Spread · Epidemic

Black Death

A pandemic of plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, that swept western Asia, North Africa and Europe from 1346 to 1353 and killed perhaps a third or more of their people. Ancient DNA traces its strain to an outbreak in Central Asia in 1338–1339. Plague returned in waves for four more centuries.

1338 – 1772
45 places reached
Over since 1772

See it spread on the atlas All spreads Wikipedia

December 1772

Every place it reached: 39, faint where it ended

Black DeathStruckSpread

Trade routesSea lane

Trade routes that carried it

Routes on the atlas along which the sources say it travelled.

c. 1266 – 1475 · by sea
Genoese Black Sea trade
Genoese galleys leaving Caffa in 1347 carried plague to Constantinople and, by way of Messina, home to Genoa, as Benedictow reconstructs it; from Genoa it went on to Marseille.
c. 1315 – 1533 · by sea
Venetian galley convoys
Venetian galleys coming back from the Black Sea brought plague to Crete, and the main fleet brought it home to Venice in November 1347.

In its story

Events on timeastra with pages of their own.

1340s – 1880s
second plague pandemic
1346 – 1352
Black Death
1347 – 1349
Black Death in the Middle East
1347 – 1348
Black Death in Italy
1347 – 1352
Black Death in France
1348 – 1349
Black Death in England
1348 – 1351
Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire
1349 – 1350
Black Death in Norway
1350 – 1351
Black Death in Sweden
1625 – 1627
Italian Plague of 1629-1631
1656
Naples plague
1665 – 1666
Great Plague of London
1720 – 1722
Great Plague of Marseille
1770 – 1772
1770–1772 Russian plague
15 September 1771
Plague Riot

Timeline

45 arrivals in order: when it was first recorded in each place, from where and who carried it, with the sources for the date.

