The Black Death (1346–1353)

Timeline

Layers

Reached 1346–47 · Reached 1348 · Reached 1349 · Reached 1350 · Reached 1351–53 · Little or no recorded plague

Events

• 15 Jun 1346, Plague in the Golden Horde: Sarai and the lower Volga: Russian chronicles record a great mortality in 1346 among 'Bessermens, Tatars, Armenians, Jews and Franks' in Sarai, Astrakhan and other Horde towns. Ibn al-Wardi, from merchants' reports, places plague in the 'land of the Uzbeks' in Rajab 747 (Oct–Nov 1346).
• 15 Oct 1346, Kaffa: plague breaks out among the besieging Golden Horde army: Plague strikes Jani Beg's army besieging the Genoese port of Kaffa (Feodosia). Gabriele de' Mussis of Piacenza, who never left Italy, says corpses were catapulted into the town; Wheelis (2002) finds this plausible, Benedictow doubts it. Kaffa was not Europe's only source of infection.
• 15 May 1347, Constantinople: plague reaches the Byzantine capital: Plague reaches Constantinople and Genoese Pera from the Black Sea in spring 1347. Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos, who later described its symptoms in his History, lost his youngest son Andronikos at its outset; the epidemic lasted about a year.
• 1 Oct 1347, Messina: Genoese galleys bring plague to Sicily: 'At about the beginning of October 1347' twelve Genoese galleys put into Messina carrying plague, writes the Franciscan Michele da Piazza. The Messinese drove them out too late; fleeing townspeople carried the disease to Catania and across Sicily.
• 15 Oct 1347, Alexandria: plague arrives by sea: A ship brings plague to Alexandria in autumn 1347, according to the 15th-century historian al-Maqrizi; it spread over the Delta in spring 1348. Borsch and Sabraa estimate about 50,000 deaths among some 105,000 inhabitants (c. 48%).
• 1 Nov 1347, Marseille: plague reaches France: Plague reaches Marseille by sea, conventionally on 1 November 1347 (Biraben); Benedictow puts first contagion in September. From here it spread up the Rhône and west along the coast into Languedoc and Catalonia.
• 15 Nov 1347, Genoa: plague in the Ligurian republic: Plague reaches Genoa around November 1347 (Cornazzano). Louis Heyligen reports that on 31 December 1347 the Genoese drove off three plague-stricken galleys with burning arrows, and they carried the disease on along the coast.
• 5 Jan 1348, Pisa: plague enters Tuscany: Plague arrives at Pisa, Tuscany's port, in January 1348 and moves inland to Lucca, Pistoia and Florence over the following weeks.
• 15 Jan 1348, Avignon: plague reaches the papal city: Plague begins in Avignon in January 1348 and lasts seven months, says the papal physician Guy de Chauliac. Clement VI stayed, reportedly sitting between fires on his physicians' advice. Six cardinals died in 1348, among them Giovanni Colonna on 3 July.
• 15 Jan 1348, Guy de Chauliac observes two forms of plague: The papal physician Guy de Chauliac stayed in Avignon and later described two phases: two months of fever with spitting of blood, fatal within three days, then five months with swellings in armpit and groin. He caught it and survived (Chirurgia magna, 1363).
• 25 Jan 1348, The earthquake of 25 January 1348: A great earthquake on 25 January 1348 devastated Villach and Friuli and was felt in Venice. Contemporaries read it as a portent of the pestilence; its date is often mistaken for the plague's arrival in Venice.
• 1 Feb 1348, Venice: a third or more of the city dies: Plague is in Venice by early 1348 and peaks in summer; the dead were ferried to burial islands in the lagoon. Estimates of losses run from about a third to three-fifths (the higher figure repeated by Ziegler). Venice's first plague hospital, the Lazzaretto Vecchio, dates only from 1423.
