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The Byzantine historian Procopius first reported the epidemic in 541 from the port of Pelusium, near Suez in Egypt. [10] Two other first hand reports of the plague's ravages were by the Syriac church historian John of Ephesus [11] and Evagrius Scholasticus, who was a child in Antioch at the time and later
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 [2] perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. [3] The disease is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas and through the air.
The ancient custom of keeping three days between the death and the funeral was maintained, but often the period of mourning was considerably shortened and the body remained in the house for only one night. During this time, the house, whose walls, windows and doors were draped with black cloth, was plunged into mourning. [41]
It was likely a reemergence of the Plague of Justinian, [4] which originated in Pelusium (near modern Suez) in 541 and spread west to Alexandria and east to Palestine before reaching the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 541–542 and afflicting the rest of Europe and the Sasanian Empire, as noted by the Byzantine historian Procopius (d. c ...
A link with India is rendered less likely by the fact that the plague arrived in the Roman Empire before arriving in Persia or China, which had closer links with India. According to Peter Sarris, the "geopolitical context of the early sixth century," with an Aksumite–Roman alliance against Himyar and Persia, "was arguably the crucial ...
In the Byzantine Empire, the 1347 Black Death outbreak in Constantinople lasted a year, but plague recurred ten times before 1400. [27] Plague was repeatedly reintroduced to the city because of its strategic location between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, and between Europe and Asia, as well as its position as the imperial capital. [27]
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 ...
Theories of the Black Death are a variety of explanations that have been advanced to explain the nature and transmission of the Black Death (1347–51). A number of epidemiologists from the 1980s to the 2000s challenged the traditional view that the Black Death was caused by plague based on the type and spread of the disease.