Black Death

The **Black Death (1346-1353)** was a pandemic in Europe and Asia during the 14th century. It was at its worst between 1347 and 1352.

This outbreak of disease killed between 25 million and 50 million people across Europe. This was between 30% and 60% of Europe's population at the time. This was the deadliest event in known human history.

At the time, 14th-century European writers called the pandemic the "Great Mortality". After later epidemics, it was named "the Black Death."

## Cause 
Historians and scientists cannot be sure which disease caused the Black Death. However, most think that it was the bubonic plague. That is a bacterial infection caused by the *Yersinia pestis* species of bacteria.

Not everybody agrees that plague caused the Black Death. Some scientists and historians think it was anthrax or a viral hemorrhagic fever.

### Incorrect theories about causes 
The plague happened far before scientists discovered germs, and people at the time had no way of understanding infections. Instead, they blamed the Black Death on other things.

#### Humorism 
At the time, doctors believed in Hippocrates's theory of humorism. According to this theory, the body consists of different fluids. If these "humors" are in harmony (balanced well), a person is healthy. When they are out of balance, disease results.

#### Miasma 
This theory did not explain why disease spreads from one person to another. Most people thought that infection was caused by *miasma* ("bad air")*. Since that answer was based on astrology, many people believed it, and it was translated into many languages.

#### Religion 
Many people thought diseases were a punishment from God. Trying to please God, many participated in religious ceremonies (including Confession and Communion). They also asked for forgiveness and did penance.

### Blaming the Jews 
Many people believed the Jews were causing the plague by poisoning wells. As a result, Jews were victims of pogroms and massacres throughout Europe.s and massacres]]

According to a 2005 book:*Panic emerged ... during the scourge of the Black Death in 1348, when widespread terror prompted a revival of the well poisoning charge. In areas where Jews appeared to die of the plague in fewer numbers than Christians, possibly because of better hygiene [possibly related to religious practices] and greater isolation, lower mortality rates provided evidence of Jewish guilt.*

A 2021 study also noted:*Carriers of recessive familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) mutations have natural immunity against Y. pestis. During the Black Death, Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague, perhaps because Jews carried FMF mutations and died at lower plague rates than Christians. Blaming minorities for epidemics echoes across history[.]*

## History 
 routes by land (red) and by sea (blue). The Black Death may have spread along these trade routes]]
The Black Death may have begun in Central or East Asia. It first appeared in Crimea in 1347.*The plague that caused the Black Death originated [started] in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350.*Fleas living on black rats probably carried the disease. These rats traveled on Genoan ships and brought the plague to port cities around the Mediterranean. From there, the disease spread across Europe.

Rats may also have traveled along trade routes like the Silk Road and brought infected fleas to European cities. When the fleas bit humans, they infected them with the plague by injecting a bit of *Y. pestis'' bacteria into the wound. Symptoms would start three to seven days later.

### Germ warfare 
The Black Death may have first infected Europeans in 1347. That year, Mongol forces used the plague as a biological weapon. This was one of the earliest uses of germ warfare in history.

In Crimea, Mongol soldiers were fighting for control of Caffa (now Feodosiya, Ukraine). Caffa was an important port and international trading center for traders from Genoa. From the port at Caffa, they could bring goods to many other parts of Europe and Asia. the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679), the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1722, and the 1771 plague in Moscow. Records suggest the most harmful form of the plague disappeared from Europe in the 18th century. A Public Health Department was opened and did some leading-edge research.

### The plague today 
Plague sometimes occurs today. It is considered an animal disease and is found in all continents except Oceania.

#### Risk of plague 
There is a risk of human plague if all of these things are true:

Bubonic plague can spread to the lungs (causing pneumonic plague) and/or to the blood (causing septicemic plague).

* Bites from an infected flea
* Respiratory droplets
* Body fluids of an animal with plague gets into a human's body through a cut on their skin
* Untreated bubonic or pneumonic plague

### Treatments 
Today, plague is treated with antibiotics. But because nobody during the Black Death understood what caused the plague, doctors had no effective treatments. Often, doctors simply told their patients to go to Confession so that their sins would be forgiven if they died.

Eventually, the pandemic caused doctors to change their ideas about how the human body worked. Just 200 years later, Girolamo Fracastoro discovered that diseases spread through infection.

## Impact 
The Black Death had a major effect on Europe's population. At the time, there were 75 million and 200 million people across Eurasia. The Black Death killed around a third of these people. Some areas were affected more than others; in some places, up to half of the population died.

The pandemic changed Europe's social structure and decreased the power of the Roman Catholic Church. This resulted in widespread persecution of minorities like Jews, Muslims, foreigners, beggars, and lepers.

The uncertainty of daily survival influenced people to live for the moment, as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in *The Decameron* (1353).

## Media 
The Black Death appears in some modern literature and media, used as a subject or a setting. For example, Edgar Allan Poe's short story *The Masque of the Red Death* (1842) is set in an unnamed country during a fictional plague that shares many things in common with the Black Death.

Albert Camus's writings used that theme too. His novel *The Plague* (1947) discussed an Algerian plague outbreak in and how people reacted to the epidemic.

## Related pages 
* Great Plague of London
* *Yersinia pestis*
* Pandemic
* History of Europe

## References 
## Other websites 
### Primary sources online 
* Agnolo di Tura's account 
* Gabriele de' Mussi's account 
* Marchionne di Coppo di Stefano Buonaiuti's account 
* A Petrarch account  and More quotes from Petrarch 

### Secondary sources online 
* *The History Guide* "Satan Triumphant: The Black Death"
* Symptoms, causes, pictures of bubonic plague
* Overview of the black death
* BBC news story on controversy over Black Death origins
* Examination of "Ring around the Rosy"'s relationship to the plague
* Black Death Overview from BBC history
* Plague and Public Health in Renaissance Europe . Primary source documents and analyisis
* Secrets of the Dead . Mystery of the Black Death  PBS
* Pandemics in Eastern Europe