• 15 Mar 1348, Mallorca: an island depopulated: Plague reaches Mallorca in early 1348; the first named victim died at Alcúdia. The island's governor died on 24 March, and by 3 May the island was described as depopulated.
• 15 Mar 1348, Florence: over half the city dies: Plague reaches Florence in March 1348. Boccaccio's '100,000 dead' exceeds the whole population. Pre-plague estimates run from c. 90,000 (Villani) to 120,000 (Herlihy); by 1351–52 some 40,000–50,000 remained, a loss of at least half.
• 30 Mar 1348, Venice appoints three health commissioners (savi): In March 1348 (traditionally 30 March) Venice's Great Council elected three savi to guard public health. Rules followed on burial on outlying lagoon islands and on ships and their dead, but no 30- or 40-day quarantine; that began at Ragusa in 1377.
• 1 Apr 1348, Gaza: plague reaches Palestine: Plague reaches Gaza from Egypt in spring 1348. Gaza's governor reported over 20,000 deaths in his district from 10 April to 10 May (al-Maqrizi). Ibn Battuta, passing in June, found the town largely deserted and heard of over 1,000 deaths a day.
• 6 Apr 1348, Petrarch's Laura dies in Avignon: In a note in his copy of Virgil, Petrarch recorded that Laura, the woman of his poems, died in Avignon on 6 April 1348 'at the first hour of the day'. With Cardinal Colonna's death in July he mourned both in 'Rotta è l'alta colonna e 'l verde lauro'.
• 13 Apr 1348, Toulon: first attack on Jews in the plague year: On the night of 12–13 April 1348 (Palm Sunday) townspeople stormed the Jewish street of Toulon, pillaged the houses and killed 40 Jews as plague arrived. It began the 1348–50 wave of violence; the well-poisoning charge was spelled out only later in 1348.
• 15 Apr 1348, Tunis: plague in the Hafsid capital: Plague is in Tunis by spring 1348, when the Marinid sultan Abu al-Hasan returned there after his defeat near Kairouan (10 April); it peaked in June. The teenage Ibn Khaldun lost both parents and many of his teachers, and later wrote of a plague that 'caused populations to vanish'.
• 24 Apr 1348, Lleida: the first plague treatise: On 24 April 1348 (some say 23 April) the physician Jacme d'Agramont gave Lleida's councillors his Regiment de preservació a epidèmia, the first treatise of the Black Death and the first medical work in Catalan. He probably died in the epidemic.
• 27 Apr 1348, Avignon: the pope's new plague cemetery: Writing from Avignon on 27 April 1348, the Flemish cleric Louis Heyligen reports that half the city had died and that 11,000 had been buried in a new cemetery bought by the pope. Later retellings add that Clement VI consecrated the Rhône for corpses; this is poorly sourced.
• 1 May 1348, Siena: 'I buried my five children with my own hands': Plague reaches Siena in April–May 1348. The chronicler Agnolo di Tura writes that he buried his five children with his own hands. Work on the vast Duomo Nuovo slowed after 1348 and was abandoned in 1357, also because of structural faults.
• 2 May 1348, Pistoia's health ordinances: Pistoia's Ordinances for Sanitation in a Time of Mortality (2 May 1348, revised 23 May) banned travel to Pisa and Lucca and imports of used cloth, set grave depths and regulated butchers. Geltner (2020) places them in a long pre-plague tradition of urban hygiene.
• 5 May 1348, Catalonia: plague reaches Barcelona: Plague reaches the Catalan coast and Barcelona in the first days of May 1348 and sweeps the Crown of Aragon through the summer. In Valencia it let Pere III, the virtual captive of the rebel Union, get away (his own chronicle).
• 1 Jun 1348, Almería: plague in Nasrid al-Andalus: Plague appears in Almería in June 1348 (Rabi' I 749), according to the physician Ibn Khatima, an eyewitness. It was worst in the poor al-Hawd quarter and lasted until early February 1349.
