The Black Death: How the Plague Spread Across Europe

In this video, I'll show you how the Black Death — the deadliest plague pandemic in human history — spread across Europe starting in 1347, killing nearly half its population in just a few years. We'll follow the disease from the steppes of Asia to the Mediterranean, into the great cities of the West, and all the way to the lands of Rus'. You'll see how an unknown sickness traveled aboard trading ships and along pilgrimage roads, how Genoese galleys carried death into Constantinople, Messina, and Genoa, and how medieval cities from Venice to Florence scrambled to protect themselves. I lean on the words of people who lived through it: the notary Gabriele de' Mussi at the walls of Kaffa, the Byzantine emperor John VI Kantakouzenos, the Sicilian monk Michele da Piazza, and the lines of the Nikon Chronicle. The plague didn't only kill. It broke apart the ordinary rhythm of life, the institutions people relied on, and their sense that the future was safe. It split the medieval world into a "before" and an "after." This is a story about how a whole society faces a deadly threat before it understands what that threat even is. My name is Stas Demianchuk — I'm a pharmacist, lecturer, and researcher in the history of medicine. On this channel, I tell the history of medicine as a history of diseases, physicians, and the people who lived alongside them. ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:29 COVID-19 and the myth of the immobile medieval world 02:56 Pilgrimages - an early form of tourism 04:10 Rumors of disaster in Asia 07:01 Tana and the conflict with the Mongols 08:11 The siege of Kaffa and the first outbreak 09:12 Gabriele de' Mussi's account of the siege 11:22 Death arrives in Constantinople 12:24 Emperor John VI describes the disease 14:40 Messina: the plague enters Europe 16:33 Sicily falls: Catania, Syracuse, Palermo 17:56 Genoa turns the ships away 19:24 Venice: the 40-day quarantine 20:39 Pisa, Florence and central Italy 21:40 Avignon, Pope Clement VI and Guy de Chauliac 23:20 France, England and the plague treatise 26:23 Central Europe, Poland and Rus' 28:33 Aftermath: a world split into before and after