1338, until 1339 · Kara-Djigach · First wave
Gravestones of a Church of the East community here record many deaths from 'pestilence' in 1338–1339; plague DNA from the graves is the ancestor of the strains that later spread west.
where it began[1][6]
1346 · Golden Horde (Sarai) · First wave
Plague broke out on the lower Volga in spring 1346, striking Astrakhan and Old and New Sarai, the Golden Horde's chief towns; how it came there from Central Asia is unknown.
[2][15]
1346 · Caffa · First wave
The Golden Horde army besieging this Genoese port fell ill in autumn 1346, and plague then broke out in the town; the story of corpses hurled over the walls comes from a writer who was not there.
from Sarai · by war[2][3][6]
May 1347, until 1348 · Constantinople · First wave
Galleys that left Caffa early in 1347 brought plague here about May; it killed a young son of Emperor John VI, and the first outbreak lasted about a year.
from Caffa · by trade[2][3][6][7]
September 1347 · Genoa · First wave
Galleys back from Caffa brought plague home in the summer of 1347, by Benedictow's reckoning; the city passed it on by sea to Marseille and by road into northern and central Italy.
from Caffa · by trade[2]
September 1347 · Trebizond · First wave
Plague crossed the Black Sea from Caffa to Trebizond, capital of a small Greek empire on the Pontic coast, in September 1347.
from Caffa · by trade[3]
September 1347 · Alexandria · First wave
A merchant ship from Constantinople carrying slaves brought plague here in autumn 1347; from Alexandria it spread through the Nile delta the next spring.
from Constantinople · by trade[3][6][10]
October 1347, until 1348 · Messina · First wave
Twelve Genoese galleys put in here in early October 1347; townspeople began to die, the Genoese were driven out, and people fleeing the city carried plague across Sicily.
from Caffa · by trade[6][8][3]
November 1347 · Marseille · First wave
Ships that had loaded goods at Genoa brought plague to Marseille, where it broke out about 1 November 1347; from here it moved along the coast and up the Rhône.
from Genoa · by trade[2][9]
January 1348 · Pisa · First wave
Plague came from Genoa to Pisa in January 1348 and spread from here through Tuscany, to Lucca, Florence and Siena.
from Genoa · by trade[8]
January 1348 · Avignon · First wave
Plague struck the papal city in January 1348 and lasted seven months; Pope Clement VI had a new cemetery consecrated for the dead, and his physician Guy de Chauliac described the disease.
from Marseille · by trade[17][4][9]
c. 1348 · Mecca · First wave
Pilgrims performing the hajj brought plague to Mecca in 1348; some accounts date it a year later.
by travellers[6][3]
March 1348 · Florence · First wave
Plague reached Florence in March 1348 and lasted until July, killing a large share of the city; Boccaccio described it in the Decameron.
from Pisa · by trade[8]
March 1348 · Venice · First wave
The Venetian fleet returning from Caffa brought plague about mid-November 1347, but it was recognised only in late March 1348, when it swept the crowded city.
from Caffa · by trade[2][8]
April 1348 · Tunis · First wave
A ship from Sicily brought plague to Tunis in April 1348, while a Moroccan army was in the country; the army later carried it home to Morocco.
from Messina · by trade[6][3]
April 1348 · Gaza · First wave
Plague came overland from the Nile delta to Gaza in April 1348; the townspeople fled to the countryside.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
May 1348 · Barcelona · First wave
Plague reached Barcelona, the chief port of the Crown of Aragon, in May 1348; in Aragon it lasted about a year.
[3][11]
June 1348 · Almería · First wave
Plague reached Almería, a chief port of the Emirate of Granada, in June 1348; Morocco's epidemic may have been seeded from here.
[3][6]
June 1348 · Paris · First wave
Plague reached the Paris region by June 1348 and was at its worst that winter, when the chronicler Jean de Venette wrote of 800 deaths a day in the city.
[7][9]
June 1348 · Gascony (Bordeaux) · First wave
Plague was in Bordeaux, the capital of English Gascony, by June 1348; Joan, daughter of Edward III, died of it near the city on 2 September on her way to marry in Castile.
[9][7]
June 1348, until 1349 · Melcombe · First wave
Shortly before 24 June 1348 a ship put in here with a sailor from Gascony who carried the plague; Melcombe was the first town in England to be infected.
from Bordeaux · by trade[7]
July 1348 · Damascus · First wave
Plague reached Damascus in July 1348; Muslims, Christians and Samaritans joined in processions of prayer as the deaths rose into the thousands.
from Gaza · by trade[6][10]
August 1348 · Dublin · First wave
Plague first appeared at Howth, Dalkey and Drogheda; Friar John Clyn recorded 14,000 deaths in Dublin alone from the start of August to Christmas 1348.
[4]
August 1348 · Rome · First wave
Plague appears to have reached Rome only in August 1348; with the popes in Avignon, fewer pilgrims came to the city, which may have delayed it.
[8]
September 1348 · Cairo · First wave
Plague reached Cairo, the Mamluk capital and the largest city of the Mediterranean world, in September 1348; the young sultan left the city, and about a third of its people died.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
November 1348, until 1349 · England (London) · First wave
Plague reached London in autumn 1348, by November at the latest, by road from the south-west and by sea along the coast; it was at its worst early in 1349.
from Melcombe · by trade[7]
May 1349 · Vienna · First wave
Coming from Venice over the Alps and through Styria, plague reached Vienna in May 1349 and lasted until September; about a third of the city died.
from Venice · by trade[12]
August 1349, until 1350 · Norway (Bergen) · First wave
An English ship brought plague to Bergen in late summer 1349; its crew died as the cargo was unloaded, and the disease spread from here up the coast to Nidaros and across Norway.
from London · by trade[13][6][14]
January 1350 · Gibraltar · First wave
Plague broke out at New Year 1350 in the Castilian army besieging Gibraltar; King Alfonso XI refused to lift the siege and died of it in late March.
by war[18]
1350 · Lübeck · First wave
Plague reached Lübeck, the leading Hanseatic town, and Hamburg in the early summer of 1350, coming by sea before it reached the inland towns.
[12]
May 1350 · Visby · First wave
Plague reached Visby on Gotland by May 1350, probably by ship from Denmark or Germany; in July nine people were burned there after confessing under torture to spreading it by poison.
[14]
August 1350, until 1351 · Sweden (Stockholm) · First wave
From Gotland plague crossed to the Swedish mainland and reached Stockholm in August 1350; King Magnus left at once for Åland and stayed away until May 1351.
from Visby · by trade[14]
1352 · Pskov · First wave
Plague reached Pskov in 1352, probably from the lands of present-day Latvia; the sick coughed blood and died within three days, and Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod died of it after visiting.
[15][16]
August 1352 · Novgorod · First wave
Plague came from Pskov to Novgorod in August 1352; from here it spread along the trade roads into the rest of the Russian lands.
from Pskov · by trade[16][15]
1353 · Moscow · First wave
Plague reached Moscow in 1353 and killed Grand Prince Simeon the Proud, his two young sons and his brother; the head of the Russian Church may also have died of it.
from Novgorod · by trade[15][16][6]
1361, until 1362 · England (London) · Pestis secunda
Plague's first return to England, the pestis secunda of 1361–1362, may have killed about a fifth of the people.
[7]
October 1629 · Milan · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Soldiers in the War of the Mantuan Succession are said to have brought plague to Lombardy; it reached Milan in October 1629 and, after carnival in 1630, killed about 60,000 of 130,000 people.
by war[19]
1630 · Venice · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Plague struck Venice in 1630–1631 and killed about 46,000 of its 140,000 people; in October 1630 the Senate vowed the church of Santa Maria della Salute for the city's deliverance.
[19]
April 1656 · Naples · Naples plague
Plague, in Sardinia since 1652, reached Naples in spring 1656 and killed more than half the city that year, perhaps 150,000 to 200,000 people.
[20][5]
May 1656, until 1657 · Barletta · Naples plague
The ship Sant'Andrea from Naples was turned away from Barletta on 26 May 1656, but plague got ashore; the town was declared free of it on 22 June 1657, after 7,000 to 12,000 deaths.
from Naples · by trade[5]
June 1656 · Rome · Naples plague
From the Kingdom of Naples plague spread north to Rome in June 1656 and on through the Papal States, killing about 23,000 Romans.
from Naples · by trade[20]
April 1665 · London · Great Plague of London
The first official plague deaths of the Great Plague were recorded in April 1665; by the year's end the bills of mortality listed 68,596, probably far fewer than the true toll.
[21]
May 1720 · Marseille · Great Plague of Marseille
The merchant ship Grand-Saint-Antoine, back from Sidon in the Levant with silk and cotton, reached Marseille on 25 May 1720; plague escaped its quarantine and killed about 50,000 of 90,000 people by 1722.
by trade[22][23]
January 1770 · Focșani · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Russian troops fighting the Ottomans in Moldavia found the first signs of plague at Focșani in January 1770, caught from prisoners of war and booty.
by war[24]
December 1770 · Moscow · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Plague from the war in Moldavia was identified in Moscow in December 1770; it peaked in September 1771, set off the Plague Riot, and killed 52,000 to 100,000 people.
from Focșani · by war[24]

Sources

Works the dates are read from. Each arrival above names its own.