• 1 Jun 1348, Milan: no secure record of plague in 1348–50: Giovanni Villani wrote that all Italy was infected 'except the city of Milan'. Carmichael finds almost no secure evidence of the Black Death in Lombardy and dates Milan's first devastating plague to 1361–63. The tale of the Visconti walling up infected houses is not contemporary.
• 5 Jun 1348, Damascus: plague arrives: Plague is in Damascus by early June 1348: on 5 June crowds recited al-Bukhari's hadith against it (Ibn Kathir). Daily deaths rose from about 100 to 1,000 by mid-September (Ibn Kathir); Ibn Battuta gives 2,000–2,400. Borsch and Sabraa estimate c. 36,000 dead of at most 60,000.
• 15 Jun 1348, Giovanni Villani dies with his chronicle unfinished: The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani died in the epidemic in 1348, leaving his Nuova Cronica unfinished mid-sentence: 'and this pestilence lasted until …'. His brother Matteo continued it.
• 23 Jun 1348, Melcombe Regis: plague lands in England: Ships reached Melcombe (now part of Weymouth, Dorset) 'a little before the feast of St John the Baptist' (24 June 1348), says the Grey Friars' chronicle of Lynn; one sailor 'had brought from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence'.
• 25 Jun 1348, Bordeaux: plague in English Gascony: Plague is in Bordeaux, the chief port of English Gascony, by mid-1348 (Biraben: late June). Ships from Gascony probably carried it to England, and it was raging when Princess Joan's bridal party arrived in August.
• 6 Jul 1348, Tàrrega: pogrom and mass graves: Around 6 July 1348 a mob broke into Tàrrega's Jewish quarter, killing, looting and burning debt records. Pere III later wrote that over 300 Jews died in the attacks on Barcelona, Cervera and Tàrrega; in 2007 six mass graves were found in the Jewish cemetery.
• 6 Jul 1348, Clement VI reissues the bull of protection for the Jews: On 6 July 1348 (5 July in some lists) Clement VI reissued Sicut Judaeis, the traditional papal protection forbidding Christians to kill, rob or forcibly baptise Jews, as attacks spread in Provence and Catalonia.
• 15 Jul 1348, Navarre: about half the population dies: Fiscal records studied by Maurice Berthe suggest that Navarre, already weakened by famine, lost around half of its population in the epidemic of 1348–49.
• 25 Jul 1348, Damascus: Muslims, Christians and Jews pray together: After a three-day fast, on Friday 25 July 1348 the people of Damascus walked to the Mosque of the Footprints (al-Aqdam) to pray for deliverance; Jews with the Torah and Christians with the Gospel joined them (Ibn Battuta, Ibn Kathir).
• 1 Aug 1348, Dublin: plague reaches Ireland: Plague reaches Dublin by August 1348. The Kilkenny friar John Clyn claims 14,000 died in Dublin between August and Christmas, a figure historians do not accept, and records that 23 Dublin Franciscans died before Christmas.
• 5 Aug 1348, Givry: a parish register counts the dead: The parish register of Givry in Burgundy normally recorded about 30 burials a year. In 1348 it recorded over 600, mostly between August and November, perhaps half the parish (Gras 1939).
• 15 Aug 1348, Bristol: 'almost the whole strength of the town' dies: Plague began at Bristol on the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1348 (Geoffrey le Baker). Henry Knighton says almost the whole town perished, and Gloucester tried to shut out Bristol people. Bristol was one of England's largest towns and busiest ports.
• 20 Aug 1348, Paris: plague reaches the capital: Plague reaches the Paris region in summer 1348 (Roissy in June; the city by c. 20 August per Biraben). Paris, with perhaps 80,000–200,000 people, suffered through the winter; the Carmelite Jean de Venette describes the dying.
