How volcanoes helped spark the Black Death

Volcanic eruptions in the mid-1340s triggered a chain of events that brought the Black Death to Europe.

See full article...

 

[Albino_Boo]

These trade routes existed for the best part of 1000 years by the time of the black death. During the Peloponnesian War (434-404BC) the Athenians relied on grain from the Black sea to feed the city and when they lost naval supremacy, they lost the war. At the time of the black death outbreak, Genoa had control of the southern coast of Crimea for the grain trade with Byzantium. Venice and Genoa fought a war over control of the Black Sea. The Venitians diverted the 4th Crusade (1202–1204) to attack Byzantium because they had just done a trade deal with the Egyptians. The Bordeaux Bristol wine trade was origin of the ton as a weight,. The tun was the largest barrel of wine size and ships were measured in how many they carried. So these trade routes were moving significant tonnage annually and not a one off thing caused by a famine. I think its stretching a point to say that the grain trade caused the black death when the trade routes already existed and had existed for significant periods of time.

 

[Albino_Boo]

TBH I don't think of bacterial illnesses as being of any serious epidemic concern in the modern world. They don't spread very fast (R0) relative to anything else. It's not like we live with constant infestation of rats and fleas. And, we're getting really good at chemistry. Just because we didn't have a ton of new antibiotics the past 50 years doesn't mean that is our inalterable destiny, etc. I think the prospect of resistant bacteria is a fairly low priority on the world pandemic preparedness list.

The real concern is viruses. Has been, will be.

Mutli drug restraint Tuberculosis kills around 150,000 people annually.

 

[Albino_Boo]

I think the point was that the grain trade from the Black Sea got extended to the Mediterranean (prices going up as it was not the usual), and with it, it brought new infected rodent followers.

As an aside, I got a KWC bubonic plague vaccination once, apparently one troublesome enough that it was only given if you were going to places where the plague was endemic. I don't think they even use that anymore.

Venice bought grain from the Black Sea, Egypt and Tunisia normally. The Black Sea grain trade and the trans Mediterranean grain trade had existed since classical times. Rome was importing grain from North Africa and the Black Sea in the days of the Republic. These were established trade routes and had been so for the best part of 1000 years.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Was London that big by 1050? I always heard it was more or less left to rot after the Roman withdrawal. After that there was chaos with Angle and later Danish invasions. And finally, 1066 and all that.

[In Ireland, to be fair, the Danes built cities - still the largest ones.]

The Roman city was abandoned and there was an Anglo-Saxon settlement in what's now the East End. Viking attacks destroyed that settlement. As part of Alfred the Great's programme of fortifications, the old Roman walls were repaired and the square mile was reoccupied. By 1050 London had taken over from Winchester as the political capital of the country and a major trade centre. London was a major port until ships got too big for the Thames in the 1960s. In the early Norman period London expanded rapidly, by 1100 the city was being heated by coal brought by ship from the North East of England because it had exhausted the local wood supply.

 

[Albino_Boo]

That's interesting - thank you. Too much of my knowledge of London in those times comes from an inadequate history and indeed from Netflix's The Last Kingdom, which does not dwell on the fortification of London.

When you think of it, there had to be a reason why Harald met William at Hastings, instead of letting him tire himself moving further inland. Of course, armies were hard to support in those days, but they were just three days in from a battle with the Danes and could surely have used a break. There had to be something worth capturing there.

Anglo-Saxon England had a centralised administration for recruitment , equipping and feeding the army. The garrison of the Anglo-Saxon burhs at their height amounted to 20,000 men. The full strength call up the Fryd, the Anglo-Saxon militia could put 10,000 men with mail armour, shield, helmet and spear. The battle of Stamford Bridge only used the northern Fryd. They were sent home after Stamford and only professional part of the army went south. The Southern Fryd was called and ordered to mass near Hastings. The issue for Harlad was that his hold on power was shaky and there was a possibility of defections to the Normans. The Northern Earls after Hastings changed sides. The other issue is that Normans quickly throw up wooden Mote and Bailey castles, they brought a prefabricated one with them and already built it. The Anglo-Saxons had no ability at siege warfare. So Harlad couldn't let the Normans establish themselves. The battle was close run thing, the Normans nearly lost twice.

 

[Albino_Boo]

I don't think the article is saying it was just the trade routes. Most of the article is talking about changes in the weather, volcanoes, and food supply. The bacterium traveled from central Asia to Europe, presumably along those trade routes. It appears that there was increased trade at the time, likely due to weather changes. That could also lead to increased traffic of infected rodents or people.

From the CDC on the ecology of plague in the US:

Stands to reason that conditions resulting in poor harvests in crops would also result in starvation for rodents, leading the fleas to find other hosts.

There was a famine in 1258-1259 caused by the 1257 Samalas eruption. The Great Famine of 1315-1317 killed something around 15% of the urban population in North Europe. The end of the medieval warm period caused frequent famines throughout the 14th century.

 

[Albino_Boo]

So William threw it all on a roll of the dice? (And hit; Irish history is no less affected.)

Yeah pretty much. Its was a calculated risk, William understood the that Anglo-Saxon England had been unstable for 60 years. William also was using mounted warfare and Hastings was the swan song of the shield wall infantry armies. The collapse of royal authority, around 1000, in France had created castles from which mounted warriors could project power into a subject population. There was no clear candidate as an Anglo-Saxon claimant for the throne either. William was also following the example of Robert Guiscard. Robert was the 7th son of a very poor Norman Knight who made himself the ruler of Southern Italy and Sicily. He arrived in 1047 was little more than a leader of a band of horse thieves by 1059 Robert was a Duke. Robert's illegitimate son, Bohemond made himself Prince of Antioch during the 1st crusade. Bohemond led a few 100 Norman Knights in flank on the the Atabeg of Mosul's army, causing it to rout. Taking aggressive gambles and them paying off was a common Norman trait amongst the early Normans.

