“The plague frightened and killed. It began in the land of darkness. Oh, what a visitor! It has been current for fifteen years. China was not preserved from it nor could the strongest fortress hinder it. The plague afflicted the Indians in India…It seized with its hand and ensnared even the lands of the Uzbeks…It pelted Rūm with live coals and led the outrage to Cyprus and the islands. The plague destroyed mankind in Cairo.. ”

–Abū Hafs Umar Ibn Al-Wardī, Essay on the Report of the Pestilence (c. 1348). Aberth, Source 2.

INTRODUCTION: PANDEMIC!

What they couldn’t know: the bacterium Yersinia pestis was the pathogen behind the pandemic

The Black Death was a semi-global outbreak of Bubonic Plague that swept out of China and killed between 40% and 60% of the population of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa between 1348 and 1350.