• 2 Sep 1348, Princess Joan dies near Bordeaux: Edward III's daughter Joan, travelling to marry Pedro of Castile, found plague raging in Bordeaux. The head of her escort died on 20 August and she died on 2 September 1348, probably at Lormont. Edward wrote to Alfonso XI that 'destructive Death' had taken her.
• 15 Sep 1348, Chillon: Jews tortured into 'confessing' to poisoning: From 15 September 1348, Jews of the Lake Geneva region were interrogated under torture at Chillon castle, in the lands of Amadeus VI of Savoy. The surgeon Balavigny of Thonon 'confessed' to poisoning wells; copies went to Strasbourg and other towns.
• 26 Sep 1348, Quamvis perfidiam: the pope rejects the poisoning charge: On 26 September 1348 Clement VI issued Quamvis perfidiam: Jews could not have caused the plague, since they died of it too and it struck places where no Jews lived. He ordered clergy to protect them. Pogroms in the Empire went on regardless.
• 1 Oct 1348, Ma'arrat al-Nu'man: spared, says Ibn al-Wardi: Ibn al-Wardi's 'Report on the Pestilence' says the plague passed over Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and Shayzar. Recent work reads his text as a literary maqama rather than a factual itinerary, so the claim is uncertain; the map does not show it.
• 15 Oct 1348, London: plague reaches the capital: Plague reaches London in autumn 1348: wills enrolled in the Husting court rise from late October, and Robert of Avesbury dates the start to about All Saints (1 November); Benedictow prefers late September. Parliament was prorogued in January 1349 because of plague.
• 15 Oct 1348, Flagellant processions begin in Austria and Hungary: In late 1348 bands of flagellants appear in Hungary and Austria, processing for 33½ days and whipping themselves in public penance. By spring 1349 these 'Brethren of the Cross' were moving through Germany.
• 15 Oct 1348, Paris medical faculty explains the plague: In October 1348, at Philip VI's request, the Paris medical faculty issued its Compendium de epidemia. It blamed a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars on 20 March 1345 that corrupted the air, and advised diet, fumigation and avoiding bad air.
• 1 Nov 1348, Cairo: the worst of the epidemic: Cairo, with perhaps 250,000–500,000 people, suffered most in Sha'ban–Ramadan 749 (Nov–Dec 1348). Ibn Kathir heard of 11,000–30,000 deaths a day; Borsch and Sabraa think 20,000 plausible only over two days for the whole city.
• 15 Nov 1348, East Smithfield: the plague pit that yielded the pathogen: The emergency cemetery at East Smithfield, opened for London's plague dead in 1348–49, was excavated in 1986–88. DNA from its skeletons allowed Bos et al. (2011) to reconstruct the first genome of the Black Death's Yersinia pestis.
• 1349, Boccaccio writes the Decameron: Boccaccio, probably in Florence during the epidemic, composed the Decameron c. 1349–53: ten young Florentines flee the plague to a villa near Fiesole and tell 100 tales. Its introduction is a classic description of the Black Death.
• 16 Jan 1349, Basel: Jews burned on a Rhine island: On 16 January 1349, months before plague reached the city, Basel's Jews were locked in a wooden hut on a Rhine island and burned. Chronicles claim 300–600 victims; modern historians suggest 50–70 of a community of about 100. Children were forcibly baptised.
• 2 Feb 1349, London: over 200 burials a day at Smithfield: Robert of Avesbury writes that between Candlemas and Easter 1349 more than 200 bodies were buried almost every day in the new cemetery by Smithfield. Modern estimates of London's losses run from about a third to a half.
• 14 Feb 1349, Strasbourg: the Valentine's Day burning: On 14 February 1349 Strasbourg's Jews were burned in their cemetery, days after the guilds deposed the council that had tried to protect them. Königshofen says about 2,000 died; other estimates are near 900. Plague reached the city only around July.
