Black Death

The Black Death was a plague pandemic that devastated Europe, Asia, and North Africa in the mid-14th century, killing tens of millions. Its outbreaks were caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Yersinia pestis: A bacterium that causes plague in humans and other mammals. This pathogen caused the Black Death and later plague outbreaks.
Second plague pandemic: A series of plague outbreaks beginning in the fourteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth century. The Black Death was the pandemic’s first and most devastating wave.
Giovanni Boccaccio: A fourteenth-century Italian writer whose works include the frame narrative The Decameron. His introduction to The Decameron describes plague-stricken Florence and social responses.
Labor shortage: A condition in which employers cannot find enough workers to meet demand. The pandemic’s mortality reduced the workforce and strengthened surviving workers’ bargaining power.
Plague of 541–549: The first major documented wave of the First Plague Pandemic, beginning during Justinian’s reign. It was an earlier plague pandemic, distinct from the fourteenth-century Black Death.
Flea-borne transmission: The spread of pathogens through the bites of infected fleas. Infected fleas helped transmit plague among rodents and people.
Central Asia: A landlocked region of Asia encompassing areas such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Genetic and historical evidence points toward this region as the plague’s source area.
Ibn al-Wardi: A Syrian scholar and writer who composed an account of the plague in 1348. His treatise records the pandemic’s devastation and contemporary explanations in the Middle East.
Peasants' Revolt: A 1381 uprising in England against taxation, serfdom, and political abuses. Post-plague labor changes formed part of the pressures behind later social unrest.
Black Death in Florence: The 1348 plague outbreak in Florence, documented in contemporary Italian accounts. Florence provides a well-recorded example of urban catastrophe and changing social life.

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