. Norris specifically argues for an origin in Kurdistan rather than Central Asia.

2319:. Plague could be found in the Islamic world almost every year between 1500 and 1850. Sometimes the outbreaks affected small areas, while other outbreaks affected multiple regions. Plague repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. 1362:

over the city walls of Kaffa to infect the inhabitants, though it is also likely that infected rats travelled across the siege lines to spread the epidemic to the inhabitants. As the disease took hold, Genoese traders fled across the

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evidence for pandemic disease on the scale of the Black Death in China at this time. War and famine – and the diseases that typically accompanied them – probably were the main causes of mortality in the final decades of Mongol rule.

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DNA in teeth samples from graves in the area with inscriptions referring to "pestilence" as the cause of death. Epidemics killed an estimated 25 million across Asia during the fifteen years before the Black Death reached

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was infected by ship from Sicily. Tunis was then under attack by an army from Morocco; this army dispersed in 1348 and brought the contagion with them to Morocco, whose epidemic may also have been seeded from the Islamic city of

2692: 815:, resulting in thousands of plague bacteria flushing into the feeding site and infecting the host. The bubonic plague mechanism was also dependent on two populations of rodents: one resistant to the disease, which act as 4367: 5119:(now Feodossia in Ukraine/Crimea), a Genovese outpost on the Black Sea coast, by the Mongols. In 1346, the attacking army experienced an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Italian chronicler Gabriele de' Mussi, in his 3791: 2008:

collect, with living poor refusing to cover the share of the rich deceased, because many properties were empty and unfarmed, and because tax-collectors, where they could be employed, refused to go to plague spots.

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This does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred in Italy in the 14th century; the Renaissance's emergence was most likely the result of the complex interaction of the above factors, in combination with an

1808:). In cases of pneumonic and particularly septicemic plague, the progress of the disease is so rapid that there would often be no time for the development of the enlarged lymph nodes that were noted as buboes. 1004:

The second model claims to better fit the trends of the plague's death toll, as the rat-flea-human hypothesis would have produced a delayed but very high spike in deaths, contradicting historical death data.

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suspended during the height of the epidemic due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of officials was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which ensured continuity of government.

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It has been suggested that the Black Death, like other outbreaks through history, disproportionately affected the poorest people and those already in worse physical condition than the wealthier citizens.

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All institutions were affected. Smaller monasteries and convents became unviable and closed. Up to half parish churches lost their priest, apart from the parishioners. Religious sensibilities changed:

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argued that these authors "take it for granted that Simond's infection model, black rat → rat flea → human, which was developed to explain the spread of plague in India, is the only way an epidemic of

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But along with population decline from the pandemic, wages soared in response to a subsequent labour shortage. In some places rents collapsed (e.g., lettings "used to bring in £5, and now but £1.")

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was spread from fleas on rats; he argues that transmission must have been person to person. This theory is supported by research in 2018 which suggested transmission was more likely by body lice and

1593:. The city's residents fled to the north, but most of them ended up dying during the journey. Within two years, the plague had spread throughout the Islamic world, from Arabia across North Africa. 1398:, described the rising death toll, the futility of medicine, and the panic of the citizens. The first outbreak in Constantinople lasted a year, but the disease recurred ten times before 1400. 10900: 1858:

for Bohemia and Galicia. And it is unerringly close to Froissart's claim that "a third of the world died," a measurement probably drawn from St. John's figure of mortality from plague in the

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Historian George Sussman argued that the plague had not occurred in East Africa until the 1900s. However, other sources suggest that the second pandemic did indeed reach sub-Saharan Africa.

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the prices of food were lower but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited property from their dead relatives, and this probably contributed to the destabilization of

299:, 'mortality'. In English prior to the 18th century, the event was called the "pestilence" or "great pestilence", "the plague" or the "great death". Subsequent to the pandemic "the 7276: 7165: 9296:

Welford M, Bossak BH (June 2010). "Revisiting the Medieval Black Death of 1347-1351: Spatiotemporal Dynamics Suggestive of an Alternate Causation: Black death spatiotemporal dynamics".

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and through the air. One of the most significant events in European history, the Black Death had far-reaching population, economic, and cultural impacts. It was the beginning of the

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A study performed by Thomas Van Hoof of the Utrecht University suggests that the innumerable deaths brought on by the pandemic cooled the climate by freeing up land and triggering

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proposes 60% mortality rate for Europe as a whole based on available data, with up to 80% based on poor nutritional conditions in the 14th century. According to medieval historian

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of the epidemic plague that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages". In 2011 these results were further confirmed with genetic evidence derived from Black Death victims in the

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several days after feeding on an infected host. This blockage starves the fleas, drives them to aggressive feeding behaviour, and causes them to try and clear the blockage via

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city west of China, between one third and 40% of the inhabitants died within eight months. By the 18th century, the population of Cairo was halved from its numbers in 1347.

