The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as 50 million people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. The disease is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas and through the air. One of the most significant events in European history, the Black Death had far-reaching population, economic, and cultural impacts. It was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history.
Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, was the Roman emperor from 527 to 565.
Year 541 (DXLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius without colleague. Basilius was the last person to be officially appointed Roman consul, since after this year, the office was permanently merged with the office of Roman/Byzantine emperor. Thus, from the next year forward, the consular year dating was abandoned. The denomination 541 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague was an epidemic that afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, severely affecting the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, especially Constantinople. The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who according to his court historian Procopius contracted the disease and recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of the population in the imperial capital. The contagion arrived in Roman Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula until 549. By 543, the plague had spread to every corner of the empire. As the first episode of the first plague pandemic, it had profound economic, social, and political effects across Europe and the Near East and cultural and religious impact on Eastern Roman society.
Late antiquity is sometimes defined as spanning from the end of classical antiquity to the local start of the Middle Ages, from around the late 3rd century up to the 7th or 8th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin depending on location. The popularisation of this periodization in English has generally been credited to historian Peter Brown, who proposed a period between 150 and 750 AD. The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity defines it as "the period between approximately 250 and 750 AD". Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate. In the West, its end was earlier, with the start of the Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or even earlier on the edges of the Western Roman Empire.
The Antonine Plague of AD 165 to 180, also known as the Plague of Galen, was a prolonged and destructive epidemic, which impacted the Roman Empire. It was possibly contracted and spread by soldiers who were returning from campaign in the Near East. Scholars generally believed the plague was smallpox,due to the skin eruptions over the entirety of the body which appeared to be red and black (Horgan), although measles has also been suggested, and recent genetic evidence strongly suggests that the most severe form of smallpox arose in Europe much later. As yet, there is no genetic evidence from the Antonine plague.
The third plague pandemic was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan, China, in 1855. This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China, and at least 10 million Indians were killed in British Raj India alone, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history. According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1960, when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year. Plague deaths have continued at a lower level for every year since.
The plague of Amwas, also spelled plague of Emmaus, was an ancient bubonic plague epidemic that afflicted Islamic Syria in 638–639, during the first plague pandemic and toward the end of the Muslim conquest of the region. It was likely a reemergence of the mid-6th-century Plague of Justinian. Named after Amwas in Palestine, the principal camp of the Muslim Arab army, the plague killed up to 25,000 soldiers and their relatives, including most of the army's high command, and caused considerable loss of life and displacement among the indigenous Christians of Syria. The appointment of Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan to the governorship of Syria in the wake of the commanders' deaths paved the way for his establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661, while recurrences of the disease may have contributed to the Umayyad dynasty's downfall in 750. Depopulation in the Syrian countryside may have been a factor in the resettlement of the land by the Arabs unlike in other conquered regions where the Arabs largely secluded themselves to new garrison cities.
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes occurring in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Acral necrosis, the dark discoloration of skin, is another symptom. Occasionally, swollen lymph nodes, known as "buboes", may break open.
The Plague of Cyprian was a pandemic which afflicted the Roman Empire from about AD 249 to 262, or 251/2 to 270. The plague is thought to have caused widespread manpower shortages for food production and the Roman army, severely weakening the empire during the Crisis of the Third Century. Its modern name commemorates St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an early Christian writer who witnessed and described the plague, in his treatise On the Plague. The agent of the plague is highly speculative due to sparse sourcing, but suspects have included smallpox, measles, and viral hemorrhagic fever (filoviruses) like the Ebola virus. The response to the pandemic has strong ties to Christain beliefs and religion. The disease also attacked everyone "just and unjust".
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred in Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The eastern half of the Empire survived the conditions that caused the fall of the West in the 5th century AD, and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world. The term "Byzantine Empire" was only coined following the empire's demise; its citizens referred to the polity as the "Roman Empire" and to themselves as "Romans". Due to the imperial seat's move from Rome to Byzantium, the adoption of state Christianity, and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin, modern historians continue to make a distinction between the earlier Roman Empire and the later Byzantine Empire.
Michael Gregory Morony has been a professor of history at UCLA since 1974, with interests in the history of Ancient and Islamic Near East.
The second plague pandemic was a major series of epidemics of plague that started with the Black Death, which reached medieval Europe in 1346 and killed up to half of the population of Eurasia in the next four years. It followed the first plague pandemic that began in the 6th century with the Plague of Justinian, but had ended in the 8th century. Although the plague died out in most places after 1353, it became endemic and recurred regularly. A series of major epidemics occurred in the late 17th century, and the disease recurred in some places until the late 18th century or the early 19th century. After this, a new strain of the bacterium gave rise to the third plague pandemic, which started in Asia around the mid-19th century.
In 6th century Ireland, the population of Mohill was devastated by the Justinian plague, an early phenomenon of the Late Antique Little Ice Agec. 536–660 AD. The Mohill plague occurred following the Extreme weather events of 535–536 and death of Manchán of Mohill.
Globally about 600 cases of plague are reported a year. In 2017 and November 2019 the countries with the most cases include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru.
The Roman Plague of 590 was an epidemic of plague that affected the city of Rome in the year 590. Probably bubonic plague, it was part of the first plague pandemic that followed the great plague of Justinian, which began in the 540s and may have killed more than 100 million Europeans before spreading to other parts of the world and which lasted until the end of Late Antiquity. The plague was described by the bishop and chronicler Gregory of Tours and later chronicler Paul the Deacon.
In the Byzantine Empire, cities were centers of economic and cultural life. A significant part of the cities were founded during the period of Greek and Roman antiquity. The largest of them were Constantinople, Alexandria, Thessaloniki and Antioch, with a population of several hundred thousand people. Large provincial centers had a population of up to 50,000. Although the spread of Christianity negatively affected urban institutions, in general, late antique cities continued to develop continuously. Byzantium remained an empire of cities, although the urban space had changed a lot. If the Greco-Roman city was a place of pagan worship and sports events, theatrical performances and chariot races, the residence of officials and judges, then the Byzantine city was primarily a religious center where the bishop's residence was located.
Rebecca Flemming is a Classicist. She holds the inaugural A.G. Leventis Chair as Professor of Ancient Greek Scientific and Technological Thought at the University of Exeter.
