The Black Death spread across Europe between 1347 and 1353 AD. C. leaving tens of millions of dead but the causes of its origin and spread are not well known. Now, a study points to a volcanic eruption as the beginning of the domino effect that caused this pandemic.
A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and the Leibniz Institute for Eastern European History and Culture (GWZO) in Leipzig (Germany) have used a combination of climate data and documentary evidence to reconstruct the succession of events that led to the most devastating pandemic in history, which in some regions caused the death of 60% of the population.
The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that a volcanic eruption – or set of eruptions – around 1345 caused a cloud of ash and volcanic gases that plummeted temperatures for several years in a row and spoiled crops across the Mediterranean region.
In response to this disaster and to avoid riots or famine, Italian city-states began trading with Black Sea grain producers. This change in trade routes made it possible to ensure food for the population but was the entry route for the bacteria that caused the plague, the Yersinia pestis.
The study has used high-quality natural and historical data to establish a direct relationship between climate, agriculture, trade and the origins of the Black Death.
Researchers confirmed the volcanic eruption thanks to information contained in tree rings from the Spanish Pyrenees, where consecutive ‘blue rings’ point to unusually cold and wet summers in 1345, 1346 and 1347 across much of southern Europe.
And although a single cold year is not uncommon, consecutive cold summers are very unusual, the authors note. Additionally, documentary evidence from that same period points to unusual cloud cover and dark lunar eclipses, confirming volcanic activity.
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Bad harvests, new routes
This worsening climate caused by volcanic activity caused poor harvests, crop failures, and famine throughout the continent except the Italian maritime republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, which imported grain from the Golden Horde, the Mongol Empire, in 1347.
“For more than a century, these powerful Italian city-states had established long-distance trade routes through the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which allowed them to activate a very effective system to avoid famine,” but which in the end “inadvertently led them to a much greater catastrophe,” says Martin Bauch, a historian of medieval climate at the Leibniz Institute of History and co-author of the study.
It is very likely that ships carrying grain from the Black Sea also carried fleas infected with Yersinia pestisas previous research has already pointed out.
When infected fleas arrived in 14th-century Mediterranean ports on ships loaded with grain, they became a vector for disease transmission, allowing the bacteria to jump from mammalian hosts—mostly rodents, but also domestic animals—to humans. It spread rapidly throughout Europe, devastating the population.
The researchers conclude that the “perfect storm” of climatic, agricultural, social and economic factors that occurred after 1345 and led to the Black Death can be considered an early example of the consequences of globalization.
With information from EFE.
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