 

[Albino_Boo]

It seems likely that the vast majority of the aggressive gambles ended up with nobody ever remembering their names because "small group gets slaughtered without incident" doesn't sell manuscripts. But some of them worked, and we do hear about those.

The illegitimate son of Robert the magnificent made himself Duke of Normandy. William then achieved total victory over the Anglo-Saxons, control of 2/3 of Wales, control over 1/4 of Ireland withing 4 years. The Sicilian Normans defeated, the Byzantine Empire, the Zirads, The Venetian Empire, the Pope, The Holy Roman Empire and the Lombards within a space of 30 years. Then you add the deafeat Seljuk empire and the establishment of the Kingdom Sicily and the Principality of Antioch.

 

[Albino_Boo]

"... the study illustrates the risks of a globalized world ..."
Indeed!
The Justinian plague (#1) happened at an inflection point, preventing the reunification of the east and west roman empires. #2 meant people were going to succumb to hunger or pestilence no matter what the political response. The great powers once again made more of themselves before their constituencies (or chattel) until nature reached its own inflection, as it always will when we veer from natural processes, taking from the people to serve the gov't.

Tuberculosis in the mills, bubonic in the cities, cholera, covid, etc. The population-scale attempt to manage human labor primarily for the profit motive seems to be problematic, historical evidence would suggest.

/end rhetorical rant

The Justainian plague ended slavery in Italy. The black death ended serfdom in large chunks of western Europe. You are just ranting.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Yes, the plague's impact is the point of the rant. Human intervention, natural rebalancing. Avoid human intervention, and just float in the great river of life, in harmony with natural forces. At least that's what Laozi would say

Yeah because China has been well known for it famously non arbitrary power of emperors for 1000s of years. You are just making nonsense posts

 

[Albino_Boo]

It speaks to how weak the central institutions were at the time. There must have been small groups like these all over the place, with only a few having the skill and luck necessary to leave a mark, but all of them stirring shit.

The most ridiculous example of course is Temujin going from a kid abandoned to die over winter after his father lost a minor tribal battle, to founding an empire that conquers both China and the steppes all the way to Europe.

The Anglo-Saxon England was the most centralised administration in Western Europe. It could equip an army of 10,000 men with mail, a helmet, a shield and a spear. It maintained a garrisons and fortifications that held up to 20,000 men. Its was the collapse of the central administration after Hastings and the lack of clear succession to Harald that enabled the Norman conquest. Many of the officials who compiled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book we're members of the former Anglo-Saxon administration. The Norman's administration that replaced the Anglo-Saxon system was far less sophisticated. It was 200 years before the state could put 10,000 men in the field. It wasn't until the 15th century that same degree of centralisation and full state control of the judicial, military and taxation functions was achieved

 

[Albino_Boo]

At the same time, they were weak, weren't they? They were under stress, to be sure - but when they fell, they fell suddenly, hard and forever. That never happened Rome, there was always some continuity.

Points at the total collapse of Roman Britain and the population replacement in England .

 

[Albino_Boo]

Glad to respond, and it's easy to see you're not picking a fight. I'm coming from the perspective of criticism of the consumption economy. One where accumulation of goods is to the benefit of a class of elites, not the people doing the work. The higher the profit margin desired, the greater the exploitation, imo. So I see that a system that has the intent of redistribution can be superior to one that has elites as the beneficiaries, and I see a smaller, more self-sufficient system with labor managed at the family/village level as superior to both, but these are all, for the most part, academic musings. otoh, I am retired and doing all I can to apply my beliefs in a way that is not hypocritical.
So to answer the question, it's not so much ire (that's just my anxiety-linked depression), as a hope that there's a prompt to imagine a different personal paradigm.

Yeah mate people should have stayed poor and died of rickets

 

[Albino_Boo]

True. But that was a territory controlled by Rome, not the centre of it. And one of the vying emperors had already pulled the legions. And it was still slower than the Norman Conquest!

Points at the total collapse of Roman power in Belgium, France, Spain, Alegira, Tunisia is a space of 20 years.

 

[Albino_Boo]

I'm going to make one assumption, and may be wrong, and no need to reply, but I think you're at least a decade younger than me, and that has a lot to do with why you come at it the way you do. I haven't ignored anything about how the world "really works" (vis a vis how nature works), and it hints at the real "stone wall" being my inability to get my idea over it. cheers

You are spouting sub Marxist nonsense based on fantasy of the rural idyll. The societies with highest murder rates in the world are the remaining hunter garthers. The subsistence existence is always near the edge of starvation and that requires ruthless aggression to survive. The constant warfare between the Neolithic farmers in Papua New Guinea with latest conflict resulting in 300 dead means that your idea of a peaceful past has never existed.

 

[Albino_Boo]

C'est la vie! From my perspective, a valid philosophical discussion never really got past your own paradigm to give it a hearing. How did you get to Papua New Guinea and hunter gatherers to put that on my side of the argument? It's not about prescriptions, but political philosophy. Here's how it looks to me: It's hard to see that population-scale problems have individual-scale solutions. Not about snapping fingers to make all the bad actors go away.
Confucius, whose philosophy isn't what you imagine when you observe China (and how's it different from "Christian, democratic America", anyway?), found at the age of 69 he'd been wrong his whole life on These. Exact. Issues.
You have successfully, and unavoidably, validated a number of Laozi's ancient lessons in your efforts to point out my error. I would still extend an invite to patiently tease worthwhile discussion from out of what may be a difference in vocabulary and perspective.

You have no objective facts, you have just the fantasy of a rich person about the benefits of poverty.