5. The Mortality Rate Is Unlike Anything We’ve Ever Seen
From 1348 to 1351, in Europe alone, the population diminished by 25-60%. Some estimates are as high as 2/3 of the population. The exact death toll from primary sources is hard to pinpoint due to the area and the source. Some sources exaggerate the death toll, but it is estimated to be around 75 to 200 million people. Sources say that the Black Death started in Central Asia and made it’s way up the Silk Road, affecting the Middle East and Europe. Genoese ships traveling the Black Sea to Messina, Sicily carried dead and dying soldiers that were affected by the plague. All that was alive on the ship died within days. From Sicily, it took three years to spread through Europe and moved as far as Greenland and Iceland. The plague and climate change eradicated coastal European colonies in Greenland.
The plague was also carried by the military. English soldiers traveling back from France was a cause of the spread in England. Some estimates claim that the plague killed as much as 75% of the population in some areas. Closed communities and nunneries were extremely vulnerable to the Black Death. If one became infected, the entire community was at risk. Since friars and nuns tended to the sick, infection among them was common. Gherardo, brother of the famous humanist Petrarch and monk in the monastery of Montrieux, was the only survivor of the pestilence in his monastery. The only other survivor was his dog, and they buried the 34 other monks.