1.The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia. Maria A. Spyrou et al., 2022, Nature 606, 718–724
2.The origin and early spread of the Black Death in Italy: first evidence of plague victims from 14th-century Liguria (northern Italy). Donatella Cesana, Ole J. Benedictow and Raffaella Bianucci, 2017, Anthropological Science 125 (1), 15–24
3.Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa. Mark Wheelis, 2002, Emerging Infectious Diseases 8 (9), 971–975. citing Figure 1, "tentative chronology of the initial spread of plague", after Dols 1977, Gasquet 1893 and Bartsocas 1966
4.Annalium Hiberniae Chronicon ad annum MCCCXLIX. Friar John Clyn, edited by Richard Butler, 1849, Irish Archaeological Society (CELT edition, University College Cork)
5.Plague Epidemic in the Kingdom of Naples, 1656–1658. Silvia Scasciamacchia et al., 2012, Emerging Infectious Diseases 18 (1), 186–188
6.Black Death. citing Byrne 2012 (Encyclopedia of the Black Death), pp. 51, 65–66, 87; Michele da Piazza via Ziegler 1998, p. 40; Karlsson 2000, p. 111; Belich 2024, p. 42
7.Black Death in England. citing Grey Friars' Chronicle of Lynn (Gransden 1957), translated in Benedictow 2004, p. 127; Deaux 1969, p. 122; Benedictow 2004, p. 134; Horrox 1994, pp. 9–10, 246; Gottfried 1983, p. 131
8.Black Death in Italy. citing Harrison 2000 (Stora döden); Benedictow 2004, p. 93
9.Black Death in France. citing Byrne 2012, p. 50; Harrison 2000; Byrne 2004 (The Black Death), p. 55
10.Black Death in the Middle East. citing Harrison 2000
11.Black Death in Spain. citing Harrison 2000
12.Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire. citing Harrison 2000
13.Black Death in Norway. citing Harrison 2000
14.Black Death in Sweden. citing Myrdal, Digerdöden, pestvågor och ödeläggelse (agrarhistoria.se)
15.Black Death in Russia. citing Byrne 2012, p. 245; Langer 1975, pp. 54–57; Fennell 2022, p. 159; Benedictow 2004, p. 213
16.Simeon of Moscow. citing Karamzin, History of the Russian State (years 1352 and 1353)
17.Guy de Chauliac. citing Benedictow 2004, p. 236 (Chauliac's own account)
18.Fifth siege of Gibraltar. citing Jackson 1986, p. 52
19.1629–1631 Italian plague. citing Kohn 2007, p. 200; Alfani and Percoco 2019, p. 1181
20.Naples Plague (1656). citing Alfani 2013; Scasciamacchia et al. 2012
21.Great Plague of London. citing Leasor 1962, pp. 46–50; Pepys's diary, 30 April 1665
22.Great Plague of Marseille. citing Duchêne and Contrucci, Marseille, pp. 361–362
23.Peste de Marseille (1720). citing Duchêne and Contrucci 1998, p. 363; Carrière, Coudurié and Rebuffat 1988 (Marseille ville morte), p. 151
24.1770–1772 Russian plague. citing Melikishvili 2006, pp. 24–26

The Black Death was a plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history, leading to the death of up to 50 million people, around 30% to 60% of the European population and approximately 33% of the Middle Eastern population. The disease was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is primarily spread by flea bites, though it may also spread through contact with infected tissues or fluids and, in pneumonic cases, through respiratory droplets.

The Black Death had far-reaching population, economic, and cultural effects. It has been tentatively considered as the second plague pandemic, despite each of these outbreaks being separated by around 500–600 years.

The Black Death was the second great natural disaster to strike Europe during the late Middle Ages (the first one being the Great Famine of 1315–1317). There were further outbreaks throughout the Late Middle Ages. Due to the crisis of the late Middle Ages, 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.

Names

European writers contemporary with the plague described the disease in Latin as pestis or pestilentia, 'pestilence'; epidemia, 'epidemic'; mortalitas, '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 furste moreyn" (first murrain) or "first pestilence" was applied, to distinguish the mid-14th century phenomenon from other infectious diseases and epidemics of plague.

The 1347 pandemic plague was not referred to specifically as "black", at the time, in any European language. The expression "black death" had occasionally been applied to other fatal or dangerous diseases. In English, "Black death" was not used to describe this plague pandemic, however, until the 1750s; the term is first attested in 1755, where it translated Danish: den sorte død, lit. 'the black death'.

This expression, as a proper name for the pandemic, had been popularised by Swedish and Danish chroniclers in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was transferred to other languages as a calque: Icelandic: svarti dauði, German: der schwarze Tod, and French: la mort noire. Previously, most European languages had named the pandemic a variant or calque of the Latin: magna mortalitas, lit. 'Great Death'.

The phrase 'black death', describing Death as black, is very old. Homer used it in the Odyssey to describe the monstrous Scylla, with her mouths "full of black Death" (Ancient Greek: πλεῖοι μέλανος Θανάτοιο, romanized: pleîoi mélanos Thanátoio). Seneca the Younger may have been the first to describe an epidemic as 'black death' (Latin: mors atra), but only in reference to the acute lethality and dark prognosis of disease. The 12th–13th century French physician Gilles de Corbeil had already used atra mors to refer to a "pestilential fever" (febris pestilentialis) in his work On the Signs and Symptoms of Diseases (De signis et symptomatibus aegritudium). The phrase mors nigra, '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" (De judicio Solis in convivio Saturni), which attributes the plague to an astrological conjunction 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.

The historian Elizabeth Penrose, writing under the pen-name "Mrs Markham", described the 14th-century outbreak as the "black death" in 1823. The historian Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet 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 atra mors for the 14th-century epidemic first appeared in a 1631 book on Danish history by J. I. Pontanus: "Commonly and from its effects, they called it the black death" (Latin: Vulgo & ab effectu atram mortem vocitabant).

Previous plague epidemics

Research from 2017 suggests plague first infected humans in Europe and Asia in the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. Research in 2018 found evidence of Yersinia pestis in an ancient Swedish tomb, which may have been associated with the "Neolithic decline" around 3000 BCE, in which European populations fell significantly. This Y. pestis may have been different from more modern types, with bubonic plague transmissible by fleas first known from Bronze Age remains near Samara.

The symptoms of bubonic plague are first attested in a fragment of Rufus of Ephesus preserved by Oribasius; these ancient medical authorities suggest bubonic plague had appeared in the Roman Empire before the reign of Trajan, six centuries before arriving at Pelusium in the reign of Justinian I. In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the plague of Justinian (541–549, with recurrences until 750) was Y. pestis. This is known as the first plague pandemic. In 610, the Chinese physician Chao Yuanfang 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 Simiao who died in 652 also mentioned a "malignant bubo" and plague that was common in Lingnan (Guangzhou). 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.

Origin

The origin of the Black Death is disputed. Genetic analysis suggests Yersinia pestis bacteria evolved approximately 7,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Neolithic, with flea-mediated strains emerging around 3,800 years ago during the late Bronze Age. The immediate territorial origins of the Black Death and its outbreak remain unclear, with some evidence pointing towards China, Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe. The pandemic was reportedly first introduced to Europe during the siege of the Genoese trading port of Caffa in Crimea by the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg in 1347. From Crimea, it was most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that travelled on Genoese ships, spreading through the Mediterranean Basin and reaching North Africa, West Asia, and the rest of Europe via Constantinople, Sicily, and the Italian Peninsula. There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death mainly spread from person-to-person as pneumonic plague, thus explaining the quick inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than would be expected if the primary vector was rat fleas causing bubonic plague.

