Dawn of the Black Death - The Eve of Europe's Great Mortality 1347-1351 (original) (raw)
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Black Plague: History and Analysis
Journal of Pharmaceutical Research International, 2021
The Black Death was a terrifying bubonic plague outbreak that swept over Europe and Asia in the 1300s. The plague ravaged Europe in October 1347, just as 12 boats from the Black Sea arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina. A large portion of the sailors on board had died, and the people who suffer were weakened and covered with dim wounds that flooded blood and release. The naval force of "death ships" was rapidly compelled out of the harbor by Sicilian subject matter experts, but it was too far to turn back: the Black Death would kill in excess of 20 million people all through Europe throughout the accompanying five years, representing in excess of 33% of the mainland's populace. The Black Death is said to have been achieved by the plague, which was achieved by a defilement with the minuscule organic entities Yersinia pestis. As demonstrated by present-day genomic examination, the Y. pestis strain introduced during the Black Death is genealogical to all or any circumn...
The Black Death across Europe- Conference paper
This paper aims to look at the history of the bubonic plague in the 14 th century through historical, archaeological and medical means. From its beginnings on the Mongolian steppes the plague has always been interlinked with man and his love of commerce, indeed it is this very trade that help spread the plague during the 14 th century. Once the plague interacted with man it spread like wildfire causing the death of nearly a third of all Europeans and bringing about a new and distinct paradigm with ramifications that would shape modern Europe, that of social mobility and the rise of the working class.
The Black Death was one of the most
2014
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, an argument supported by recent forensic research, although this view has been challenged by a number of scholars. Thought to have started in China, it travelled along the Silk Road and had reached the Crimea by 1346. From there, probably carried by Oriental rat fleas residing on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, it spread throughout
The Black Death: Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World - 2017 syllabus (final)
NOTE: This course was last taught in 2017. Much new work has come out on the history of plague and the late medieval pandemic since then, some of it overturning long-held truisms. Please consult my "Plague Studies" tab and the general bibliography, "The Mother of All Pandemics" for the most recent work in the field. Herewith is the final version of my syllabus for my undergraduate course, "The Black Death: Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World." The course actually teaches the whole global history of plague, from the earliest period it effected human societies (currently, the Bronze Age) up to its global presence in the world today. The course combines the latest scientific knowledge on plague, including molecular retrievals of *Yersinia pestis* from historical remains, with traditional historical documentation to understand the full impact of the pandemic waves of plague. Further details on my teaching method can be found in this blog post from 2015: https://mip-archumanitiespress.org/blog/2015/08/27/teaching-the-new-paradigm-in-black-death-studies/. The volume, *Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death*, inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe 1, no. 1-2 (Fall 2014), is available open-access here: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval\_globe/1.
The Medieval Globe, 2014
In the past decade and a half, the findings of molecular microbiology have effected a transformation in our understanding the Black Death and its history. The question 'What was it?' has been decisively resolved in favor of the pathogen Yersinia pestis. Microbiological research has also been decisive in pointing toward the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau as the probable site of the organism's geographic origin and, more tentatively, in suggesting some chronological parameters in which key phases of that evolution occurred. These developments have laid out a challenge for medievalists, who now need to test whether these new biological narratives can better inform our understandings of the Black Death (1346-1353) and the Second Plague Pandemic more broadly defined. It also lays out a challenge for anyone who wants to apply knowledge of the Black Death to the understanding of contemporary epidemics and (re)emerging diseases. This inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe brings together scholars from many disciplines, to begin to assess how new work in the genetics, entomology, and epidemiology of Yersinia pestis, as well as new insights from archeological research, can combine with humanistic methods to allow a rethinking of the Second Plague Pandemic and its historical significance. The contributors collectively demonstrate that this phenomenon was geographically broad, chronologically deep, and ecologically complex: that it likely involved most of Eurasia and North Africa (and possibly parts beyond); that it likely extended from the 13th to the 19th centuries; and that it almost certainly involved many more intermediate hosts than the rats normally considered in plague histories. They also demonstrate that humanistic analysis has never been more crucial to reconstructing the history of the impact of this disease: genetics may be uniquely qualified to trace the history of the pathogen, but the insights of history—both traditional modes (political, religious, cultural) and newer ones (environmental, climatic, post-colonial)— allow us to see how a single-celled organism became a force shaping nearly half the globe. This issue serves as a state-of-the-field summation for medievalists and for researchers studying the world’s most lethal diseases and their modern implications. It will also provide a methodological model for global historians of any period. It is available open-access at the following link: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval\_globe/1/. The following link leads to the video of a symposium that was held at the University of Illinois in January 2015 to discuss the implications of the volume: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/The+Black+Death+and+BeyondA+New+Research+at+the+Intersection+of+Science+and+the+Humanities/1\_g1tg61l5.