• 15 Feb 1349, Upper Egypt: from 6,000 taxpayers to 116: When plague reached Upper Egypt in early 1349, the Asyut district reportedly fell from 6,000 taxpayers to 116 (al-Maqrizi), a sign of rural collapse that Borsch links to the breakdown of Egypt's irrigation economy.
• 15 Feb 1349, Ibn Khatima's plague treatise, Almería: In February 1349 the Almería physician Ibn Khatima completed his Tahsil gharad al-qasid, a ten-part treatise on the causes, symptoms and treatment of plague based partly on his own observations of the epidemic in the city.
• 20 Feb 1349, Mecca: plague in the holy city: Plague reaches Mecca during the pilgrimage season of Dhu al-Hijja 749 (February–March 1349). Chroniclers found this shocking, because tradition held that plague would not enter the holy cities (Dols).
• 15 Mar 1349, Regensburg: the town swears to protect its Jews: In 1349 Regensburg's magistrates and citizens declared they would protect and defend the city's Jews, one of the few places in the Empire where the authorities held firm against the pogrom wave.
• 18 Mar 1349, Ibn al-Wardi dies in Aleppo: The Aleppo scholar Ibn al-Wardi, whose ornate 'Report on the Pestilence' traces the plague from the 'land of darkness' to Syria, died of it on 18 March 1349. Recent work reads his account as a literary maqama rather than a factual route map.
• 21 Mar 1349, Erfurt: Jewish community massacred: On 21–22 March 1349 Erfurt's Jewish community was massacred, more than a year before plague reached the city. A hoard of coins and jewellery, probably hidden by the moneylender Kalman von Wiehe, was found in 1998: the Erfurt Treasure.
• 20 May 1349, Two archbishops of Canterbury die within months: Archbishop-elect John de Ufford died of plague on 20 May 1349 before he could be consecrated. His successor, the Oxford theologian Thomas Bradwardine, died of it on 26 August 1349, 38 days after his consecration at Avignon.
• 31 May 1349, Vienna: plague from Pentecost to Michaelmas: Plague rages in Vienna from about Pentecost (31 May) to Michaelmas 1349, according to the Austrian annals. Duke Albrecht II protected his Jews, and there was no pogrom in Vienna.
• 15 Jun 1349, Scotland: the 'foul death of the English' turns on the Scots: Henry Knighton says a Scottish army gathered in Selkirk forest in 1349 to exploit England's distress and was struck by plague, carrying it home. The chronicler John of Fordun says the pestilence of 1350 killed nearly a third of Scotland's people.
• 15 Jun 1349, Ibn al-Khatib argues for contagion: In his plague treatise, the Granadan vizier and physician Ibn al-Khatib held that contagion is proved by experience: those in contact with the sick fall ill while the isolated are spared. It was a bold view against the religious doctrine that plague was not contagious.
• 17 Jun 1349, John Clyn leaves parchment 'for continuing the work': The Kilkenny friar John Clyn chronicled the plague in Ireland and, expecting to die, left blank parchment in case anyone survived to continue it. His last entry dates from after 17 June 1349.
• 18 Jun 1349, Ordinance of Labourers: England caps wages: With labourers scarce, Edward III and his council issued the Ordinance of Labourers on 18 June 1349: able-bodied people under 60 without means must serve at the wages customary in 1346 and the years before; alms to able-bodied beggars were banned.
• 1 Jul 1349, Poland: no reliable record of plague 1348–52: Guzowski (2021) finds the Polish chronicle entries copied from other texts and Peter's Pence, Kraków's court books and prices unbroken; pollen shows farming growing on (Izdebski et al. 2022). Benedictow still argues Poland was hit. No source shows Casimir III closing the borders.
• 1 Jul 1349, Breslau: no plague recorded before the 1360s: Breslau's correspondence with Charles IV and its accounts show no trace of an epidemic; in 1351 the emperor even licensed twelve new butchers' stalls. Grünhagen held that the plague did not reach Silesia before 1362; Jews were attacked there in 1349 without it.
