Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain, Embargoes, and Yersinia pestis in the Black Sea, 1346-1348

Abstract

When, how, and why did the Black Death reach Europe? Historians have relied on Gabriele de’ Mussi’s account of Tatars catapulting plague-infested bodies into the besieged Genoese colony of Caffa on the Crimean Peninsula. Yet Mussi spent the 1340s as a notary in Piacenza; he had no direct knowledge of events in Caffa. Sources written by people present in the Black Sea at the time of the Second Pandemic, including Genoese colonial administrators, Venetian diplomats, Byzantine chroniclers, and Mamluk merchants, offer a different perspective on plague transmission. They show that the Venetian community at Tana played just as important a role in plague transmission as the Genoese colony at Caffa; that it took over a year (from spring 1346 to autumn 1347) for plague to cross the Black Sea to Constantinople even though that journey normally took just a few weeks; that people crossed the Black Sea in 1346 but most goods did not because of a series of trade embargoes; that grain was one of the most important Black Sea commodities in both volume and strategic value; and therefore that the embargoes of 1346 delayed plague transmission by temporarily halting the movement of grain with its accompanying rats, fleas, and bacteria. When Venice, Genoa, and the Golden Horde made peace and lifted their embargoes in 1347, the grain trade resumed and so did the spread of plague.

Conflicts and the spread of plagues in pre-industrial Europe

“…Three major centers of Mediterranean contagion then developed: Sicily, Genoa, and Venice (Nolan, 2006). This view was recently revised with the addition of the Venetian community of Tana, which may have played an equally important role in the transmission of the plague as the Genoese colony of Caffa (Barker, 2021). Later, during the English Civil Wars (AD 1639-1651) outbreaks of plague in AD 1644 and 1645 largely decimated armies and cities (Slack, 1990;Jennings, 2003).…”

How a microbe becomes a pandemic: a new story of the Black Death

“…To date, historiography has barely associated the Mongols with plague, save for the nowdiscredited fiction that they spread the Black Death to Europe by throwing plagueridden bodies over the walls during a siege of Caffa on the Black Sea. 3 The spread of plague in the 1340s was hardly an act of bioterrorism; instead, its introduction into the commercial routes of the Black Sea and Mediterranean was due to grain shipments unrelated to the siege.…”

Misunderstandings of the transmission of the Black Death to Western Europe : a critical review of De Mussis’s account

“…체결할 필요가 있었기 때문이었다(Barker, 2021: 101; Balbi, 1978: 217-222). <quoniam nova habemus quod imperator Zanibech cum Ianuensibus est concordatus et cum NAM Jongkuk : >(Ciocîltan, 2012: 212; Petti Balbi, 226;Barker, 2021; 100-101).그렇다면 왜 무시스는 몽골군대가 공성전에서 투석기를 사용해서 전염병 에 감염된 시체를 던졌다고 말했을까? 아마 몽골에 대한 두려움과 공포, 그로 인한 편견과 혐오가 자극적인 이야기를 만드는데 일정정도 효모 역할을 했을 것이다.…”