A 2026 study published in Nature identified the oldest known evidence of plague outbreaks in human remains, finding traces of Yersinia pestis DNA in the teeth of 18 ancient hunter-gatherers from four cemeteries near Lake Baikal in Siberia. Carbon dating revealed two outbreaks, with the earliest cases dating to approximately 5,500 years ago, some 200 years earlier than previously established. Researchers concluded the disease likely spread initially from marmots through contact with raw organs or infected hides, and also transmitted between people through respiratory means. Many victims were young children, with three young girls buried side by side among the dead.

There has been a quest to find "patient zero", the earliest known victim(s) with evidence of the Black Death. In 2022, in an article called "The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia", researchers pointed to the earliest victims of the plague found at two cemeteries in the Chüy Valley near Lake Issyk-Kul in modern Kyrgyzstan. Here graves had tombstones with Syriac inscription, providing the name of the deceased, year of death and often the cause of death, showing a spike due to "pestilence" in 1338–1339. The article reported DNA data to provide genetic evidence from the teeth of seven individuals from the two cemeteries at Kara-Djigach and Burana finding evidence of Yersinia pestis. This confirms that the Yersinia pestis strain found in Kyrgyzstan predates and was the direct ancestor of the Black Death strains that devastated Europe and the Middle East starting in 1346–1347.

Causes

Early theory

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

Predominant modern theory

Due to climate change in Asia, rodents began to flee the dried-out grasslands to more populated areas, spreading the disease. The plague disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is enzootic (commonly present) in populations of fleas carried by ground rodents, including marmots, in various areas, including Central Asia, Kurdistan, West Asia, North India, Uganda, and the western United States.

Y. pestis was discovered by Alexandre Yersin, a pupil of Louis Pasteur, during an epidemic of bubonic plague 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 Y. pestis is usually transmitted was established in 1898 by Paul-Louis Simond and was found to involve the bites of fleas whose midguts had become obstructed by replicating Y. pestis several days after feeding on an infected host. This blockage starves the fleas, drives them to aggressive feeding behaviour, and causes them to try to clear the blockage via regurgitation, 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 hosts, keeping the disease endemic, and a second that lacks resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human epidemic.

DNA evidence

Definitive confirmation of the role of Y. pestis arrived in 2010 with a publication in PLOS Pathogens by Haensch et al. They assessed the presence of DNA/RNA with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques for Y. pestis from the tooth sockets 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 the cause of the Black Death, and unambiguously demonstrates that Y. pestis was the causative agent 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 East Smithfield burial site in England. Schuenemann et al. concluded in 2011 "that the Black Death in medieval Europe was caused by a variant of Y. pestis that may no longer exist".

Later in 2011, Bos et al. reported in Nature the first draft genome of Y. pestis 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 Y. pestis.

Later genomic papers have further confirmed the phylogenetic placement of the Y. pestis strain responsible for the Black Death as both the ancestor of later plague epidemics—including the third plague pandemic—and the descendant of the strain responsible for the Plague of Justinian. In addition, plague genomes from prehistory have been recovered.

DNA taken from 25 skeletons from 14th-century London showed that plague is a strain of Y. pestis almost identical to that which hit Madagascar in 2013. Further DNA evidence also proves the role of Y. pestis and traces the source to the Tian Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan.

Alternative explanations

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 the Domesday Book of 1086 and the poll tax of the year 1377. Estimates of plague victims are usually extrapolated from figures for the clergy.

Continue reading on Wikipedia

Text from the Wikipedia article “Black Death”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Trade routes that carried it

Routes on the atlas along which the sources say it travelled.

c. 1266 – 1475 · by sea
Genoese Black Sea trade
Genoese galleys leaving Caffa in 1347 carried plague to Constantinople and, by way of Messina, home to Genoa, as Benedictow reconstructs it; from Genoa it went on to Marseille.
c. 1315 – 1533 · by sea
Venetian galley convoys
Venetian galleys coming back from the Black Sea brought plague to Crete, and the main fleet brought it home to Venice in November 1347.

In its story

Events on timeastra with pages of their own.

1340s – 1880s
second plague pandemic
1346 – 1352
Black Death
1347 – 1349
Black Death in the Middle East
1347 – 1348
Black Death in Italy
1347 – 1352
Black Death in France
1348 – 1349
Black Death in England
1348 – 1351
Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire
1349 – 1350
Black Death in Norway
1350 – 1351
Black Death in Sweden
1625 – 1627
Italian Plague of 1629-1631
1656
Naples plague
1665 – 1666
Great Plague of London
1720 – 1722
Great Plague of Marseille
1770 – 1772
1770–1772 Russian plague
15 September 1771
Plague Riot

Timeline

45 arrivals in order: when it was first recorded in each place, from where and who carried it, with the sources for the date.