• 15 Jul 1349, Bergen: an English ship brings plague to western Norway: A ship from England reached Bergen about July 1349; the epidemic followed from late August (Benedictow), described in the Icelandic annals. From Bergen plague spread north to Nidaros. Benedictow estimates Norway lost about 60%.
• 24 Jul 1349, Frankfurt: a pogrom the emperor foresaw: In June 1349 Charles IV pledged Frankfurt's Jews to the city, promising impunity if they were killed. On 24 July, as flagellants arrived, the Jews were killed or burned in their houses. The plague broke out in the city that summer or autumn (sources differ).
• 15 Aug 1349, Flagellants reach Tournai: On 15 August 1349 flagellants from Bruges entered Tournai, followed by others from Ghent and elsewhere, as Abbot Gilles li Muisis records. Processing and whipping themselves in public penance, they crossed Germany and the Low Countries until the pope condemned them.
• 23 Aug 1349, Cologne: St Bartholomew's night pogrom: On the night of 23–24 August 1349 a mob attacked Cologne's Jewish quarter by the town hall; many died in the burning synagogue. The plague had not yet arrived (around December). A small community returned in 1372.
• 29 Aug 1349, Tournai: Gilles li Muisis records the plague: Abbot Gilles li Muisis of St Martin's, Tournai, reports rumours of deaths in June 1349 and mass mortality from late August. The famous miniature of Tournai citizens burying coffins illustrates his chronicle (Brussels, KBR MS 13076-77).
• 15 Sep 1349, King Magnus warns Sweden of the coming plague: In a letter issued at Lödöse around September 1349, King Magnus Eriksson wrote that God had struck the world with sudden death and that most people in the land west of Sweden were dead. He ordered masses, alms and Friday fasts to avert it.
• 1 Oct 1349, Würzburg: no plague recorded until 1356: Like Nuremberg (first plague 1359), Würzburg has no recorded plague in the first wave; the Historisches Lexikon Bayerns counts Augsburg, Regensburg, Nuremberg and Würzburg as hardly affected in 1348–51. Its Jews were nonetheless killed in 1349.
• 1 Oct 1349, Iceland: the plague does not arrive: The Icelandic annals report the pestilence in Norway in 1349 and note that it did not come to Iceland: only one ship sailed from Bergen that year and none in 1350. Iceland's first plague came by ship in 1402–04.
• 20 Oct 1349, Clement VI condemns the flagellants: On 20 October 1349 Clement VI condemned the flagellant processions and ordered bishops across Europe to suppress them, rebuking them among other things for 'shedding the blood of Jews'.
• 5 Dec 1349, Nuremberg: a pogrom licensed in advance: On 5 December 1349 at least 562 Jews were killed in Nuremberg; Charles IV had approved clearing their quarter for a market (today's Hauptmarkt). It was one of hundreds of communities attacked in 1348–51. No plague is recorded in the city until 1359 (Bulst).
• 1350, The Jubilee of 1350 in Rome: Clement VI had proclaimed a Holy Year for 1350 in 1343 (bull Unigenitus). Despite the plague, pilgrims crowded to Rome, where the absent pope was represented by Cardinal Annibaldo di Ceccano; Bridget of Sweden was among them.
• 26 Mar 1350, Alfonso XI dies at the siege of Gibraltar: King Alfonso XI of Castile, besieging Gibraltar, died of plague in the night of 25–26 March 1350. Out of respect, Yusuf I of Granada ordered his forces not to attack the procession carrying the king's body to Seville.
• 16 May 1350, Lübeck: plague reaches the Hanseatic capital: The Lübeck chronicler Detmar dates the plague from Pentecost (16 May 1350) to Michaelmas. Wills registered in the city jumped from about six a year to 129 in 1350.
