US EditionStudy: Volcanic Eruptions Brought the Black Death to Europe
A volcanic eruption around 1345 caused climate cooling and famine, prompting grain imports that introduced plague-infected fleas, killing up to half of medieval Europe's population.
- A massive volcanic eruption around 1345 caused temperatures to drop sharply for several years due to volcanic ash and gases blocking sunlight, leading to crop failures in the Mediterranean region.
- To avoid starvation, Italian city-states imported grain from areas around the Black Sea, inadvertently bringing plague-carrying fleas that spread the Black Death to Europe.
- The Black Death, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, swept across Europe in 1348-49, killing up to half of the population.
67 Articles
67 Articles
Volcanic activity could have exacerbated the spread of black plague in medieval Europe...
Did Volcanoes Spark the Black Death?
Human history is pockmarked with periods of death and destruction on unimaginable scales. Of these calamitous epochs, one stands out: The Black Death. The mid 14th century scourge killed tens of millions of people in Europe, Asia, and Africa and changed the course of history—marking the tail end of the Middle Ages and ushering in the cultural reawakening of the Renaissance by disrupting society, the feudal system, and economies across the contin…
The Black Death in the 14th century cost millions of people their lives in Europe. Researchers have reconstructed how the plague could spread so well and what a probable volcanic eruption had to do with it.
How volcanoes upend the story of what sparked the Black Death
Volcanic eruptions could have fueled the spread of the Black Death plague across medieval Europe, according to a new study that pieces together evidence from ice cores, rare blue tree rings from ancient trees in the Pyrenees Mountains, historical accounts of famine and the grain trade.
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