1338, until 1339 · Kara-Djigach · First wave
Gravestones of a Church of the East community here record many deaths from 'pestilence' in 1338–1339; plague DNA from the graves is the ancestor of the strains that later spread west.
where it began[1][6]
1346 · Golden Horde (Sarai) · First wave
Plague broke out on the lower Volga in spring 1346, striking Astrakhan and Old and New Sarai, the Golden Horde's chief towns; how it came there from Central Asia is unknown.
[2][15]
1346 · Caffa · First wave
The Golden Horde army besieging this Genoese port fell ill in autumn 1346, and plague then broke out in the town; the story of corpses hurled over the walls comes from a writer who was not there.
from Sarai · by war[2][3][6]
May 1347, until 1348 · Constantinople · First wave
Galleys that left Caffa early in 1347 brought plague here about May; it killed a young son of Emperor John VI, and the first outbreak lasted about a year.
from Caffa · by trade[2][3][6][7]
September 1347 · Genoa · First wave
Galleys back from Caffa brought plague home in the summer of 1347, by Benedictow's reckoning; the city passed it on by sea to Marseille and by road into northern and central Italy.
from Caffa · by trade[2]
September 1347 · Trebizond · First wave
Plague crossed the Black Sea from Caffa to Trebizond, capital of a small Greek empire on the Pontic coast, in September 1347.
from Caffa · by trade[3]
September 1347 · Alexandria · First wave
A merchant ship from Constantinople carrying slaves brought plague here in autumn 1347; from Alexandria it spread through the Nile delta the next spring.
from Constantinople · by trade[3][6][10]
October 1347, until 1348 · Messina · First wave
Twelve Genoese galleys put in here in early October 1347; townspeople began to die, the Genoese were driven out, and people fleeing the city carried plague across Sicily.
from Caffa · by trade[6][8][3]
November 1347 · Marseille · First wave
Ships that had loaded goods at Genoa brought plague to Marseille, where it broke out about 1 November 1347; from here it moved along the coast and up the Rhône.
from Genoa · by trade[2][9]
January 1348 · Pisa · First wave
Plague came from Genoa to Pisa in January 1348 and spread from here through Tuscany, to Lucca, Florence and Siena.
from Genoa · by trade[8]
January 1348 · Avignon · First wave
Plague struck the papal city in January 1348 and lasted seven months; Pope Clement VI had a new cemetery consecrated for the dead, and his physician Guy de Chauliac described the disease.
from Marseille · by trade[17][4][9]
c. 1348 · Mecca · First wave
Pilgrims performing the hajj brought plague to Mecca in 1348; some accounts date it a year later.
by travellers[6][3]
March 1348 · Florence · First wave
Plague reached Florence in March 1348 and lasted until July, killing a large share of the city; Boccaccio described it in the Decameron.
from Pisa · by trade[8]
March 1348 · Venice · First wave
The Venetian fleet returning from Caffa brought plague about mid-November 1347, but it was recognised only in late March 1348, when it swept the crowded city.
from Caffa · by trade[2][8]
April 1348 · Tunis · First wave
A ship from Sicily brought plague to Tunis in April 1348, while a Moroccan army was in the country; the army later carried it home to Morocco.
from Messina · by trade[6][3]
April 1348 · Gaza · First wave
Plague came overland from the Nile delta to Gaza in April 1348; the townspeople fled to the countryside.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
May 1348 · Barcelona · First wave
Plague reached Barcelona, the chief port of the Crown of Aragon, in May 1348; in Aragon it lasted about a year.
[3][11]
June 1348 · Almería · First wave
Plague reached Almería, a chief port of the Emirate of Granada, in June 1348; Morocco's epidemic may have been seeded from here.
[3][6]
June 1348 · Paris · First wave
Plague reached the Paris region by June 1348 and was at its worst that winter, when the chronicler Jean de Venette wrote of 800 deaths a day in the city.
[7][9]
June 1348 · Gascony (Bordeaux) · First wave
Plague was in Bordeaux, the capital of English Gascony, by June 1348; Joan, daughter of Edward III, died of it near the city on 2 September on her way to marry in Castile.
[9][7]
June 1348, until 1349 · Melcombe · First wave
Shortly before 24 June 1348 a ship put in here with a sailor from Gascony who carried the plague; Melcombe was the first town in England to be infected.
from Bordeaux · by trade[7]
July 1348 · Damascus · First wave
Plague reached Damascus in July 1348; Muslims, Christians and Samaritans joined in processions of prayer as the deaths rose into the thousands.
from Gaza · by trade[6][10]
August 1348 · Dublin · First wave
Plague first appeared at Howth, Dalkey and Drogheda; Friar John Clyn recorded 14,000 deaths in Dublin alone from the start of August to Christmas 1348.
[4]
August 1348 · Rome · First wave
Plague appears to have reached Rome only in August 1348; with the popes in Avignon, fewer pilgrims came to the city, which may have delayed it.
[8]
September 1348 · Cairo · First wave
Plague reached Cairo, the Mamluk capital and the largest city of the Mediterranean world, in September 1348; the young sultan left the city, and about a third of its people died.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
November 1348, until 1349 · England (London) · First wave
Plague reached London in autumn 1348, by November at the latest, by road from the south-west and by sea along the coast; it was at its worst early in 1349.
from Melcombe · by trade[7]
May 1349 · Vienna · First wave
Coming from Venice over the Alps and through Styria, plague reached Vienna in May 1349 and lasted until September; about a third of the city died.
from Venice · by trade[12]
August 1349, until 1350 · Norway (Bergen) · First wave
An English ship brought plague to Bergen in late summer 1349; its crew died as the cargo was unloaded, and the disease spread from here up the coast to Nidaros and across Norway.
from London · by trade[13][6][14]
January 1350 · Gibraltar · First wave
Plague broke out at New Year 1350 in the Castilian army besieging Gibraltar; King Alfonso XI refused to lift the siege and died of it in late March.
by war[18]
1350 · Lübeck · First wave
Plague reached Lübeck, the leading Hanseatic town, and Hamburg in the early summer of 1350, coming by sea before it reached the inland towns.
[12]
May 1350 · Visby · First wave
Plague reached Visby on Gotland by May 1350, probably by ship from Denmark or Germany; in July nine people were burned there after confessing under torture to spreading it by poison.
[14]
August 1350, until 1351 · Sweden (Stockholm) · First wave
From Gotland plague crossed to the Swedish mainland and reached Stockholm in August 1350; King Magnus left at once for Åland and stayed away until May 1351.
from Visby · by trade[14]
1352 · Pskov · First wave
Plague reached Pskov in 1352, probably from the lands of present-day Latvia; the sick coughed blood and died within three days, and Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod died of it after visiting.
[15][16]
August 1352 · Novgorod · First wave
Plague came from Pskov to Novgorod in August 1352; from here it spread along the trade roads into the rest of the Russian lands.
from Pskov · by trade[16][15]
1353 · Moscow · First wave
Plague reached Moscow in 1353 and killed Grand Prince Simeon the Proud, his two young sons and his brother; the head of the Russian Church may also have died of it.
from Novgorod · by trade[15][16][6]
1361, until 1362 · England (London) · Pestis secunda
Plague's first return to England, the pestis secunda of 1361–1362, may have killed about a fifth of the people.
[7]
October 1629 · Milan · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Soldiers in the War of the Mantuan Succession are said to have brought plague to Lombardy; it reached Milan in October 1629 and, after carnival in 1630, killed about 60,000 of 130,000 people.
by war[19]
1630 · Venice · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Plague struck Venice in 1630–1631 and killed about 46,000 of its 140,000 people; in October 1630 the Senate vowed the church of Santa Maria della Salute for the city's deliverance.
[19]
April 1656 · Naples · Naples plague
Plague, in Sardinia since 1652, reached Naples in spring 1656 and killed more than half the city that year, perhaps 150,000 to 200,000 people.
[20][5]
May 1656, until 1657 · Barletta · Naples plague
The ship Sant'Andrea from Naples was turned away from Barletta on 26 May 1656, but plague got ashore; the town was declared free of it on 22 June 1657, after 7,000 to 12,000 deaths.
from Naples · by trade[5]
June 1656 · Rome · Naples plague
From the Kingdom of Naples plague spread north to Rome in June 1656 and on through the Papal States, killing about 23,000 Romans.
from Naples · by trade[20]
April 1665 · London · Great Plague of London
The first official plague deaths of the Great Plague were recorded in April 1665; by the year's end the bills of mortality listed 68,596, probably far fewer than the true toll.
[21]
May 1720 · Marseille · Great Plague of Marseille
The merchant ship Grand-Saint-Antoine, back from Sidon in the Levant with silk and cotton, reached Marseille on 25 May 1720; plague escaped its quarantine and killed about 50,000 of 90,000 people by 1722.
by trade[22][23]
January 1770 · Focșani · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Russian troops fighting the Ottomans in Moldavia found the first signs of plague at Focșani in January 1770, caught from prisoners of war and booty.
by war[24]
December 1770 · Moscow · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Plague from the war in Moldavia was identified in Moscow in December 1770; it peaked in September 1771, set off the Plague Riot, and killed 52,000 to 100,000 people.
from Focșani · by war[24]