9454: 7214: 2177:. Italy was particularly badly hit by the pandemic, and the resulting familiarity with death may have caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on 12919: 4264: 3696: 9224:

Wagner DM, Klunk J, Harbeck M, Devault A, Waglechner N, Sahl JW, et al. (April 2014). "Yersinia pestis and the plague of Justinian 541-543 AD: a genomic analysis".

3201: 1467:. Among many other culprits of plague contagiousness, pre-existing malnutrition weakened the immune response, contributing to an immense decline in European population. 1134:

Europe, sanitation legislation consisted of an ordinance requiring homeowners to shout, "Look out below!" three times before dumping a full chamber pot into the street.

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forms of plague, which lengthen the duration of outbreaks throughout the seasons and help account for its high mortality rate and additional recorded symptoms. In 2014,

267:), the European population did not regain its 14th century level until the 16th century. Outbreaks of the plague recurred around the world until the early 19th century. 5435: 10771: 4322: 855:, the organism responsible for bubonic plague. The second pandemic of bubonic plague was active in Europe from 1347, the beginning of the Black Death, until 1750. 6014:

Izdebski, A.; Guzowski, P.; Poniat, R.; Masci, L.; Palli, J.; Vignola, C.; Bauch, M.; Cocozza, C.; Fernandes, R.; Ljungqvist, F. C.; Newfield, T. (10 February 2022).

5809: 5637: 612:). Ole Jørgen Benedictow believes that this indicates it was an offshoot of the first plague pandemic which made its way eastward to Chinese territory by around 600. 1746:

began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, now minute and numerous. As the

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wrote about the Great Pestilence in 1893 and suggested that it had been "some form of the ordinary Eastern or bubonic plague". In 1908, Gasquet said use of the name

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Université de Strasbourg; Institut de turcologie, Université de Strasbourg; Institut d'études turques, Association pour le développement des études turques (1998).

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anthropological implications of the Black Death. The mortality rate of the Black Death in the 14th century was far greater than the worst 20th-century outbreaks of

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of Jupiter and Saturn. His use of the phrase is not connected unambiguously with the plague pandemic of 1347 and appears to refer to the fatal outcome of disease.

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in Hong Kong in 1894; Yersin also proved this bacterium was present in rodents and suggested the rat was the main vehicle of transmission. The mechanism by which

12867: 11790: 10936: 6159: 458:, 'black death', was used in 1350 by Simon de Covino (or Couvin), a Belgian astronomer, in his poem "On the Judgement of the Sun at a Feast of Saturn" ( 6686: 11887: 2762: 2240:

In fact, the fifteenth century witnessed the beginnings of a great middle-class movement, which can be distinctly traced to the effect of the great pestilence

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settlements in Germany, and this was reduced by nearly 40,000 by 1450. The disease bypassed some areas, with the most isolated areas being less vulnerable to

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cast doubt on this identification and the techniques employed, stating that this method "does not allow us to confirm the identification of Y. pestis as the

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from plague victims from the same East Smithfield cemetery and indicated that the strain that caused the Black Death is ancestral to most modern strains of

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as the major agent of the pandemic suggest that its extent and symptoms can be explained by a combination of bubonic plague with other diseases, including

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and China. However more recent research notes that the previous sampling contained East Asian bias and that sampling since then has discovered strains of

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in October 1347; the disease spread rapidly all over the island. Galleys from Kaffa reached Genoa and Venice in January 1348, but it was the outbreak in

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Academic debate continues, but no single alternative explanation for the plague's spread has achieved widespread acceptance. Many scholars arguing for

1945:'Master Raymond'), observed the decreasing mortality rate of successive outbreaks of plague in 1347–1348, 1362, 1371 and 1382 in his treatise 11883: 9968: 6732: 1306:, where, as in other counties, it made the country quite void of inhabitants so that there were almost none left alive. ... But at length it came to 6941: 6314: 4728:

people, whom it slaughters by accident. Its natural hosts are various species of rodent such as marmots and voles, which are found throughout China.

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agent of the Black Death and subsequent plagues. In addition, the utility of the published tooth-based ancient DNA technique used to diagnose fatal

1627:, al-Mujahid Ali, was released from Mamluk captivity in Egypt and carried plague with him on his return home. During 1349, records show the city of 1126:

Merdons and rue Merdiere—as well as a rue du Pipi. Pigs, cattle, chickens, geese, goats and horses roamed the streets of medieval London and Paris.