• 15 Jun 1350, Bremen: the council lists 6,966 dead: Plague reaches Bremen and Hamburg in 1350. Bremen's council had the dead of its four parishes listed by name: 6,966 people plus unknown strangers, out of perhaps 12,000–15,000 inhabitants, i.e. over half. Hamburg's losses are also estimated at about half.
• 1 Jul 1350, Denmark: plague in Ribe and Copenhagen: Wills and donations place plague in Ribe in July–October 1350, Copenhagen in August–September and Scania from July. The Zealand Chronicle's 1348–49 dating is usually rejected. No contemporary narrative survives.
• 15 Jul 1350, Gotland: plague in Visby, alleged poisoners burned: Plague reached Visby by May 1350 at the latest, Sweden's first point of entry (153 deaths in the Franciscans' necrology against 7 in 1349). In July nine people, two of them priests, were burned after 'confessing' under torture to poisoning wells; Sweden had no Jews to blame.
• 25 Jul 1350, Erfurt: plague arrives sixteen months after the pogrom: Plague reached Erfurt only on 25 July 1350, sixteen months after the city's Jews were killed. The Erfurt chronicle says about 12,000 dead were buried in pits at Neuses by February 1351, a chronicle figure.
• 1 Sep 1350, Finland: no direct record of plague: Plague swept Sweden in 1350, but no source records it in Finland, then part of the Swedish realm; in 1352 priests at Turku were forbidden to leave their parishes, reason unstated. So few sources survive that silence proves little.
• 9 Feb 1351, Statute of Labourers: Parliament, meeting from 9 February 1351, turned the 1349 ordinance into the Statute of Labourers, fixing wages and prices at pre-plague levels under fines and imprisonment. Enforced unevenly by commissions, it remained a grievance up to the 1381 revolt.
• 15 Feb 1351, France regulates wages and prices: John II's great ordinance for Paris of early 1351 capped wages at no more than a third above pre-plague levels, regulated guilds and prices, and ordered the idle to work or leave the city.
• 1 Jun 1351, Livonia: 'the greatest mortality' of 1351: The Livonian chronicler Hermann of Wartberge notes only 'anno 1351 fuit maxima mortalitas'. The plague had come to the Teutonic lands from the west and reached Russia from here the next spring.
• 15 Jun 1351, Castile's Cortes of Valladolid regulate labour: At the Cortes of Valladolid in 1351 the new king Pedro I issued an ordinance on labourers and craftsmen (ordenamiento de menestrales) fixing wages and obliging idle people to work, Castile's answer to the post-plague shortage of labour.
• 1 Sep 1351, Yemen: plague arrives with the sultan's return: The Yemeni chronicles record no plague before 752/1351, when it came with the Rasulid sultan al-Mujahid, returning from Mamluk captivity in Cairo (Dols). Medina, by tradition, was never entered by plague.
• 1 May 1352, Pskov: plague reaches Russia from the Baltic: Plague breaks out in Pskov in spring 1352; victims spat blood and died within three days. Archbishop Vasilii Kalika of Novgorod came to bless the city and died on the way home on 3 July 1352.
• 15 Aug 1352, Novgorod: plague from the Dormition to Easter: The Novgorod chronicle says the pestilence lasted from 'Gospozhin day' (15 August 1352) until Easter 1353. The city had already buried Archbishop Vasilii, who caught the plague visiting Pskov.
• 1 Oct 1352, 'In all the Russian land': Smolensk, Kiev, Chernigov: Under the year 6860 (1352) the Nikon Chronicle lists plague in Smolensk, Kiev, Chernigov and Suzdal 'and in all the Russian land'; Glukhov and Beloozero were left without a single survivor. These entries are year-level only.
• 11 Mar 1353, Moscow: plague kills the metropolitan and the grand prince: Plague reaches Moscow in spring 1353 via Pskov and Novgorod. Metropolitan Theognostus died on 11 March; within weeks Grand Prince Simeon the Proud (26/27 April), his two young sons and his brother Andrei also died.