THE BLACK PLAGUE
THE BLACK PLAGUE
The advent of AIDS, flesh-eating bacteria and the Ebola virus in recent years has brought back to mind the occurrence of the fourteenth-century "Black Plague". The Black Plague, or Bubonic Plague, appears to have begun in the Eastern provinces of China, perhaps a result of the forced movement of peoples under the Mongol Empire. Following the well-established Silk Road the disease made its way across the Eurasian continent until the plague reached the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. In Europe the Black Plague finally appeared in Southern Italy in 1347 and within 18 months devastated that continent.
Click here to read an early European account of the plague.
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