The Black Plague

The Black Plague Then

The people of the Crimea were dying from a plague. Believing it was a foreign disease brought to their shores by Italian merchants, the people of the East got back at the Italians by exposing them to the corpses of the victims.

Ships arrived from Caffa at the port of Messina, Sicily. A few dying men clung to the oars; the rest lay dead on the decks. Ships carrying the good the Italians wanted now came with the plague.

Turned away from Messina, ships traveled on to Genoa and other European ports, making the disease spread to the heart of Europe. The plague came ashore with the surviving sailors and the goods stored in the ship.

Florence was the first of the cities of Europe to feel the full force of the epidemic. When it was over between 45,000 and 65,000 Florentines were dead of the plague.

People traveled to the countryside to escape what was happing in the cities and the plague traveled with them.

People wrote to family members telling them of the spread of the plague and what to expect. Many people fled the cities only to find that the Black Death was already there.

In three years time, the plague spread throughout Europe and killed so many people they had no place to bury the people who had died. People blamed the plague on ethnic groups and those people suffered from persecution. Others blamed the plague on foul