Black Death Arrives

In October 1347, a fleet of Genoese galleys put into the Sicilian port of Messina carrying sailors who were dead or gravely ill. Within months the disease they brought, now known as the Black Death, was spreading across Europe. Over the next five years it killed a huge share of the continent's people, with modern estimates often placing mortality at roughly a third to a half of the population, though figures vary widely by region. It reshaped European society, religion, and economy.

The plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which circulates among rodents and is carried by their fleas. Genetic studies of medieval skeletons have confirmed its role. The outbreak is generally believed to have originated in Central Asia and moved west along trade routes, reaching the Black Sea region by the mid-1340s. A widely repeated account says Mongol forces besieging the Genoese trading post of Caffa catapulted infected corpses over its walls, but historians treat this story with caution. What is clearer is that merchant ships carried the disease into Mediterranean ports, where Europe's dense towns and busy commerce gave it ideal conditions.

From Sicily the plague reached Genoa, Venice, and Marseille, then moved along roads and rivers through Italy, France, Spain, and onward. By 1348 it had struck Paris and southern England, and by 1349 it was in Germany and Scandinavia. Victims suffered fever, exhaustion, and painful swollen lymph nodes called buboes, and many died within days. A pneumonic form that spread person to person through the air was even deadlier. Medieval people had no understanding of germs. Some blamed corrupted air, planetary alignments, or divine punishment. Tragically, others blamed Jewish communities, leading to massacres in several German and Swiss towns despite papal condemnation of the violence.

The social effects were profound. Whole villages emptied, and burial customs broke down in the hardest-hit cities. Because labor became scarce, surviving workers could demand higher wages and better terms. Authorities often tried to cap pay, as in England's Statute of Labourers of 1351, which fueled resentment and contributed to later unrest such as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Many historians argue that the decline of serfdom in Western Europe was accelerated by these shifts, though the long-term effects differed from place to place.

The Church also lost authority as priests died in great numbers and prayers failed to halt the catastrophe. Art and literature took on darker themes, including the dance of death, and Boccaccio's Decameron is set among Florentines fleeing the plague. The disease returned repeatedly for centuries, prompting early public health measures such as quarantine, first developed in Italian port cities. Europe's population took generations to recover.