Misunderstandings of the transmission of the Black Death to Western Europe : a critical review of De Mussis’s account

This article aims to critically review de Mussis’s report of the events at Caffa. De Mussi says in his account that Tartars catapulted their dead compatriots infected by the plague into the besieged city of Caffa in order to contaminate the Genoese defending the city and that some Genoese galleys fleeing from the city transported the disease to Western Europe. Some historians interpret his report of Tartars catapulting plague-infected bodies as an act of biological warfare, and others do not trust his account as a reliable historical record, while some works rely on his account, even though they do not interpret it as evidence of biological warfare. This article tries to determine whether his account is true or not, and explain historical contexts in which it was made. De Mussi was not an eye-witness of the war between the Tartars and the Genoese in the years of 1343 to 1437 in Caffa, contrary to some historians’ arguments that he was present there during the war. In addition, he understands and explains the disease from a religious perspective as does most of his contemporary Christians, believing that the disease was God's punishment for the sins of human beings. His account of the Tartars catapulting their compatriot’s bodies may derive from his fear and hostility against the Tartars, thinking that they were devils from hell and pagans to be annihilated. For de Mussi, the Genoese may have been greedy merchants who were providing Muslims with slaves and enforcing their military forces. Therefore, he thought that the Tartars and the Genoese were sinners that spread the disease, and that God punished their arrogance. His pathological knowledge of the disease was not accurate and very limited. His medical explanation was based on humoral theory and Miasma theory that Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean World shared. De Mussi's account that Caffa was a principal starting point for the disease to spread to Western Europe is not sufficiently supported by other contemporary documents. Byzantine chronicles and Villani's chronicle consider not Caffa but Tana as a starting point. In conclusion, most of his account of the disease are not true. However, we can not say that he did not intentionally lie, and we may draw a conclusion that his explanation was made under scientific limits and religious prejudice or intolerance of the medieval Christian world.

A Modern Domestic View of the “Black Death” and Major Epidemic Outbreaks of the Plague in the Historical Past

Research objectives: To analyze the main research trends of the last thirty years in the national historiography on the topic of the Black Death and major epidemic outbreaks of plague in the historical past. Research materials: The historiographic analysis was conducted based on both original domestic studies of the topic and those written in co-authorship with Western colleagues. To outline the main theoretical base of the topic, the author used major works on the historical theory, demography, climatology, paleogenetics, and phylogenetics of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis. Results and novelty of the research: The analysis showed that until the 1980s, the views of Russian historians on the epidemics of the historical past were based on the study of a major German epidemiologist in the second half of nineteenth century, H. Häser. At the same time, the main directions in the research of domestic historians on the topic were developed within the framework of an order from domestic biologists and epidemiologists. This situation began to change when, in the 1980s, Russian historical research took a course towards geographical determinism. From the second half of the 1990s to the 2000s, in connection with the publications of the American Turkologist U. Schamiloglu and French historians, new topics in the field of anthropology, cultural studies, and historical demography began to be addressed in the research of domestic authors. At the same time, all theoretical considerations continued to be formed within the framework of the Marxist theory of the “crisis of the Middle Ages”. Therefore, the “Black Death” was considered exclusively as a concomitant theme attached to the main events. Only in the 2010s, in the light of the growth of joint research with Western specialists in the field of archaeology, paleogenetics, and climatology was it possible to start moving towards the development of a new theoretical and methodological basis for research on the topic in Russian historiography. The result of this process was the publication of new studies which are likely to determine the predominant course of scientific research in the field of historical epidemiology in Russia in the coming years.

Two-year Journey under the Arrows of the Black Death

The penultimate part of the Riḥla by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa recounts his return journey to Morocco from the Middle East through North Africa—and another short tour in al-Andalus—between January 1348 and March 1350. At that time, in all these territories the plague pandemic known as the Black Death was raging and references to it punctuate this part of the work like a tired refrain. As numerous studies have shown borrowings and adaptations from other sources in the Riḥla, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa may not have made all the journeys he claims, but to date no one has questioned his journey through the Arabian area in those years. On the contrary, historians of the Black Death regard the Riḥla as an important document for the study of the scourge in the Middle East and North Africa. In this paper I aim to reconstruct the narrative of the pandemic in Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s Riḥla by taking from the text the passages in which it is mentioned, in order to answer some questions: to which places do these passages refer? What information does the Riḥla give about the disease, its effects and people’s reaction? Does it correspond to that provided by the Arab chronicles? Does it fit with current microbiology, genetics and palaeogenetics research? Since the Riḥla is a narrative work, how does it describe the scourge? Does its description differ from that of the chroniclers? The concluding paragraph seeks an answer to two more questions: does the Riḥla report Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s experience or might he and/or the editor of the work, Ibn Ǧuzayy, have taken information from other sources? And if Ibn Baṭṭūṭa did make this journey, thus probably being the only traveller who left an account of a “two-year journey under the arrows of the Black Death,” how could he return home unscathed?

Strong but not Unbeatable: Two Cases of Healed Severe Skull Trauma in Males Buried in Medieval Mass Graves (Kutná Hora-Sedlec, Czech Republic)

This paper presents two cases of healed skull trauma recovered from medieval mass burial sites in Kutná Hora-Sedlec (Kutná Hora District/CZ). These recently unearthed burial pits are historically and contextually associated with two key catastrophes: (1) a famine in the early 14th century; and (2) the Black Death in the mid-14th century. The first skull presents evidence of survival from severe cranial injury with highly probable surgical intervention. The second one presents evidence of successful skull surgery, confirming the practice of trepanation performed by a skilled specialist in a given region at a given time in history. Although both individuals had been robust enough to withstand the pain and strain of the treatment, indicating considerable resilience to survive the skull trauma, they succumbed to mass infection or famine that killed a large number of inhabitants of this prominent medieval mining region.