![]() ![]() When transmitted to humans by fleas, the organism spreads, causing the blackened tissue and necrotic pustules classically associated with the disease and which gave rise to the medieval epidemic's name.īut the classical explanation is not without its problems. ![]() What exactly was the agent that caused the Black Death and the succeeding epidemics of the late medieval and early modern periods? Most historians agree that the Black Death was a massive epidemic of bubonic plague, a disease of rats caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis. Jean-Noel Biraben, in his monumental Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays europeens et mediterraneens (1975-1976), concluded that plague struck somewhere in Europe during every year, save only two, between 13. Plagues were a constant presence in the lives of medieval and early modern people, causing fear, terror, and social disruption. The pandemic that descended upon western Europe in 1347 and continued virtually unbroken through the end of the seventeenth century has generated an enormous historical literature. ![]() Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
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