Geography Compass, 2010
Recent research points to multiple inconsistencies regarding modern Yersinia pestis (in Bubonic, Pneumonic, or Septicemic Plague variants) as a causative agent for the Medieval Black Death (MBD). Published arguments at odds with a Y. pestis-caused epidemic include differences in recorded periodicity, seasonal mortality peaks, relevant biogeographical details, genetic findings, and spatiotemporal dynamics, among other inconsistencies. Here, we describe and expand on some of the recent literature noting these items. In addition, we discuss preliminary research related to our recently published theory, in which we agree with research suggesting that the MBD was caused by a virus, not a bacterium, and elucidate our contention that seasonal changes and medieval human trade patterns controlled the timing of peak mortality during the MBD and subsequent 'plagues'. Epidemic evidence from the first epidemic wave and later outbreaks is presented in support of our hypothesis.
Medical History, 2022
A specialist in the epidemiology and history of the plague in the Nordic countries, to which he devoted his thesis, Ole Benedictow extended his investigation to the second great pandemic to offer a first version of this book in 2004 entitled The Black Death, 1346-1353. A Complete History. 'A complete…' on the dust jacket but already The Complete history on the front page! 'A' would have been more modest, even if the challenge was already audacious. This second edition is considerably expanded and demonstrates how much the historical discipline, like any field of knowledge, is an unfinished process, but one that never stops: 'a complete history of that epic epidemic does not imply its final history', advised the author in his preface to the first edition (p. xv). This edition is enriched by more than twice as many pages, correcting, completing, discussing and clarifying many of the chapters in an almost identical order to the previous version. The bibliography increases from nineteen to eighty-four pages, even if the references to Wikipedia or Google Books (pp. 934-5) artificially (but honestly!) enlarge this volume. The proposed panorama covers all the areas of diffusion of the 'black death (mors nigra)'the term used in Paris from 1349 to 1350 by the Liège canon Simon de Covino. However, there is no evidence that Simon was a physician, even if he may have lived in Montpellier: Ernest Wickersheimer's famous biographical dictionary of physicians or the 1974 article devoted to Corvino by Christine Renardy would have made it easy to verify this. 1 The expression was used again in school textbooks (1822) in England. Contrary to what O. Benedictow asserts (pp. 3-4), it was preferentially used in German historiography from the pioneering work of J.F.E. Hecker, Der schwarze Tod in vierzehnten Jarhundert (Berlin, 1832), that of Robert Hoeniger (Berlin, 1882) up to the classic work of Johannes Nohl (Potsdam, 1924) and more recently that of Klaus Bergdolt (München, 1994, new edition 2011). In France, the first use of the term was by Adrien Philippe in his Peste noire (Paris, 1853). An English synthesis written in 1865 by Frederic Seebohm (Fornightly Review, 2) used the expression to qualify 'The Great pestilence now commonly known as The Black Death' according to the title given by Francis Gasquet to his foundational book of 1893. A more detailed historiographical reminder would have been welcome. Of course, it is impossible to master everything in such a considerable mass of documentation on a global scale (covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia): this poses a real challenge, according to the author's own introduction! It requires the collection of a multitude of documentary sources or, more precisely, the most exhaustive possible examination of an infinite number of local and regional monographs and scholarly articles of all origins and languages, but also of various specialities depending on the multiform impact of the disease (demography, biology, economics, religion, culture etc.). However, although many studies had focused on the effects of the Great Plague, a little attention had been paid to the geographical spread of the epidemic, its modalities, its rhythms and its precise demographic impact (p. xv). It is therefore to this subject that this book is mainly devoted. Some works had already paved the way. In particular, and without any misplaced chauvinism on the part of the author of this review, it is regrettable that Jean-Noël Biraben's two important volumes on Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens (Paris-La Haye, 1975) have not been translated into English, as they are full of valuable information and his bibliography (more than 200 pages) was the most complete on this date. With J.F.D. Shrewsbury on the Bubonic plague in the