![[1346-1353_spread_of_the_Black_Death_in_Europe_map.svg.png]] Plague was transmitted by contact, but spread even more through fleabites when rats carrying the bacteria and fleas moved between ships and warehouses, and throughout commercial cities. It exploded along the busiest maritime trade routes, from Messina to Genoa, Venice, and Marseilles. And it spread only a bit slower on caravan routes, reaching Alexandria, Cairo, Mecca, Persia, Baghdad, and Damascus by 1348; and Ukraine, Poland, and Germany by 1349. The result was catastrophic. ![[The_Triumph_of_Death_by_Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder.jpg]] *[Pieter Bruegel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Brueghel_the_Elder "Pieter Brueghel the Elder")'s [The Triumph of Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death "The Triumph of Death") reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague* The Bubonic Plague became known as the Black Death in Europe, where it probably killed more than half the population. About a third of the population of the Middle East was eliminated, as well. The number of deaths in Europe may have been higher because in the generation before the Plague's arrival, a climate change known as the Little Ice Age had caused crop failures and famine that had already reduced the rural population by up to 20% and had left the survivors malnourished and stressed. Even so, once the plague arrived, more people in the cities died than in the countryside. Population centers, especially commercial hubs, often lost up to two thirds of their residents, while small villages were reduced by only a third to half. ----- Next: [[13.6 - Danse Macabre]] Back: [[13.4 - Yersinia pestis]]