Unlike other historical plagues, historians are confident in the identity of the disease that spread across Asia, Europe, and North Africa during the 14th century. It was a bubonic plague, and it changed the face of history by decimating the populations wherever it spread.
The Black Death was the second major outbreak of plague in recorded history. The first occurred during the 6th and 7th centuries and is commonly known as the Plague of Justinian (named after the Byzantine emperor, Justinian). The third major outbreak is shockingly recent: it ravaged China in the 1890s and devastated east Asia for the remainder of the 19th century.
We have seen before how plagues could have a devastating impact on a single community, with the plague of Athens contributing to a breakdown in societal cohesion and collaboration in a community already feeling the pressures of fighting a war against their most powerful neighbours. The Black Death was significantly worse. Historians estimate that as many as 200 million people may have died as a result of the pestilence. At least half of Paris’ population of 100,000 people are thought to have died in the middle of the 14th century due to the plague, and in Florence, the population was reduced to around 50,000 in 1351; the city had been home to around 110,000 to 120,000 people before the pestilence struck. The disease wiped out whole communities, too. In Germany, there were an estimated 170,000 settlements before the plague. After the worst of the ravages, this was reduced to just 40,000 by 1450. These huge changes prompted further developments across the world.
To make matters worse for the populations of Europe, this was the second natural disaster to strike the continent in the century. The ‘Great Famine’ devasted the populaces of Europe between 1315-1317. The plague returned throughout the 14th century, striking at communities across Europe and Asia. It is thought that the population of Europe was not able to return to its former 1300 level until 1500.