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The Black Death killed, by various estimations, from 25 to 60% of Europe's population. Robert Gottfried writes that as early as 1351, "agents for

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in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg ... From the two said parts of the body this deadly

12729: 7268: 823:, and a second that lacks resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human 6713: 11048: 10814: 10716: 10434: 6467: 7317: 4880: 4093: 1409:

a few weeks later that was the entry point into northern Italy. Towards the end of January, one of the galleys expelled from Italy arrived in

1165:"evolved in or near China" over 2,600 years ago. Later research by a team led by Galina Eroshenko placed its origins more specifically in the 11949: 6016:"Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic" 739:, rodents began to flee the dried-out grasslands to more populated areas, spreading the disease. The plague disease, caused by the bacterium 307:) or "first pestilence" was applied, to distinguish the mid-14th century phenomenon from other infectious diseases and epidemics of plague. 12901: 11133: 5932: 3760: 3655: 8558: 8231: 6835: 12068: 11492: 11404: 10734: 10626: 6409: 5678: 3867: 3639: 5962: 4963: 3829: 2328:

society until the second quarter of the 19th century. Between 1701 and 1750, thirty-seven larger and smaller epidemics were recorded in

2220:" has its roots in this period, though the practice of isolating people to prevent the spread of disease is older. In the city-state of 1314:

and to London, and finally it spread over all England and so wasted the people that scarce the tenth person of any sort was left alive.

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Others still favor an origin in China. The theory of Chinese origin implicates the Silk Road, the disease possibly spreading alongside

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area of London, as well as of wills registered in London during the period, which supported the pneumonic hypothesis. Currently, while

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is the least common of the three forms, with an untreated mortality rate near 100%. Symptoms are high fevers and purple skin patches (

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were annihilated. By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed. During this period many Jews relocated to

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may have been different from more modern types, with bubonic plague transmissible by fleas first known from Bronze Age remains near

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Alfano V, Sgobbi M (January 2022). "A fame, peste et bello libera nos Domine: An Analysis of the Black Death in Chioggia in 1630".

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consecutively, it was probably closer to 75–80% of the population. In Germany and England ... it was probably closer to 20%.

1750:

had been and still was an infallible token of approaching death, such also were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves.

902:

burial site in England. Schuenemann et al. concluded in 2011 "that the Black Death in medieval Europe was caused by a variant of

8009: 12986: 12080: 11964: 11624: 11327: 10840: 10224: 4754:"Yersinia pestis strains of ancient phylogenetic branch 0.ANT are widely spread in the high-mountain plague foci of Kyrgyzstan" 3693: 1805: 4671: 3209: 13006: 12882: 11913: 10565: 10470: 10398: 10343: 9898: 9835: 9816: 9744: 9704: 9584: 9565: 9546: 9527: 9479: 9391: 9371: 9192: 9018: 8999: 8692: 8474: 8455: 8436: 8417: 8398: 8225: 8176: 8048: 8029: 7852: 7788: 7757: 7709: 7574: 7515: 7484: 7138: 6403: 6357: 6281: 6198: 5852: 5721: 5672: 5605: 5557: 5427: 5291: 5261: 5188: 5144: 4957: 4445: 2375: 1236:

armies and traders, or possibly arriving via ship—however, this theory is still contested. It is speculated that rats aboard

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Contemporary accounts of the pandemic are varied and often imprecise. The most commonly noted symptom was the appearance of

175:. The immediate territorial origins of the Black Death and its outbreak remain unclear, with some evidence pointing towards 12784: 12167: 12053: 10820: 10764: 10589: 10536: 10004: 5992: 5799: 5629: 3944: 1762:. Most people died two to seven days after initial infection. Freckle-like spots and rashes, which may have been caused by 10595: 6573: 5298:

Northern Russia was hit in 1352, beginning in towns close to the Baltic, Novgorod, and Pskov, and reaching Moscow in 1353.

