Following the outbreak of COVID-19, a disease known as coronavirus, comparisons to the deadly plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century are being highlighted in the news on a daily basis. But how much do you know about the condition known interchangeably as the Black Death, Black Plague or Bubonic Plague? Here, Professor Tom Beaumont James sums up the need-to-know facts about the history of the infectious disease.
It is estimated that 50 million people died as a result of the Black Death. But what caused the plague? Where did it start? And what were its symptoms? Here’s your guide to the disease that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1348…
When was the Black Death?
The plague arrived in western Europe in 1347 and in England in 1348. It faded away in the early 1350s.
What was the Black Death?
In the Middle Ages, the Black Death, or ‘pestilencia’, as contemporaries called various epidemic diseases, was the worst catastrophe in recorded history. Some dubbed it ‘magna mortalitas’ (great mortality), emphasising the death rate.
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