![]() ![]() 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. 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). The phrase 'black death' – describing Death as black – is very old. Previously, most European languages had named the pandemic a variant or calque of the Latin: magna mortalitas, lit.'Great 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 calque: Icelandic: svarti dauði, German: der schwarze Tod, and French: la mort noire. "Black death" was not used to describe the plague pandemic in English until the 1750s the term is first attested in 1755, where it translated Danish: den sorte død, lit.'the black death'. 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. 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. In English prior to the 18th century, the event was called the "pestilence" or "great pestilence", "the plague" or the "great death". Outbreaks of the plague recurred around the world until the early 19th century.Įuropean writers contemporary with the plague described the disease in Latin as pestis or pestilentia, 'pestilence' epidemia, 'epidemic' mortalitas, 'mortality'. There were further outbreaks throughout the Late Middle Ages and, with other contributing factors (the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages), the European population did not regain its current level from the 14th century until the 16th century. 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. The plague might have reduced the world population from c. 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) and is estimated to have killed 30 per cent to 60 per cent of the European population, as well as approximately 33 per cent of the population of the Middle East. 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 Mongol conquests in the 14th century, as previously speculated. 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. 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, Western Asia, and the rest of Europe via Constantinople, Sicily, and the Italian Peninsula. The pandemic was reportedly first introduced to Europe during the siege of the Genoese trading port of Kaffa in Crimea by the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg in 1347. The immediate territorial origins of the Black Death and its outbreak remains unclear with some pointing towards Central Asia, China, the Middle East, and Europe. ![]() Genetic analysis points to the evolution of Yersinia pestis in the Tian Shan mountains on the border between Kyrgyzstan and China 2,600 years ago. The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history. The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis spread by fleas, but during the Black Death it probably also took a secondary form, spread by person-to-person contact via aerosols, causing pneumonic plague. ![]() It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. ![]()
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