2966: 2837: 2173:, between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th-century Italy that ultimately led to the 1789:. As the disease progresses, sputum becomes free-flowing and bright red. Pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of 90–95%. 636:

A report by the Medical Faculty of Paris stated that a conjunction of planets had caused "a great pestilence in the air" (

12122: 12035: 11992: 10704: 10500: 10494: 10476: 10374: 10294: 10095: 2198: 9756:"Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death" 9167: 6881: 4122:"Detection of 400-year-old Yersinia pestis DNA in human dental pulp: an approach to the diagnosis of ancient septicemia" 4003: 2793: 1451:

in 1353. Plague was less common in parts of Europe with less-established trade relations, including the majority of the

1302:

The seventh year after it began, it came to England and first began in the towns and ports joining on the seacoasts, in

160:. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history. 13011: 12887: 12651: 12554: 12048: 11959: 11734: 11537: 11497: 11485: 11480: 11468: 11396: 10758: 10518: 10404: 8882: 8612: 8593: 8330: 7631: 7608: 7408: 7389: 7354: 1886:

was reduced from between 110,000 and 120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351. At least 60% of the population of

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Dols MW (January 1974). "The Comparative Communal Responses to the Black Death in Muslim and Christian Societies".

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Bramanti B, Stenseth NC, Walløe L, Lei X (2016). "Plague: A Disease Which Changed the Path of Human Civilization".

6495: 4833:"Historical Y. pestis Genomes Reveal the European Black Death as the Source of Ancient and Modern Plague Pandemics" 3289: 2766: 835: 8076:"Absence of Yersinia pestis-specific DNA in human teeth from five European excavations of putative plague victims" 6903: 6793: 5500: 2281: 1287:

outside the west do not contain the same evidence of the Black Death, because there were actually four strains of

239:, thus explaining the quick inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than would be expected if the primary 13016: 12547: 12174: 11620: 11280: 10924: 10918: 10888: 10808: 10710: 10650: 10613: 10601: 10512: 10337: 10123: 9973: 9953: 2147: 2104: 1817: 1452: 17: 9489:

Barker H (2021). "Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain, Embargoes, and Yersinia pestis in the Black Sea, 1346–48".

2099:

Because 14th-century healers and governments were at a loss to explain or stop the disease, Europeans turned to

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Pamuk S (December 2007). "The Black Death and the origins of the 'Great Divergence' across Europe, 1300–1600".

8819:"Dynamics of the plague-wildlife-human system in Central Asia are controlled by two epidemiological thresholds" 1456: 1118:. Until then streets were usually unhygienic, with live animals and human parasites facilitating the spread of 264: 256: 249: 9081:"Phylogeography of the second plague pandemic revealed through analysis of historical Yersinia pestis genomes" 7105: 6729: 4390: 12157: 11866: 11780: 10752: 10668: 10270: 681:, the organism responsible for spreading bubonic plague in most plague epidemics. Both male and female fleas 398: 260: 7864:

Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800

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Olea RA, Christakos G (June 2005). "Duration of urban mortality for the 14th-century Black Death epidemic".

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Spyrou MA, Keller M, Tukhbatova RI, Scheib CL, Nelson EA, Andrades Valtueña A, et al. (October 2019).

3534:;" (When the king ended the oracles of judgment / Black Death arose, and the nations surrendered to him;). 2336:

has suffered severely from visitations of the plague, and sometimes two-thirds of its population had died.

2204:

Prior to the emergence of the Black Death, the continent was considered a feudalistic society, composed of

35: 6933: 5336:"The sex-selective impact of the Black Death and recurring plagues in the Southern Netherlands, 1349-1450" 4433: 3784:"Plague DNA found in ancient teeth shows medieval Black Death, 1,500-year pandemic caused by same disease" 12152: 11525: 11106: 11100: 10894: 10864: 10674: 10644: 10524: 10300: 9948: 6310: 2305: 1060: 631: 31: 8875:

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

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and again become a major health threat. One case of a drug-resistant form of the bacterium was found in

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Spyrou MA, Tukhbatova RI, Wang CC, Valtueña AA, Lankapalli AK, Kondrashin VV, et al. (June 2018).

8702:

Rascovan N, Sjögren KG, Kristiansen K, Nielsen R, Willerslev E, Desnues C, Rasmussen S (January 2019).

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soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the

7641:

Bos KI, Schuenemann VJ, Golding GB, Burbano HA, Waglechner N, Coombes BK, et al. (October 2011).

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Spyrou MA, Tukhbatova RI, Feldman M, Drath J, Kacki S, Beltrán de Heredia J, et al. (June 2016).

2867: 13001: 12981: 12564: 12420: 12140: 11954: 11876: 11861: 11846: 11694: 11629: 11591: 11581: 11571: 11431: 11337: 10410: 10073: 9891: 2620: 2444: 2156: 1264:, the Black Death most likely originated in the nearby plague focus on the northwestern shore of the 878: 484: 235:. There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death mainly spread from person-to-person as 12582: 8576: 8448: