Barker Laying The Corpses To Rest
Barker Laying The Corpses To Rest
Barker Laying The Corpses To Rest
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 city of
Caffa on the Crimean Peninsula. Yet Mussi spent the 1340s in Piacenza; he had no direct
knowledge of events in Caffa. Sources by people present in the Black Sea during the Second
Pandemic, including Genoese colonial administrators, Venetian diplomats, Byzantine chroniclers,
and Mamluk merchants, offer a different perspective. They show that the Venetian community
at Tana played an important role in plague transmission; that it took over a year (from spring
1346 to autumn 1347) for plague to cross the Black Sea to Constantinople; that people crossed
the Black Sea in 1346 but commodities 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, both the grain trade
and the spread of plague resumed.
Current knowledge about the early spread of the Black Death is limited. Phylogenetic
studies of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, indicate that the strain that
caused the fourteenth-century Second Pandemic may have evolved as early as 1196.1
This article could not have been completed without the support of many colleagues: Mike Carr, Debby
Shulevitz, Tzafrir Barzilay, Brian McLaughlin, Padraic Rohan, Stuart Borsch, and especially Monica
Green. Thanks also to Speculum’s anonymous readers for their thoughtful comments. Any and all
mistakes that remain are my own.
1
In 2013, it was shown that a polytomy, a sudden divergence of several new genetic strains of Y. pestis,
including the one responsible for the Black Death, occurred around 1268. Yujun Cui, Chang Yu, Yanfeng
Yan, et al., “Historical Variations in Mutation Rate in an Epidemic Pathogen, Yersinia pestis,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 110/2 (2013): 577–82 at 580,
Table 1; and Monica H. Green, “Editor’s Introduction to Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World:
Rethinking the Black Death,” The Medieval Globe 1 (2014): 9–25, at 13. Since then, geneticists using a
different mathematical model have dated the polytomy to around 1196. Maria A. Spyrou, Rezeda I.
Tukhbatova, Chuan-Chao Wang, et al., “Analysis of 3800-Year-Old Yersinia pestis Genomes Suggests
Bronze Age Origin for Bubonic Plague,” Nature Communications 9/1 (2018): 1–10 at 8, Supplementary
Table 9 (dates BP are counted backward from 1950). A plague genome one SNP (single nucleotide
polymorphism) prior to the polytomy, i.e., an immediate ancestor of the strain that caused the Black
Death, has recently been found in Laishevo, Russia. It has been dated to 1300–1400 based on archaeological
context. Maria A. Spyrou, Marcel Keller, Rezeda I. Tukhbatova, et al., “Phylogeography of the Second
Plague Pandemic Revealed through Analysis of Historical Yersinia pestis Genomes,” Nature Communications
10 (2019): 1–13, Table 1 and Figure 2.
Speculum 96/1 (January 2021). Copyright 2021 by the Medieval Academy of America.
doi: 10.1086/711596, 0038-7134/2021/9601-0003$10.00.
98 Laying the Corpses to Rest
Tombstones refer to a disease outbreak near Lake Issyk Kul in 1338–39; they have
often been cited as early evidence of the Second Pandemic.2 In summer 1346, there
was plague in Urgench and the eastern cities of the Golden Horde.3 By October–
November 1346/Rajab 747 H., it had spread to Solgat, the seat of the Golden
Horde’s governor in Crimea.4 In 1346–47/747–48 H., it was present in Azerbaijan
near Tabriz, and in summer 1347 it reached Baghdad.5 It then began to affect major
ports in the eastern Mediterranean: Constantinople, Alexandria, Messina, Genoa,
Marseille, Ragusa, and Venice. So far, the evidence gathered by archaeologists and
geneticists has confirmed that all of the 1347–48 outbreaks were caused by the same
strain of Y. pestis.6 Yet precisely when, how, and why the bacteria moved from one
place to another remain matters of conjecture, especially since plague is an enzootic
disease, residing primarily in animal—not human—populations.7
In this article I seek to account for the movement of plague from the territory of the
Golden Horde, north and east of the Black Sea, to Constantinople and then into the
eastern Mediterranean between spring 1346 and spring 1348. Current scholarship
about this early phase of the Second Pandemic relies heavily on Gabriele de’ Mussi’s
Historia de morbo, one of the few medieval treatises devoted entirely to the subject
of plague.8 According to Mussi, the first Europeans to contract the plague were
Genoese colonists besieged by a Tatar army in the Crimean port of Caffa. After the
siege had lasted almost three years, a disease began to spread in the Tatar camp. Soon
2
Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977; repr. 1979), 49. Since Lake
Issyk Kul is located near a plague reservoir, this outbreak may have no causal connection with the Second
Pandemic.
3
“в лето 6854 . . . подь въсточною стороною.” Timur Khaydarov, “Epidemii chumy v kaspiyskom regione
(konets XIV – nachalo XV vv.),” Zolotoordynskaya tsivilizatsiya 10 (2017): 304–9, at 305, citing a fifteenth-
century Muscovite chronicle. Also see Joseph Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der Goldenen Horde in
Kiptschak, das ist: Der Mongolen in Russland (Pest, 1840), 308, citing the Nikon Chronicle; Janos of Eger,
“Chronicon dubnicense,” in Flórián Mátyás, Historiae hungaricae fontes domestici, 4 vols. (Leipzig,
1881–85), 3:148; and Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion
(New Haven, 2017), 407–8.
4
Zayn al-Dīn ʿUmar ibn al-Wardī, Tatimmāt al-mukhtasar ̣ fī akhbār al-bashar, ed. Ahmad Rif ’at
al-Badrawi, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1970), 2:489.
5
Dols, Black Death, 45 citing the Jalarayid chronicler Abu Bakr al-Qutbi al-Ahri, Ta’rikh-i Shaikh
Uwais, ed. Johannes Baptist van Loon (The Hague, 1954), 73.
6
Research has focused on European sites; evidence from other parts of the world is much desired. The
most recent study is Spyrou, Keller, Tukhbatova, et al., “Phylogeography.” Amine Namouchi, Meriam
Guellil, Oliver Kersten, et al., “Integrative Approach Using Yersinia pestis Genomes to Revisit the
Historical Landscape of Plague during the Medieval Period,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States 115/50 (2018): 11, 790–97, argue that the Y. pestis genome from Abbadia
San Salvatore is a distinct strain, but they do not explain how they dated that sample to the 1347–48
outbreak. The common 1347–48 strain was certainly present in Venice and Genoa. Thi-Nguyen-Ny Tran,
Michel Signoli, Luigi Fozzati, et al., “High Throughput, Multiplexed Pathogen Detection Authenticates
Plague Waves in Medieval Venice, Italy,” PLoS ONE 6/3 (2011): 1–5; and D. Cesana, O. J. Benedictow,
and R. Bianucci, “The Origin and Early Spread of the Black Death in Italy: First Evidence of Plague
Victims from 14th-Century Liguria (Northern Italy),” Anthropological Science 125/1 (2017): 15–24.
7
Vladimir M. Dubyanskiy and Aidyn B. Yeszhanov, “Ecology of Yersinia pestis and the Epidemiology of
Plague,” in Yersinia pestis: Retrospective and Perspective, ed. Ruifu Yang and Andrey Anisimov, Advances
in Experimental Medicine and Biology 918 (Dordrecht, 2016), 101–70, at 109–14.
8
A. W. Henschel, “Document zur Geschichte des schwarzen Todes,” Archiv für die gesammte Medicin 2
(1842): 26–59; and A. G. Tononi, “La peste dell’anno 1348,” Giornale lingustico di archeologia, storia e
letteratura 11 (1884): 139–52. The sole surviving manuscript has been digitized: Warsaw, Uniwersytetu
Wrocławskiego, Biblioteka Cyfrowa, MS R 262, fols. 74–77, http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/dlibra
/publication/39280/edition/42426 (last accessed 20 December 2018).
9
Gabriele de’ Mussi, “Historia de Morbo,” in The Black Death, ed. and trans. Rosemary Horrox
(Manchester, 1994), 17.
10
The following works rely on Mussi’s narrative but do not consider it evidence of biological warfare. Dols,
Black Death, 52; Gabriele Zanella, “Italia, Francia e Germania: Una storiografia a confronto,” in La peste
nera: Dati di una realtà ed elementi di una interpretazione. Atti del XXX Convegno storico internazionale,
Todi, 10–13 ottobre 1993, Atti dei Convegni dell’Accademia Tudertina e del Centro di Studi sulla
Spiritualità Medievale Nuova Serie 7 (Spoleto, 1994), 49–135, at 15; Steven A. Epstein, Genoa and the
Genoese, 958–1528 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996), 212; William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York,
1998), 177; Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge, UK,
2004), 52–53; John Aberth, The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348–1350. A Brief History with
Documents (New York, 2005), 13; Nicola Di Cosmo, “Black Sea Emporia and the Mongol Empire: A
Reassessment of the Pax Mongolica,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53
(2010): 83–108, at 97–98; Nükhet Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World:
The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (Cambridge, UK, 2015), 98; Lars Börner and Battista Severgnini,
“Genoa and Venice: Traders of Prosperity, Growth, and Death,” in Union in Separation: Diasporic
Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100–1800), ed. Georg Christ et al., Viella Historical
Research 1 (Rome, 2015), 105–22, at 114; Bruce M. S. Campbell, The Great Transition: Climate, Disease
and Society in the Late-Medieval World (Cambridge, UK, 2016), 300; Hans Ditrich, “The Transmission
of the Black Death to Western Europe: A Critical Review of the Existing Evidence,” Mediterranean
Historical Review 32/1 (2017): 25–39, at 26–28; Guido Alfani and Tommy Murphy, “Plague and Lethal
Epidemics in the Pre-Industrial World,” Journal of Economic History 77/1 (2017): 314–43 at 327;
Khaydarov, “Epidemii,” 305–6; and Moshe Grinberg, “Janibeg’s Last Siege of Caffa (1346–1347) and
the Black Death: The Evidence and Chronology Revisited,” Turkological Sudies 1/2 (2018): 19–32.
11
The following works frame Mussi’s narrative in terms of biological warfare or bioterrorism:
Vincent Derbes, “De Mussis and the Great Plague of 1348: A Forgotten Episode of Bacteriological
Warfare,” Journal of the American Medical Association 196/1 (1966): 59–62; Jean-Noël Biraben, Les hommes
et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens, 2 vols., Civilisations et Sociétés 35
(Paris, 1975–76), 1:53; Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Dover, NH, 1969; repr. Stroud, UK, 1991), 5;
Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 9; David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the
West (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 24; Mark Wheelis, “Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa,”
Emerging Infectious Diseases 8 (2002): 971–75; Virgil Ciocîltan, The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, trans. Samuel Willcocks, East Central and Eastern Europe in the
Middle Ages, 450–1450 20 (Leiden, 2012), 201; and Uli Schamiloglu, “The Impact of the Black Death on
the Golden Horde: Politics, Economy, Society, Civilization,” Golden Horde Review 5/2 (2017): 325–43, at 329.
12
Tononi, “La peste,” 142. Henschel was not sure whether Mussi had been involved in the siege of
Caffa. He did not consult the archive of the Basilica di Sant’Antonino in Piacenza, which holds Mussi’s
documents for 1344–56. Henschel, “Document,” 28–29 vs. 34–35.
13
Charles J. Halperin, “The Missing Golden Horde Chronicles and Historiography in the Mongol
Empire,” Mongolian Studies 23 (2000): 1–15.
14
Grinberg connects plague movement across the Black Sea with peace and the resumption of trade but
does not mention grain shipment: “Janibeg’s Last Siege,” 26.
15
I use the UNESCO transliteration system for the proper names of Mongol rulers.
16
“Cum locus Caffa fuerit longevis temporibus expugnatus omni artificio quo terror potest incuti et,
dante Deo, ad finem honorabilem pervenimus cum illo qui toto mondo dominari se credit, ex quo sequuta
est pax, licet incerta et non secura . . . quia Tartari oculum non habent nisi dumtaxat quod expensse
deficiant et locus bellatoribus denudetur, maxime quia sperant de infinita pestilencia mortalitatis, que
infinitos bellatores prostravit, et taliter sunt consumpti quod pauci remaneant viri.” Giovanna Petti Balbi,
“Caffa e Pera a metà del Trecento,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 16 (1978): 217–28, at 226, citing
Genoa, Archivio di Stato di Genova (ASG), Notai Antichi 364 (Oberto Musso), doc. 93 (renumbered 144).
This register is a jumble, likely a consequence of French shelling of the archive in 1684. It includes
documents composed by eleven or twelve notaries with dates ranging from 1262 to 1360. Thanks to
Padraic Rohan for helping to confirm these details.
21
Stella and Stella, Annales, 139.
22
Taha Dinānah, “Die Schrift von Abī G ̌ aʿfar Aḥmed ibn ʿAlī ibn Moh ̣ammed ibn ʿAlī ibn H
̮ ātimah aus
Almeriah über die Pest,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 19 (1927): 27–81, at 42; and Gilles li Muisis in
Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 46.
23
Christos S. Bartsocas, “Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions of the ‘Black Death,’” Journal of
the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 21/4 (1966): 394–400, at 395.
24
Bartsocas, “Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions,” 395.
25
Giovanni Villani also located early plague outbreaks in Tana and Trebizond. Aberth, Black Death, 20.
26
Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise (XIIe–début du XVe siècle), 2 vols., Atti della Società Ligure di
Storia Patria, new series 18 (Genoa, 1978), 1:115–18.
27
Camillo Manfroni, “Le relazioni fra Genova, l’Impero Bizantino e i Turchi,” Atti della società ligure di
storia patria 28/3 (1896): 575–856.
28
Sergei Karpov, “Génois et byzantins face à la crise de Tana de 1343 d’après les documents d’archives
inédits,” Byzantinische Forschungen 22 (1996): 33–51.
29
George Martin Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum, sive acta et diplomata res venetas
graecas atque levantis illustrantia, 2 vols., Monumenti Storici 5, 9 (Venice, 1880–99), 1:243–44, doc. 125.
30
Records of the Genoese tax farm on grain imports indicate that 278,000 mines (about 22.9 million
kilograms) of grain were imported in 1341. Other estimates for the total annual volume of fourteenth-
century Genoese grain imports range from 185,000 mines to 350,000 mines. Balard, La Romanie, 2:750.
31
Sergei Karpov, “The Grain Trade in the Southern Black Sea Region: The Thirteenth to the Fifteenth
Century,” Mediterranean Historical Review 8 (1993): 55–73, at 58; Michel Balard, “Le commerce du blé
en mer Noire (XIIIe–XVe siècles),” in La mer Noire et la Romanie génoise (XIIIe–XVe siècles), Collected
Studies 294 (London, 1989), 64–80, at 68; George Dameron, “Feeding the Medieval Italian City-State:
Grain, War, and Political Legitimacy in Tuscany, c. 1150–c. 1350,” Speculum 92/4 (2017): 976–1019, at
998; Jacques Heers, Gênes aux XVe siècle: Activité économique et problèmes sociaux, Affaires et Gens
d’Affaires 24 (Paris, 1961), 329–46, 349; Balard, La Romanie, 2:749–69; Gian Giacomo Musso,
Navigazione e commercio genovese con il Levante nei documenti dell’Archivio di Stato di Genova
(secc. xiv–xv), Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato 84 (Rome, 1975), 141–66; and Reinhold Mueller,
“Aspetti sociali ed economici della peste a Venezia nel Medioevo,” in Venezia e la peste, 1348/1797
(Venice, 1979), 71–92, at 72.
32
In Genoa, Caffan grain was cheaper than Iberian or Sicilian grain. Balard, La Romanie, 2:766–67.
33
“De ipso viagio Tane et Maris Maioris maiorem partem substantacionis victus nostri et presertim de
blado percipimus.” Balard, “Le commerce,” 70.
34
Musso, Navigazione, 151–52. Compared to Tuscan cities, Genoa was late to intervene in the grain
trade. Its Officium Victualium was established in 1350. Balard, La Romanie, 2:751, 759.
35
Balard, “Le commerce,” 74.
36
Balard, La Romanie, 2:762, 764; Karpov estimates 10–15% from the Black Sea: “Grain Trade,” 62.
37
Di Cosmo, “Black Sea Emporia,” 101–4; and Balard, La Romanie, 2:760–61.
38
Balard, La Romanie, 2:719–33; and Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World
System A.D. 1250–1350 (Oxford, 1989).
39
Sergei Karpov, La navigazione veneziana nel Mar Nero, XIII–XV sec. (Ravenna, 2000), 155–56, 191;
and Doris Stöckly, Le système d l’incanto des galées du marché à Venise (fin XIIIe–milieu XVe siècle),
Medieval Mediterranean 5 (Leiden, 1995), 102–8.
40
Dubyanskiy and Yeszhanov, “Ecology,” 105–7.
41
Michael McCormick, “Rats, Communication, and Plague: Toward an Ecological History,” The
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34/1 (2003): 1–25; Emily E. Puckett, Jane Park, Matthew Combs,
et al., “Global Population Divergence and Admixture of the Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus),” Proceedings
of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283/1841 (2016), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/
content/283/1841/20161762 (last accessed 15 July 2017); and Tarek Oueslati, Mohamed Kbiri Alaoui,
Abdelfattah Ichkhakh, et al., “1st Century BCE Occurrence of Chicken, House Mouse and Black Rat
in Morocco: Socio-economic Changes around the Reign of Juba II on the Site of Rirha,” Journal of
51
McCormick, “Rats.”
52
Börner and Severgnini, “Genoa and Venice,” 113; Kristina Lenz and Nils Hybel, “The Black Death: Its
Origin and Routes of Dissemination,” Scandinavian Journal of History 41/1 (2016): 54–70, at 61; and
Cesana, Benedictow, and Bianucci, “Origin,” 22.
53
Campbell and Karpov suggest this possibility without citing any evidence. Campbell, Great Transition,
324; and Sergei Karpov, “Black Sea and the Crisis of the Mid XIVth Century: An Underestimated Turning
Point,” Thesaurismata 27 (1997): 65–78, at 68.
54
Karpov, “Grain Trade”; and Balard, “Le commerce,” 65–67, 77–79.
55
Balard, “Le commerce,” 67, 79.
56
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La Pratica della mercatura: Book of Descriptions of Countries and of
Measures of Merchandise, ed. Allan Evans, The Medieval Academy of America Publication 24
(Cambridge, MA, 1936), xiv, 42, 54–55. See also Balard, La Romanie, 2:752–54.
57
Karpov, “Grain Trade,” 58.
58
Balard, La Romanie, 2:752.
59
Zaorra (Zagora) referred to inland Bulgaria, not to a port.
60
E. S. Zevakin and A. Penč ko, “Ricerche sulla storia delle colonie genovesi nel Caucaso occidentale nei
secoli XIII–XV,” trans. Maria Teresa Dellacasa, in Miscellanea di studi storici, Collana Storica di Fonti e
Studi 1 (Genoa, 1969), 7–98, at 29–30.
61
Balard, “Le commerce,” 67.
62
Balard, La Romanie, 2:754. They also mentioned Cubacuba and Cavalari, whose locations are
unknown.
63
Ruy González de Clavijo, Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy González de Clavijo to the Court of Timour,
at Samarcand, A.D. 1403–6, trans. Clements R. Markham, Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society 26
(London, 1859), 56–60 and 198–99. He took twenty-two days to sail from Pera to Trebizond and twenty-
five days to return from Trebizond to Pera.
64
G. I. Bratianu, “La question de l’approvisionnement de Constantinople à l’époque byzantine et
ottomane,” Byzantion 5/1 (1929): 83–107, at 96–97; G. I. Bratianu, “Nouvelles contributions à l’étude de
l’approvisionnement de Constantinople sous les Paléologues et les empereurs ottomans,” Byzantion 6/2
(1931): 641–56, at 642–46; Zevakin and Penč ko, “Ricerche,” 44–45; Fabien Faugeron, Nourrir la ville:
Ravitaillement, marchés et métiers de l’alimentation à Venise dans les derniers siècles du Moyen Âge
(Rome, 2014), 426–27; Balard, “Le commerce,” 69; Balard, La Romanie, 2:754–58; and Angeliki E.
Laiou, “The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterranean Trade System: Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries,”
and “The Greek Merchant of the Palaeologan Period: A Collective Portrait,” in Gender, Society and
Economic Life in Byzantium, Collected Studies 370 (Aldershot, 1992), 177–222, at 192–95, and 96–124,
at 103–5.
65
Balard, La Romanie, 2:759; Balard, “Le commerce,” 73–74.
66
Karpov, La navigazione, 39–65; Balard, La Romanie, 2:576–85.
67
Balard, La Romanie, 2:577; Clavijo, Narrative, 199; and Roberto Cessi and Fanny Bennato, eds.,
Venetiarum historia vulgo Petro Iustiniano Iustiniani filio adiudicata, Monumenti Storici Nuova Serie 18
(Venice, 1964), 214.
68
Karpov, La navigazione, 39, 41; and Balard, La Romanie, 2:579.
69
Karpov, La navigazione, 86–88; and Niccolò da Poggibonsi, A Voyage beyond the Seas (1346–1350),
trans. T. Bellorini and E. Hoade, Publications of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 2 (Jerusalem, 1945),
viii, 130.
70
Balard, La Romanie, 2:583.
71
Balard, La Romanie, 2:581.
72
Balard, La Romanie, 2:760.
73
Y. pestis spreads overland through rodents in the western United States at a rate of about sixteen
miles per year. Benedictow, Black Death, 47. At that rate, Y. pestis would require seventy-seven to eighty-
five years to travel from Tana to Constantinople.
74
Balard, “Le commerce;” Bratianu, “La question;” and Karpov, “Génois.” Biraben overstates Genoa’s
dominance of Black Sea shipping in the 1340s: Les hommes, 1:53 n. 52. Benedictow (Black Death, 49) and
Ziegler (Black Death, 5) overstate the Golden Horde’s hostility toward generic “Italians” and ignore the
long-standing hostility between Venetians and Genoese. For a more nuanced portrayal, see Ciocîltan,
Mongols and Di Cosmo, “Black Sea Emporia.”
75
Ciocîltan, Mongols, 202.
76
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:261–63, doc. 135.
77
Stöckly, Le système, 107.
78
Cessi and Bennato, eds., Venetiarum historia, 226; Antonio Morosini, The Morosini Codex, ed.
Michele Pietro Ghezzo, John R. Melville-Jones, and Andrea Rizzi, Archivio del Litorale Adriatico 3
(Padua, 1999), 111, 117; Stella, Annales, 138; Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:268; Karpov, “Génois,”
35; and Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie da Caffa,” in Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani,
6 vols. (Milan, 1962), 3:265–95, at 267.
79
Ciocîltan, Mongols, 203; and Di Cosmo, “Black Sea Emporia,” 98.
1343 Sept. Riot in Tana; Jānībek arrests Italian merchants 1346 summer Plague in Urgench, New Sarai, Astrakhan’, Beldjamen;
first harvest failure in Italy
1344 Feb. First siege of Caffa; first Venetian embargo 1346 Aug. Pope issues trade license to fund defense against second
siege of Caffa
1344 June Venetian-Genoese alliance, joint embargo 1346 Oct.–Nov. Plague in Solgat; Ibn al-Wardī’s merchant
informant crosses the Black Sea
1344 Aug. Venetian, Genoese ambassadors meet in Caffa 1347 Jan.–Mar. Genoa-Golden Horde peace without treaty;
plague mentioned in Caffa’s petition to Genoa
1344 Oct. First Venetian protest of Genoese embargo 1347 Apr. Venice allows grain exports from Tana
violations
1344 Nov. Jānībek’s embargo against Genoese, Venetians, 1347 May Rumors of Venice-Golden Horde peace
Byzantines
1344 Dec. Second Venetian protest of Genoese embargo 1347 summer Plague in Baghdad; second harvest failure in Italy
violations
1345 Jan. Jānībek prepares second siege of Caffa 1347 Aug.–Sept. Plague in Constantinople
1345 Feb. Genoa promises better embargo enforcement 1347 Sept. Plague in Trebizond
1345 Mar. Genoa sends first fleet to defend Caffa from 1347 Oct. Plague in Messina
Jānībek’s new fleet
1345 July Renewal of Venetian-Genoese alliance, joint 1347 Nov. Plague in Alexandria
embargo; second siege of Caffa begins?
1345 Dec. Pope issues crusade indulgence for defenders 1347 Nov.–Dec. Plague in Genoa, Marseille
in second siege of Caffa
1346 spring Plague in Golden Horde, Tana; 1347 Dec. Venice-Golden Horde peace treaty
Jānībek releases Venetian prisoners
1346 Apr. Venetian ambassadors in Caffa return home 1348 Jan. Plague in Ragusa; major earthquake in Friuli;
Caffans attack Kerasunt
1346 May Genoa sends second fleet to Caffa, diverted 1348 Feb.–Mar. Plague in Venice
to Chios
112 Laying the Corpses to Rest
to change the terms of his diplomatic relationships. Collective punishment of mer-
chants was a common tactic in late medieval disputes about international trade. In
this case, Jānībek used it to remind both Genoa and Venice that their commercial
activities in the Black Sea were subject to his power, and that his benevolence could
not be taken for granted.
In the immediate aftermath of the riot, all three parties used the situation to advance
their own interests.80 It quickly became clear that Jānībek’s goal was not only to remind
Venice and Genoa of his power but also to oust the Genoese from Caffa. The flight
of the Italians from Tana to Caffa gave him an excuse to reclaim Caffa. Restoring his
sovereignty there would support his claim to universal rulership (a claim inherited
from the era of Chinggis Khan) and enable him to resist Italian pressure in other
areas. It would also fill his treasury, since the Genoese had established customs and
staple rights in Caffa that generated substantial revenue. Because Genoa had no
written document stating the terms of its sovereignty over Caffa, it had no legal basis
to resist Jānībek’s decision. From this perspective, relations with the Venetians were
an afterthought except to the extent that they could be used against the Genoese.
Meanwhile, Genoa also saw the riot as an opportunity to pursue its own chief
aim in the Black Sea: maintaining its advantage over Venice. Genoa did not want
Venice to have colonies in the Black Sea or to trade without going through Genoese
middlemen. In practical terms, this meant keeping the Venetians out of Tana by any
means necessary. The riot and its aftermath presented Genoa with an opportunity to
lure displaced Venetian merchants to Caffa, where they would have to work with
Genoese middlemen and pay Genoese taxes as long as Genoa was able to defend the
city from the Golden Horde.
Venice’s chief aim in the Black Sea was to erase Genoa’s advantage by establishing
colonies of its own. After the riot, this meant placating Jānībek Khan and regaining
its privileges in Tana as soon as possible. On 25 October, therefore, the Venetian
senate sent two messengers to Jānībek to request letters of safe-conduct for two
ambassadors.81 The messengers departed by land in late November; the ambas-
sadors would follow by sea after the winter shipping hiatus ended. While waiting
for news, the senate authorized the Romania galley convoy to sail to Constantinople
in 1344. There its captains could assess the situation before deciding whether to enter
the Black Sea or return via Cyprus.82 The senate also petitioned the pope for per-
mission to send galleys to Alexandria to make up for the lost trade in luxury goods.83
It seems that the Venetians hoped for a swift resolution to the conflict.
Jānībek Khan had not yet achieved his objective though. In February 1344 he
besieged Caffa with twelve trebuchets. The Caffans were prepared: they had already
80
Ciocîltan, Mongols, 203–5; Di Cosmo, “Black Sea Emporia,” 98–101; and Şerban Papacostea,
“‘Quod non iretur ad Tanam’: Un aspect fondamental de la politique génoise dans la mer Noire au XIVe
siècle,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 17/2 (1979): 201–17.
81
Karpov, “Génois,” 36–37; Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 268; and Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium,
1:266–67, 320.
82
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:275–76, 323–25.
83
Permission was received in 1344 and galleys went to Alexandria in 1345. Raphainus de Caresinis,
Raphayni de Caresinis cancellarii Venetiarum Chronica AA. 1343–1388, ed. Ester Pastorello, Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores Nuova Edizione 12/2 (Bologna, 1922), 4; Lorenzo de’ Moniacis, Laurentii de
Monacis Veneti Cretae cancellarii Chronicon de rebus Venetiis, ed. Flaminius Cornelius, Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores 8 (Venice, 1758), col. 311; and Morosini, Morosini Codex, 111.
84
Stella, Annales, 139; and Giovanna Petti Balbi and Silvana Fossati Raiteri, eds., Notai genovesi in
oltremare: Atti rogati a Caffa e a Licostomo (sec. XIV), Collana storica di fonti e studi 14, Collana storia
dell’Oltremare ligure 2 (Genoa, 1973), 28–29, 110. The contract must have been made between
September and December 1343.
85
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:336; and Balbi and Raiteri, eds., Notai, 75–76, doc. 35.
86
“Ire seu mitere per se vel alium aliquid de suo sub aliquo colore vel causa ad partes subditas Imperatori
Zanibech, intelligendo quod Gaffa sit de locis et terris prohibitis.” Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 268.
The embargo had both practical and symbolic signficance. Stefan K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality:
Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford, 2014); and Dameron, “Feeding,” 989.
87
“Quod uirtus unita forcior est quam dispartita et separata.” Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:279–285,
doc. 148.
88
“Neutra dictarum parcium dictorum comunium possit seu debeat negociari, mercari, seu contractum
inire per se nec per alios in imperio predicti domini imperatoris Ianibech.” Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium,
1:283.
89
Marco Ruzzini and Giovanni Steno for Venice; Lanfranco Cattaneo, Gualvanus Embrono, and
Giorgio de Monte Alto for Genoa. Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 289–95; and Cessi and Bennato, eds.,
Venetiarum historia, 226.
90
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 270, 277–78; and Ciocîltan, Mongols, 210.
91
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:329–32; Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 270–71, 278–79, 289–95;
and Papacostea, “‘Quod non iretur,’” 206–7.
99
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 279.
100
“Si extringerent sua navigia et suos mercatores, terra Gaffe non posset retinere, et illud quod faciunt
pro conservacione dicte terre Gaffa faciunt.” Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 280.
101
“In istis contratis est multa blada, et de nova et de vetera, sed dominus Imperator non premittit eam
traere aliquo modo, sed per aliquod navigium Genuensium extraitur de nocte et furtive.” Morozzo della
Rocca, “Notizie,” 281.
102
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 281–85; and Ciocîltan, Mongols, 209.
103
“De furmentum [sic], per illud quod sentimus, satis est in istis partibus; precium aliquod non potest
nominari quia bandum est positum per Imperatorem de persona et havere quod aliquis non audeat ipsum
extraere.” Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 285.
104
“In uerbo Dei respondemus, quod illa contra uoluntatem, mandatum propterea factum, conscientiam
et assensum nostri comunis fuerunt perpetrata, et dum illa audiuimus relatione dicti uestri sindici, nedum
mentem nostram, ymmo aliorum nostrorum ciuium corda turbarunt amare.” Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium,
1:288. Two grain shipments from Romania totalling 9,400 mines arrived in Genoa in 1345, but they must
have come from Anatolia or the Danube. Balard, La Romanie, 2:759, citing ASG, Antico Comune,
Massaria Communis Ianue no. 3, fols. 49v, 53r.
In this way, Genoa and Venice tried to resolve their dispute about smuggling. The new
embargo clause sidestepped the question of sovereignty over Caffa while tacitly
105
Under Federico Pichamiglio. Ciocîltan, Mongols, 210.
106
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 289.
107
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 286.
108
Dai Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus ‘The Middle Mongolian Empire,’” in The Early Mongols:
Language, Culture and History, ed. Volker Rybatzki, Alessandra Pozzi, Peter W. Geier, and John R.
Krueger, Uralic and Altaic Series 173 (Bloomington, IN, 2009), 111–19.
109
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 279.
110
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 272; and Ciocîltan, Mongols, 209.
111
“Nec per totum dictum tempus dicte felicis unitatis et lige possit aliquis dictarum partium cum rebus
uel mercibus, seu cum lignis, seu uasis nauigabilibus uel sine, ire, accedere uel nauigare, mittere seu deferre,
uel mitti seu deferri facere res uel merces ad aliquas terras uel loca dicti imperatoris Ianibech siue ipsi
imperatori et suo imperio subietas uel subiecta, siue positas siue posita seu sita in suo imperio, saluo ad
locum et ciuitatem Caffa, et ab inde infra uersus occidentem siue uersus Peyram, ipso loco siue ipsa ciuitate
de Caffa comprehensa . . . Nec possit aliquis dictarum partium modo aliquo siue ingenio, qui dici uel
cogitari possit, ultra dictum locum siue ciuitatem de Caffa, directe uel per obliquum, aliquo colore quesito,
uersus orientem siue Tanam, ire, accedere uel nauigare.” Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:302; Morozzo
della Rocca, “Notizie,” 271; and Papacostea, “‘Quod non iretur,’” 207–8.
112
Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 272–74; and Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:333–35.
113
Mike Carr, Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291–1352 (Woodbridge, UK, 2015), 152.
114
Under Simon Vignoso. Carr, “Humbert,” 243; and Stella, Annales, 146–47.
115
“Passagio et subsidio de Caffa.” Carr, “Crossing Boundaries,” 116, and doc. 18. The Caffans later
requested Brother Ladislaus as their bishop. Balbi, “Caffa,” 221.
116
The Venetian year began on 1 March. Caresinis, Chronica, 5; and Moniacis, Chronicon, 313.
117
Bartsocas, “Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions,” 395.
118
Khaydarov, “Epidemii,” 305; Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte, 308; and Janos of Eger, “Chronicon,”
148.
119
Michael Dols, “Ibn al-Wardī’s Risālah al-naba’ ʿan al-waba’: A Translation of a Major Source for
the History of the Black Death in the Middle East,” in Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy,
and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed. Dickran K. Kouymjian (Beirut, 1974), 443–55, at 448;
and Ibn al-Wardī, Tatimmāt al-mukhtasar,̣ 2:489.
120
Schamiloglu, “Impact,” 329.
121
Jānībek continued to release prisoners in 1348. Nicoletto Gata, a Venetian imprisoned in Sarai,
returned to Caffa in April 1348 and promptly wrote to his business partner in Crete for funds to pay his
ransom. Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca, ed., Lettere di mercanti a Pignol Zucchello (1336–1350)
(Venice, 1957), 118, doc. 63.
122
Janet Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and Its Significance for Medieval
Russia (Cambridge, UK, 1986); and Hannah Barker, That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean
Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500 (Philadelphia, 2019), 161–64, 178–83.
123
Plague reached Aleppo from the south in October 1348. Dols, Black Death, 60–61.
124
Laiou, “Byzantine Economy,” 184; Carr, “Crossing Boundaries,” 119, doc. 21; and Carr, “Humbert,”
246, 248.
125
Faugeron, Nourrir, 188; Dameron, “Feeding,” 1007, 1017; and Bruce M. S. Campbell, “The
European Mortality Crises of 1346–52 and Advent of the Little Ice Age,” in Famines during the “Little
Ice Age” (1300–1800): Socionatural Entanglements in Premodern Societies, ed. Dominik Collet and
Maximilian Schuh (Cham, Switzerland, 2018), 19–41, at 31–32.
126
Stöckly, Le système, 107; and Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:335.
127
Mussi in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 17.
128
Karpov, “Grain Trade,” 65, 67; and Balard, “Le commerce,” 76–77.
129
Zevakin and Penč ko, “Ricerche,” 45–46.
130
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:336–38; and Ciocîltan, Mongols, 211–14.
131
Balbi, “Caffa”; and Ciocîltan, Mongols, 212.
132
Moniacis, Chronicon, 310; Cessi and Bennato, eds., Venetiarum historia, 229; Caresinis, Chronica,
4; and Morosini, Morosini Codex, 117.
133
“Et utile sit, quod de omni parte frumentum et bladum Venecias conducantur.” Thomas, ed.,
Diplomatarium, 1:336.
134
“Occasione caricandi frumentum uel aliud bladum . . . cum ista condicione, quod cum nauigiis, cum
quibus nauigabant ad partes predictas, redeant Venecias caricati frumento uel blado, uel uacui exeant de
terris et partibus Zanibech.” Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:336; Balard, “Le commerce,” 71. The Tana
convoy of 1347 consisted of three galleys captained by Marco Morosini. Cessi and Bennato, eds.,
Venetiarum historia, 229; and Caresinis, Chronica, 4. Antonio Morosini, Marco’s son, incorrectly
reported the Venetian return to Tana in 1348. Morosini, Morosini Codex, 117.
135
Goffredo Morosini and Giovanni Querini. Cessi and Bennato, eds., Venetiarum historia, 229 and
Caresinis, Chronica, 4.
136
“Ora megliora merchato di formento e d’asai altre cose peroche’ la pacie da la Tana è fatta, e molte navi
so’ andate dentro, per la qual cosa quello formento che valeva i’ Romania perperi .VIII. in .VIIII. el mogio si è
tornato a perperi .V. in .VI.” Morozzo della Rocca, ed., Lettere, 73, doc. 36. By June 4, Zuchello had
arranged to ship 100 measures of grain to Venice in September. He followed through on 18 September
with 120 measures, though he complained about the high price. Morozzo della Rocca, ed., Lettere, 75, 91.
137
Thomas, ed., Diplomatarium, 1:311–13, doc. 167; Morozzo della Rocca, “Notizie,” 275–76.
138
Dinānah, “Die Schrift,” 42.
139
Giulio Bertoni and Emilio Paolo Vicini, eds., Chronicon estense, cum additamentis usque ad annum
1478, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores Nuova Edizione 15/3 (Città di Castello, 1908), 160; and Cronaca B in
Albano Sorbelli, ed., Corpus chronicorum Bononiensum, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores Nuova Edizione
18/1, vol. 2 (Città di Castello, 1910), 585.
140
All references to an early July outbreak can be traced to an article written for a popular audience
without citations: Jean-Noël Biraben, “La Peste Noire en terre d’Islam,” L’Histoire 11 (1979): 30–40.
This article included a short bibliography of works by Michael Dols, Jacqueline Sublet, and Gaston Wiet,
none of which dates the Constantinople outbreak to July. In his scholarly writing, Biraben said only that
Pera and Constantinople were affected “in the middle of 1347.” Biraben, Les hommes, 1:53.
141
Timothy S. Miller, “The History of John Cantacuzenos (Book IV)” (PhD diss., The Catholic
University of America, 1975), 166.
142
Miller, “History,” 188.
143
Miller, “History,” 308.
144
Peter Schreiner, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken, 3 vols., Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
12 (Vienna, 1975–79), 1:242 and 3:63 (Chronicle 33), 1:619 (Chronicle 89). The chroniclers might
have chosen to record an August outbreak under the new year in order to avoid discussing the plague
twice across two entries, but this strategy is less likely if the outbreak did not begin close to the new year.
Thanks to Brian McLaughlin for this suggestion.
145
Chronicle of Michael Panaretos in Lebeau, Histoire, 20:488. From there it seems to have spread
inland to Siwas and Kayseri. Varlik, Plague, 107.
146
Bertoni and Vicini, eds., Chronicon estense, 160, and Cronaca A and B in Sorbelli, ed., Corpus
chronicorum Bononiensum, 584–85, all described fast human-to-human transmission of plague through
breath or conversation in Constantinople and Pera. Gregoras, Kantakouzenos, and Ibn Khātima did not.
147
. ﺍﺧﺮ ﺃﻳﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﺘﺨﻀﻴﺮ ﻭ ﺫﻟﻚ ﻓﻲ ﻓﺼﻞ ﺍﻟﺨﺮﻳﻒ ﻓﻲ ﺃﺛﻨﺎﺀ ﺳﻨﺔ ﺛﻤﺎﻥ ﻭﺃﺭﺑﻌﻴﻦ
Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-sulūk, 2:772. Agricultural land was allocated to villagers as the Nile flood receded.
During the flood, irrigation was managed through a complex system of basins, dams, and canals so that the
level in state canals remained high enough for village canals to draw water. In the Nile delta, the irrigation
rotation system took effect in mid-August and continued until late October or early November. Once the
final set of basins were draining or had drained, the land allocation process began. As in al-Maqrīzī’s text,
tah ̣d ̣īr (allocation of land to cultivators) was sometimes misspelled takhd ̣īr (greening) in reference to the
beginning of cultivation after irrigation and land allocation. In surviving texts of Egyptian water laws from
the late twelfth century, the final basin was scheduled to start draining on the Coptic date 10 Hatūr. In 748
H./1347 CE, 10 Hatūr fell on 15 November. The last days of land allocation should therefore have
occurred in November 1347. Thanks to Stuart Borsch for helping me interpret this reference. For the
irrigation schedule, see Stuart Borsch and Tarek Sabraa, “Qānūn al-Riyy: The Water Law of Egypt,”
Sophia Journal of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Studies 35 (2017): 87–124, esp. Table 5 and Figure 20.
For the connection between irrigation and land allocation, see Nicolas Michel, L’Égypte des villages autour
du seizième siècle, Collection Turcica 23 (Louvain, 2018), 237–38, 243 n. 198.
148
Frédéric Bauden, “Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī,” in Medieval Muslim Historians and the
Franks in the Levant, ed. Alex Mallett, The Muslim World in the Ages of the Crusades 2 (Leiden, 2014),
161–200, at 161, 181.
149
ﻭﻟﻢ ﻳﺒﻖ ﻣﻨﻬﻢ ﻏﻴﺮ ﺃﺭﺑﻌﺔ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﺠﺎﺭ ﻭﻋﺒﺪ، ﻓﻤﺎﺗﻮﺍ ﻛﻠﻬﻢ، ﻣﺎ ﺑﻴﻦ ﺗﺠﺎﺭ ﻭﻋﺒﻴﺪ،ﺍﺛﻨﺎﻥ ﻭﺛﻼﺛﻮﻥ ﺗﺎﺟﺮًﺍ ﻭﺛﻼﺛﻤﺎﺋﺔ ﺭﺟﻞ
. ﻓﻤﺎﺗﻮﺍ ﺟﻤﻴﻌًﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﺜﻐﺮ، ﻭﻧﺤﻮ ﺃﺭﺑﻌﻴﻦ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺒﺤﺎﺭﺓ،ﻭﺍﺣﺪ
Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-sulūk, 2:776.
150
Dols, Black Death, 56–57; and Benedictow, Black Death, 63.
151
Barker, That Most Precious Merchandise, 167–73.
152
Michele da Piazza in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 36; and Zanella, “Italia,” 29–31.
Alexandria was affected at about the same time (Jumāda al-Thānī, 748 H., equivalent to 8 September–
7 October 1347): Dols, Black Death, 57–58 citing an unpublished section of al-ʿAynī’s chronicle ʿIqd
al-jumān fī taʿrīkh ahl al-zamān.
153
“Circa partes istas.” “Annales S. Victoris Massiliensis, 1000–1542,” ed. George H. Pertz, MGH SS 23
(Hannover, 1874), 6.
154
Giovanni Cornazano, “Historia Parmensis,” ed. Ludovico Muratori, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,
vol. 12 (Milan, 1728), cols. 725–54, at 746; Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, “Cronaca senese,” in Cronache
senesi, ed. Alessandro Lisini and Fabio Iacometti, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores Nuova Edizione 15/6
(Bologna, 1939), 552; and Louis Heyligen (Louis Sanctus) in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 42.
155
Stella, Annales, 150.
156
Mussi, Cortusi, Heyligen, and Muisis in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 18–19, 34, 42, 46; and
Cornazano, “Historia Parmensis,” 746.
157
Heyligen in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 45; and Zanella, “Italia,” 43.
158
Natko Nodilo, ed., Annales ragusini anonymi, item Nicolai de Ragnina, Monumenta Spectantia
Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium 14, Scriptores 1 (Zagreb, 1883), 227. A chronicler from Ferrara
recorded plague in Modon and Coron without naming the month. Bertoni and Vicini, eds., Chronicon
estense, 160. News of the outbreaks in Venice, Chioggia, and Pisa reach him late, between April 4 and 13.
Bertoni and Vicini, eds., Chronicon estense, 162.
159
Medieval chroniclers often reported plague, famine, and earthquake together because of their
association in Matthew 24.7. Zanella, “Italia,” 2, 5. There was, however, a major earthquake with its
epicenter in Friuli on 25 January 1348. Christa Hammerl, “Das Erdbeben vom 25. Jänner 1348:
Rekonstruktion des Naturereignisses” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1992).
160
“E da puo’ da quel ziorno in navanti.” Morosini, Morosini Codex, 116–17. “Ab illa die in antea.”
Cessi and Bennato, eds., Venetiarum historia, 229. See also Guglielmo and Albrigeto Cortusi, “Historia de
Although Mussi could not imagine the epidemiological complexities linking grain
shipments, rats, fleas, and bacteria, he did recognize the parallels between Genoese
and Venetian activities in the Black Sea and therefore held both cities responsible for
plague transmission.
Y. pestis affected the human population of Venice about three months after that
of Genoa, though infected grain shipments from the 1347 Black Sea harvest
should have arrived in both ports at around the same time. Many factors, including
novitatibus Paduae et Lombardiae,” ed. Felix Osius, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 12 (Milan, 1728),
col. 737–954, at 926. Padua was part of Venice’s terrestrial empire.
161
“De mense februarii, curialis mortalitas pullulare cepit.” Francisco de Gratia, Chronicon monasterii
S. Salvatoris Venetiarum (Venice, 1766), 69; and Mueller, “Aspetti,” 78. Cronaca A in Sorbelli, ed.,
Corpus chronicorum bononiensum, 584 also dates the Venice plague outbreak to February.
162
“Non stete, la tera de termar cerca dì XL; e può driedo questo començà vna gran mortalitade.” Mueller,
“Aspetti,” 82; Alfonso Corradi, Annali delle epidemie occorse in Italia dalle prime memorie fino al 1850:
Compilati con varie note e dichiarazione, 5 vols., Biblioteca di Storia della Medicina 1–5 (Bologna, 1972–
73), 5:197. The building is now the Galleria dell’Accademia museum.
163
“In 1348 de mense Martii Civitatem Venetiarum invasit.” Moniacis, Chronicon, 313.
164
Caresinis, Chronica, 5.
165
This was the Tre Savi alla Sanità. Venice, Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Maggior Consiglio,
Deliberazioni 17 (Spiritus), fol. 154v, http://www.archiviodistatovenezia.it/web/index.php?idp215
(last accessed 30 October 2018).
166
Mussi in Horrox, ed. and trans., Black Death, 18–19.
167
Mahery Ratsitorahina, Suzanne Chanteau, Lila Rahalison, et al., “Epidemiological and Diagnostic
Aspects of the Outbreak of Pneumonic Plague in Madagascar,” The Lancet 355 (2000): 111–13;
Elizabeth M. Begier, Gershim Asiki, Zaccheus Anywaine, et al., “Pneumonic Plague Cluster, Uganda,
2004,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12/3 (2006): 460–67; Jacob L. Kool, “Risk of Person-to-Person
Transmission of Pneumonic Plague,” Clinical Infectious Diseases 40/8 (2005): 1166–72; Didelot, Whittles,
and Hall, “Model-based Analysis,” 8; and Campbell, Great Transition, 234–35.
168
Human fleas and body lice carrying Y. pestis have been found in the homes of infected humans, and
human fleas have been shown to transmit plague among rabbits, but neither human fleas nor body lice
have yet been shown to transmit plague among humans. Michel Drancourt, Linda Houhamdi, and
Dider Raoult, “Yersinia pestis as a Telluric, Human Ectoparasite-borne Organism,” Lancet Infectious
Diseases 6/4 (2006): 234–41, at 237–39; Saravanan Ayyadurai, Florent Sebbane, Didier Raoult, et al.,
“Body Lice, Yersinia pestis Orientalis, and Black Death,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 16/5 (2010): 892–93;
Renaud Piarroux, Aaron Aruna Abedi, Jean-Christophe Shako, et al., “Plague Epidemics and Lice,
Democratic Republic of Congo,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 19/3 (2013): 505–6; Katharine R. Dean,
Fabienne Krauer, Lars Walløe, et al., “Human Ectoparasites and the Spread of Plague in Europe during
the Second Pandemic,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 115/6
(2018): 1304–9; Varlik, Plague, 31–33; Ditrich, “Transmission”; and Campbell, Great Transition, 232–34.
169
Didelot, Whittles, and Hall, “Model-based Analysis”; and Drancourt, Houhamdi, and Raoult,
“Yersinia pestis.”