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The Black Death 1348 to 1350
The impact of the Black Death on the English population
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
There is an In Our Time podcast on the Black Death.
1340s
Unstable climatic conditions led to an
infection of humans by the bubonic plague (yersinia pestis) from Marmots
and gerbils in China.
1347
By 1347 attacks by the Mongols on Genoese
outposts in Crimea, spread the disease as far as Constantinople.
1348
The disease arrived in Weymouth aboard a
ship from Gascony in May 1348.
1349
The Black Death
spread throughout the country. People suffered from pustules, boils, abscesses,
head pains and other symptoms.
Perhaps a third to half of England’s
population died. Whole communities were sometimes wiped out.
Many clergy died in the plague.
A friar wrote lest by chance anyone
may be left in the future.