Monthly project / The middle ages in europe

Bubonic pleague in stratosburg

1339

One of the worst massacres of Jews during the Black Death takes place on Valentine’s Day in Strasbourg,
with 2,000 Jewish people burned alive. In the spring, 3,000 Jews defend themselves in Mainz against Christians but
are overcome and slaughtered. The plague hits Wales, brought by people fleeing from Southern England, and
eventually kills100,000 people there.

The infection spreads so widely

1339

An English ship brings the Black Death to Norway when it runs aground in Bergen. The ship’s crew is dead
by the end of the week and the pestilence travels to Denmark and Sweden, where the king believes fasting on a Friday
and foregoing shoes on Sunday will please God and end the plague. It doesn’t work, killing two of the king’s brothers
and moving into Russia and also eastern Greenland.

The bubonic pleague emerges on the black sea

1346

The strain of Y. pestis emerges in Mongolia, according to John Kelly’s account in The Great Mortality. It is
possibly passed to humans by a tarabagan, a type of marmot. The deadliest outbreak is in the Mongol capital of Sarai,
which the Mongols carry west to the Black Sea area.

Bubonic plague arrives in europe

1347

The plague arrives in France, brought by another of the Caffa ships docking in Marseille. It spreads quickly
through the country.

The infection comes to Constantinople

1347

Both sides in the siege are decimated and survivors in Caffa escape by sea, leaving behind streets covered with
corpses being fed on by feral animals. One ship arrives in Constantinople, which, once infected, loses as much as 90
percent of its population.

the plague comes to London

1348

Following the infection and death of King Edward III’s daughter Princess Joan, the plague reaches London,
according to King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late-Medieval England by Colin Platt. As the
devastation grows, Londoners flee to the countryside to find food. Edward blames the plague on garbage and human
excrement piled up in London streets and in the Thames River

Enter in genoa

1348

A different plague strain enters Europe through Genoa, brought by another Caffan ship that docks there.
The Genoans attack the ship and drive it away, but they are still infected. Italy faces this second strain while already
battling the previous one.

Black death in scotland

1350

Scotland, having so far avoided the plague, hopes to take advantage of English weakness by amassing an
army and planning an invasion. While waiting on the border to begin the attack, troops became infected, with 5,000
dying. Choosing to retreat, the soldiers bring the disease back to their families and a third of Scotland perishes.

The quarantine

1353

The plague’s spread significantly begins to peter out, possibly thanks to quarantine efforts, after causing
the deaths of anywhere between 25 to 50 million people, and leading to the massacres of 210 Jewish communities. All
total, Europe has lost about 50 percent of its population.