Black Death migration

Plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, and is enzootic (commonly present) in populations of ground rodents in Central Asia.

While initial phylogenetic studies suggested that the plague bacillus evolved 2,000 years ago near China, specifically in the Tian Shan mountains on the border between modern-day China and Kyrgyzstan,[1][2][3] this view has been contested by recent molecular studies which have indicated that the plague was present in Scandinavia 3,000 years earlier.

[6] Historians Michael W. Dols and Ole Benedictow argue that the historical evidence concerning epidemics in the Mediterranean and specifically the Plague of Justinian point to a probability that the Black Death originated in Central Asia, where it then became entrenched among the rodent population.

[10] However even the Silk Road spread theory is disputed, as others point out that the Pax Mongolica had already broken down by 1325, when Western and Persian traders found it difficult to conduct trade in the region, and impossible by 1340.

[12] In Northern Europe, new technological innovations such as the heavy plough and the three-field system were not as effective in clearing new fields for harvest as they were in the Mediterranean because the north had poor, clay-like soil.

[citation needed] The Medieval Warm Period ended in Europe sometime in the 13th century, bringing harsher winters and reduced harvests.

In 1318 a pestilence of unknown origin, sometimes identified as anthrax, affected the animals of Europe, notably sheep and cattle, further reducing the food supply and income of the peasantry.

This situation was worsened when landowners and monarchs like Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377) and Philip VI of France (r. 1328–1350), out of a fear that their comparatively high standard of living would decline, raised the fines and rents of their tenants.

Charles Creighton, in his History of Epidemics in Britain (1891), summarizes the tendency to retrospectively describe the origins of the Black Death in China despite lack of evidence for it: "In that nebulous and unsatisfactory state the old tradition of the Black Death originating in China has remained to the present hour".

[17] The suggestion is that the soil of China may not have felt the full effects of the plague virus, originally engendered thereon, until some few years after the same had been carried to Europe, having produced there within a short space of time the stupendous phenomenon of the Black Death.

[17]Three waves of epidemics occurred in the last years of the Yuan dynasty: 1331-34 spreading from Hebei to Hunan, in 1344–46 in coastal Fujian and Shandong, and in the 1350s throughout northern and central China.

Chinese accounts of this wave of the disease record a spread to eight distinct areas: Hubei, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan, and Suiyuan.

[11] According to Dr Mark Achtman, the Black Death evolved in China over 2,600 years but the dating of the plague suggests that it was not carried along the Silk Road and its appearance there probably postdates the European outbreak.

It's speculated that rats aboard Zheng He's ships in the 15th century may have carried the plague to Southeast Asia, India, and Africa.

[11] According to George D. Sussman, although a case for the Black Death in China is stronger than India, there are several reasons to question it.

In 610, Chao Yuanfang mentioned a "malignant bubo" "coming on abruptly with high fever together with the appearance of a bundle of nodes beneath the tissues.

"[23] Sun Simo, who died in 652, also mentioned a "malignant bubo" and plague that was common in Guangdong but was rare in interior provinces.

[24] The earliest Chinese description of the Black Death comes from a local gazetteer from Shanxi in 1644: "In the autumn there was a great epidemic.

The victim first developed a hard lump below the armpits or between the thighs or else coughed thin blood and died before they had time to take medicine.

"[11] The Customs Service list described it as a "Great pestilence in Lu-an" where "Those attacked had hard lumps grow on the neck or arm, like clotted blood.

At Siena, Agnolo di Tura wrote: They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ... ditches and covered with earth.

[27]The plague struck various countries in the Middle East during the pandemic, leading to serious depopulation and permanent change in both economic and social structures.

During 1348, the disease travelled eastward to Gaza, and north along the eastern coast to cities including Ashkelon, Acre, Jerusalem, Sidon, Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo.

[29] By the end of 1350 the Black Death had subsided, but it never really died out in England over the next few hundred years: there were further outbreaks in 1361–62, 1369, 1379–83, 1389–93, and throughout the first half of the 15th century.

The most general outbreaks in Tudor and Stuart England, all coinciding with years of plague in Germany and the Low Countries, seem to have begun in 1498, 1535, 1543, 1563, 1589, 1603, 1625, and 1636.

[40] During the Great Plague of 1738, the epidemic struck again, this time in Eastern Europe, spreading from Ukraine to the Adriatic Sea, then onwards by ship to infect some in Tunisia.