Black Death

Black Death: see plague.

---

Black Death

Fierce and widespread outbreak of plague, probably bubonic and pneumonic, that ravaged Europe during the 14th century. The epidemic originated in Asia and was transmitted to Europeans in 1347 when a Turkic army besieging a Genoese trading post in the Crimea catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town. It spread from the Mediterranean ports and ravaged all of Europe between 1347 and 1351. Renewed outbreaks occurred in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Towns and cities were more heavily hit than the countryside, and whole communities were sometimes destroyed. Much of Europe's economy was devastated. About one-third of the European population, or a total of 25 million people, died in the Black Death.

---

Black Death

the. a form of bubonic plague pandemic in Europe and Asia during the 14th century, when it killed over 50 million people

---

black death [¦blak ′deth]

(medicine)

plague

---

Black Death

killed at least one third of Europe’s population (1348–1349). [Eur. Hist.: Bishop, 379–382]

See : Disease

---

Black Death

the name given by contemporaries to the plague that spread throughout Europe between 1347 and 1353. During that period approximately 25 million people—that is, almost half the population of Europe—died of the Black Death. The pandemic recurred on a smaller scale in 1361 and 1369.

The Black Death resulted in a decline in the number of workers and, consequently, in a rise in the cost of labor. To provide the feudal aristocracy and urban patriciate with cheap labor, the governments of some countries enacted laws fixing wages at pre-plague levels. These measures intensified the class struggle, which found expression in uprisings, the rejection of feudal obligations, and the flight of peasants from their feudal lords.