The Black Death
Learn about the Black Death — the devastating 14th-century pandemic that killed a third of Europe's population and transformed medieval society forever.
The Black Death was the most catastrophic pandemic in recorded history. Arriving in Europe in 1347 aboard merchant ships from the Black Sea, the plague — caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis — killed an estimated 75 to 200 million people across Eurasia, including roughly one-third to one-half of Europe's entire population within just five years.
The disease traveled the very trade routes that connected the medieval world. Originating in Central Asia, it spread along Silk Road caravan routes and aboard merchant vessels, reaching Constantinople, then Italy, then sweeping across Europe with terrifying speed. Victims developed swollen lymph nodes (buboes), blackened skin, fever, and usually died within days. Medieval medicine was helpless — physicians resorted to bloodletting, prayer, and persecution of Jews, whom many blamed for the catastrophe.
The plague's aftermath transformed European society in ways no one anticipated. With a third of the labor force dead, surviving workers could demand higher wages and better conditions. Serfdom weakened across much of Western Europe. The Church's authority was damaged by its inability to explain or prevent the disaster. Some historians see the Black Death as a decisive break between the medieval and modern worlds — a catastrophe that, by destroying the old order, inadvertently created space for the economic, social, and intellectual changes that would lead to the Renaissance.