Sources

Works the dates are read from. Each arrival above names its own.

1.The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia. Maria A. Spyrou et al., 2022, Nature 606, 718–724
2.The origin and early spread of the Black Death in Italy: first evidence of plague victims from 14th-century Liguria (northern Italy). Donatella Cesana, Ole J. Benedictow and Raffaella Bianucci, 2017, Anthropological Science 125 (1), 15–24
3.Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa. Mark Wheelis, 2002, Emerging Infectious Diseases 8 (9), 971–975. citing Figure 1, "tentative chronology of the initial spread of plague", after Dols 1977, Gasquet 1893 and Bartsocas 1966
4.Annalium Hiberniae Chronicon ad annum MCCCXLIX. Friar John Clyn, edited by Richard Butler, 1849, Irish Archaeological Society (CELT edition, University College Cork)
5.Plague Epidemic in the Kingdom of Naples, 1656–1658. Silvia Scasciamacchia et al., 2012, Emerging Infectious Diseases 18 (1), 186–188
6.Black Death. citing Byrne 2012 (Encyclopedia of the Black Death), pp. 51, 65–66, 87; Michele da Piazza via Ziegler 1998, p. 40; Karlsson 2000, p. 111; Belich 2024, p. 42
7.Black Death in England. citing Grey Friars' Chronicle of Lynn (Gransden 1957), translated in Benedictow 2004, p. 127; Deaux 1969, p. 122; Benedictow 2004, p. 134; Horrox 1994, pp. 9–10, 246; Gottfried 1983, p. 131
8.Black Death in Italy. citing Harrison 2000 (Stora döden); Benedictow 2004, p. 93
9.Black Death in France. citing Byrne 2012, p. 50; Harrison 2000; Byrne 2004 (The Black Death), p. 55
10.Black Death in the Middle East. citing Harrison 2000
11.Black Death in Spain. citing Harrison 2000
12.Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire. citing Harrison 2000
13.Black Death in Norway. citing Harrison 2000
14.Black Death in Sweden. citing Myrdal, Digerdöden, pestvågor och ödeläggelse (agrarhistoria.se)
15.Black Death in Russia. citing Byrne 2012, p. 245; Langer 1975, pp. 54–57; Fennell 2022, p. 159; Benedictow 2004, p. 213
16.Simeon of Moscow. citing Karamzin, History of the Russian State (years 1352 and 1353)
17.Guy de Chauliac. citing Benedictow 2004, p. 236 (Chauliac's own account)
18.Fifth siege of Gibraltar. citing Jackson 1986, p. 52
19.1629–1631 Italian plague. citing Kohn 2007, p. 200; Alfani and Percoco 2019, p. 1181
20.Naples Plague (1656). citing Alfani 2013; Scasciamacchia et al. 2012
21.Great Plague of London. citing Leasor 1962, pp. 46–50; Pepys's diary, 30 April 1665
22.Great Plague of Marseille. citing Duchêne and Contrucci, Marseille, pp. 361–362
23.Peste de Marseille (1720). citing Duchêne and Contrucci 1998, p. 363; Carrière, Coudurié and Rebuffat 1988 (Marseille ville morte), p. 151
24.1770–1772 Russian plague. citing Melikishvili 2006, pp. 24–26

Trade routes that carried it

Routes on the atlas along which the sources say it travelled.

c. 1266 – 1475 · by sea
Genoese Black Sea trade
Genoese galleys leaving Caffa in 1347 carried plague to Constantinople and, by way of Messina, home to Genoa, as Benedictow reconstructs it; from Genoa it went on to Marseille.
c. 1315 – 1533 · by sea
Venetian galley convoys
Venetian galleys coming back from the Black Sea brought plague to Crete, and the main fleet brought it home to Venice in November 1347.

In its story

Events on timeastra with pages of their own.

1340s – 1880s
second plague pandemic
1346 – 1352
Black Death
1347 – 1349
Black Death in the Middle East
1347 – 1348
Black Death in Italy
1347 – 1352
Black Death in France
1348 – 1349
Black Death in England
1348 – 1351
Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire
1349 – 1350
Black Death in Norway
1350 – 1351
Black Death in Sweden
1625 – 1627
Italian Plague of 1629-1631
1656
Naples plague
1665 – 1666
Great Plague of London
1720 – 1722
Great Plague of Marseille
1770 – 1772
1770–1772 Russian plague
15 September 1771
Plague Riot

Timeline

45 arrivals in order: when it was first recorded in each place, from where and who carried it, with the sources for the date.

