The Black Death
Plague kills between a third and a half of Europe in seven years.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 6 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
Yersinia pestis reaches Sicily in 1347 and spreads across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East within a few years, killing perhaps 75 to 200 million people worldwide. Its consequences are structural: labour becomes scarce and wages rise sharply despite laws forbidding it, serfdom weakens in western Europe, and the authority of the church is damaged by its evident helplessness. It also triggers massacres of Jewish communities across Europe accused of causing it.