1338, until 1339 · Kara-Djigach · First wave
Gravestones of a Church of the East community here record many deaths from 'pestilence' in 1338–1339; plague DNA from the graves is the ancestor of the strains that later spread west.
where it began[1][6]
1346 · Golden Horde (Sarai) · First wave
Plague broke out on the lower Volga in spring 1346, striking Astrakhan and Old and New Sarai, the Golden Horde's chief towns; how it came there from Central Asia is unknown.
[2][15]
1346 · Caffa · First wave
The Golden Horde army besieging this Genoese port fell ill in autumn 1346, and plague then broke out in the town; the story of corpses hurled over the walls comes from a writer who was not there.
from Sarai · by war[2][3][6]
May 1347, until 1348 · Constantinople · First wave
Galleys that left Caffa early in 1347 brought plague here about May; it killed a young son of Emperor John VI, and the first outbreak lasted about a year.
from Caffa · by trade[2][3][6][7]
September 1347 · Genoa · First wave
Galleys back from Caffa brought plague home in the summer of 1347, by Benedictow's reckoning; the city passed it on by sea to Marseille and by road into northern and central Italy.
from Caffa · by trade[2]
September 1347 · Trebizond · First wave
Plague crossed the Black Sea from Caffa to Trebizond, capital of a small Greek empire on the Pontic coast, in September 1347.
from Caffa · by trade[3]
September 1347 · Alexandria · First wave
A merchant ship from Constantinople carrying slaves brought plague here in autumn 1347; from Alexandria it spread through the Nile delta the next spring.
from Constantinople · by trade[3][6][10]
October 1347, until 1348 · Messina · First wave
Twelve Genoese galleys put in here in early October 1347; townspeople began to die, the Genoese were driven out, and people fleeing the city carried plague across Sicily.
from Caffa · by trade[6][8][3]
November 1347 · Marseille · First wave
Ships that had loaded goods at Genoa brought plague to Marseille, where it broke out about 1 November 1347; from here it moved along the coast and up the Rhône.
from Genoa · by trade[2][9]
January 1348 · Pisa · First wave
Plague came from Genoa to Pisa in January 1348 and spread from here through Tuscany, to Lucca, Florence and Siena.
from Genoa · by trade[8]
January 1348 · Avignon · First wave
Plague struck the papal city in January 1348 and lasted seven months; Pope Clement VI had a new cemetery consecrated for the dead, and his physician Guy de Chauliac described the disease.
from Marseille · by trade[17][4][9]
c. 1348 · Mecca · First wave
Pilgrims performing the hajj brought plague to Mecca in 1348; some accounts date it a year later.
by travellers[6][3]
March 1348 · Florence · First wave
Plague reached Florence in March 1348 and lasted until July, killing a large share of the city; Boccaccio described it in the Decameron.
from Pisa · by trade[8]
March 1348 · Venice · First wave
The Venetian fleet returning from Caffa brought plague about mid-November 1347, but it was recognised only in late March 1348, when it swept the crowded city.
from Caffa · by trade[2][8]
April 1348 · Tunis · First wave
A ship from Sicily brought plague to Tunis in April 1348, while a Moroccan army was in the country; the army later carried it home to Morocco.
from Messina · by trade[6][3]
April 1348 · Gaza · First wave
Plague came overland from the Nile delta to Gaza in April 1348; the townspeople fled to the countryside.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
May 1348 · Barcelona · First wave
Plague reached Barcelona, the chief port of the Crown of Aragon, in May 1348; in Aragon it lasted about a year.
[3][11]
June 1348 · Almería · First wave
Plague reached Almería, a chief port of the Emirate of Granada, in June 1348; Morocco's epidemic may have been seeded from here.
[3][6]
June 1348 · Paris · First wave
Plague reached the Paris region by June 1348 and was at its worst that winter, when the chronicler Jean de Venette wrote of 800 deaths a day in the city.
[7][9]
June 1348 · Gascony (Bordeaux) · First wave
Plague was in Bordeaux, the capital of English Gascony, by June 1348; Joan, daughter of Edward III, died of it near the city on 2 September on her way to marry in Castile.
[9][7]
June 1348, until 1349 · Melcombe · First wave
Shortly before 24 June 1348 a ship put in here with a sailor from Gascony who carried the plague; Melcombe was the first town in England to be infected.
from Bordeaux · by trade[7]
July 1348 · Damascus · First wave
Plague reached Damascus in July 1348; Muslims, Christians and Samaritans joined in processions of prayer as the deaths rose into the thousands.
from Gaza · by trade[6][10]
August 1348 · Dublin · First wave
Plague first appeared at Howth, Dalkey and Drogheda; Friar John Clyn recorded 14,000 deaths in Dublin alone from the start of August to Christmas 1348.
[4]
August 1348 · Rome · First wave
Plague appears to have reached Rome only in August 1348; with the popes in Avignon, fewer pilgrims came to the city, which may have delayed it.
[8]
September 1348 · Cairo · First wave
Plague reached Cairo, the Mamluk capital and the largest city of the Mediterranean world, in September 1348; the young sultan left the city, and about a third of its people died.
from Alexandria · by trade[10][6]
November 1348, until 1349 · England (London) · First wave
Plague reached London in autumn 1348, by November at the latest, by road from the south-west and by sea along the coast; it was at its worst early in 1349.
from Melcombe · by trade[7]
May 1349 · Vienna · First wave
Coming from Venice over the Alps and through Styria, plague reached Vienna in May 1349 and lasted until September; about a third of the city died.
from Venice · by trade[12]
August 1349, until 1350 · Norway (Bergen) · First wave
An English ship brought plague to Bergen in late summer 1349; its crew died as the cargo was unloaded, and the disease spread from here up the coast to Nidaros and across Norway.
from London · by trade[13][6][14]
January 1350 · Gibraltar · First wave
Plague broke out at New Year 1350 in the Castilian army besieging Gibraltar; King Alfonso XI refused to lift the siege and died of it in late March.
by war[18]
1350 · Lübeck · First wave
Plague reached Lübeck, the leading Hanseatic town, and Hamburg in the early summer of 1350, coming by sea before it reached the inland towns.
[12]
May 1350 · Visby · First wave
Plague reached Visby on Gotland by May 1350, probably by ship from Denmark or Germany; in July nine people were burned there after confessing under torture to spreading it by poison.
[14]
August 1350, until 1351 · Sweden (Stockholm) · First wave
From Gotland plague crossed to the Swedish mainland and reached Stockholm in August 1350; King Magnus left at once for Åland and stayed away until May 1351.
from Visby · by trade[14]
1352 · Pskov · First wave
Plague reached Pskov in 1352, probably from the lands of present-day Latvia; the sick coughed blood and died within three days, and Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod died of it after visiting.
[15][16]
August 1352 · Novgorod · First wave
Plague came from Pskov to Novgorod in August 1352; from here it spread along the trade roads into the rest of the Russian lands.
from Pskov · by trade[16][15]
1353 · Moscow · First wave
Plague reached Moscow in 1353 and killed Grand Prince Simeon the Proud, his two young sons and his brother; the head of the Russian Church may also have died of it.
from Novgorod · by trade[15][16][6]
1361, until 1362 · England (London) · Pestis secunda
Plague's first return to England, the pestis secunda of 1361–1362, may have killed about a fifth of the people.
[7]
October 1629 · Milan · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Soldiers in the War of the Mantuan Succession are said to have brought plague to Lombardy; it reached Milan in October 1629 and, after carnival in 1630, killed about 60,000 of 130,000 people.
by war[19]
1630 · Venice · Italian plague of 1629–1631
Plague struck Venice in 1630–1631 and killed about 46,000 of its 140,000 people; in October 1630 the Senate vowed the church of Santa Maria della Salute for the city's deliverance.
[19]
April 1656 · Naples · Naples plague
Plague, in Sardinia since 1652, reached Naples in spring 1656 and killed more than half the city that year, perhaps 150,000 to 200,000 people.
[20][5]
May 1656, until 1657 · Barletta · Naples plague
The ship Sant'Andrea from Naples was turned away from Barletta on 26 May 1656, but plague got ashore; the town was declared free of it on 22 June 1657, after 7,000 to 12,000 deaths.
from Naples · by trade[5]
June 1656 · Rome · Naples plague
From the Kingdom of Naples plague spread north to Rome in June 1656 and on through the Papal States, killing about 23,000 Romans.
from Naples · by trade[20]
April 1665 · London · Great Plague of London
The first official plague deaths of the Great Plague were recorded in April 1665; by the year's end the bills of mortality listed 68,596, probably far fewer than the true toll.
[21]
May 1720 · Marseille · Great Plague of Marseille
The merchant ship Grand-Saint-Antoine, back from Sidon in the Levant with silk and cotton, reached Marseille on 25 May 1720; plague escaped its quarantine and killed about 50,000 of 90,000 people by 1722.
by trade[22][23]
January 1770 · Focșani · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Russian troops fighting the Ottomans in Moldavia found the first signs of plague at Focșani in January 1770, caught from prisoners of war and booty.
by war[24]
December 1770 · Moscow · Russian plague of 1770–1772
Plague from the war in Moldavia was identified in Moscow in December 1770; it peaked in September 1771, set off the Plague Riot, and killed 52,000 to 100,000 people.
from Focșani · by war[24]

Sources

Works the dates are read from. Each arrival above names its own.

1.The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia. Maria A. Spyrou et al., 2022, Nature 606, 718–724
2.The origin and early spread of the Black Death in Italy: first evidence of plague victims from 14th-century Liguria (northern Italy). Donatella Cesana, Ole J. Benedictow and Raffaella Bianucci, 2017, Anthropological Science 125 (1), 15–24
3.Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa. Mark Wheelis, 2002, Emerging Infectious Diseases 8 (9), 971–975. citing Figure 1, "tentative chronology of the initial spread of plague", after Dols 1977, Gasquet 1893 and Bartsocas 1966
4.Annalium Hiberniae Chronicon ad annum MCCCXLIX. Friar John Clyn, edited by Richard Butler, 1849, Irish Archaeological Society (CELT edition, University College Cork)
5.Plague Epidemic in the Kingdom of Naples, 1656–1658. Silvia Scasciamacchia et al., 2012, Emerging Infectious Diseases 18 (1), 186–188
6.Black Death. citing Byrne 2012 (Encyclopedia of the Black Death), pp. 51, 65–66, 87; Michele da Piazza via Ziegler 1998, p. 40; Karlsson 2000, p. 111; Belich 2024, p. 42
7.Black Death in England. citing Grey Friars' Chronicle of Lynn (Gransden 1957), translated in Benedictow 2004, p. 127; Deaux 1969, p. 122; Benedictow 2004, p. 134; Horrox 1994, pp. 9–10, 246; Gottfried 1983, p. 131
8.Black Death in Italy. citing Harrison 2000 (Stora döden); Benedictow 2004, p. 93
9.Black Death in France. citing Byrne 2012, p. 50; Harrison 2000; Byrne 2004 (The Black Death), p. 55
10.Black Death in the Middle East. citing Harrison 2000
11.Black Death in Spain. citing Harrison 2000
12.Black Death in the Holy Roman Empire. citing Harrison 2000
13.Black Death in Norway. citing Harrison 2000
14.Black Death in Sweden. citing Myrdal, Digerdöden, pestvågor och ödeläggelse (agrarhistoria.se)
15.Black Death in Russia. citing Byrne 2012, p. 245; Langer 1975, pp. 54–57; Fennell 2022, p. 159; Benedictow 2004, p. 213
16.Simeon of Moscow. citing Karamzin, History of the Russian State (years 1352 and 1353)
17.Guy de Chauliac. citing Benedictow 2004, p. 236 (Chauliac's own account)
18.Fifth siege of Gibraltar. citing Jackson 1986, p. 52
19.1629–1631 Italian plague. citing Kohn 2007, p. 200; Alfani and Percoco 2019, p. 1181
20.Naples Plague (1656). citing Alfani 2013; Scasciamacchia et al. 2012
21.Great Plague of London. citing Leasor 1962, pp. 46–50; Pepys's diary, 30 April 1665
22.Great Plague of Marseille. citing Duchêne and Contrucci, Marseille, pp. 361–362
23.Peste de Marseille (1720). citing Duchêne and Contrucci 1998, p. 363; Carrière, Coudurié and Rebuffat 1988 (Marseille ville morte), p. 151
24.1770–1772 Russian plague. citing Melikishvili 2006, pp. 24–26

Names

Previous plague epidemics

Origin

Causes

Early theory

Predominant modern theory

DNA evidence

Alternative explanations

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Text from the Wikipedia article “Black Death”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.