5107–5111 AM · 1347 CE — 1351 CE · world history
The Black Death
Plague kills between a third and half of Europe's population in four years.
The disease arrives on trading ships from the Black Sea at Messina and crosses the continent in three years. Whole villages die with no one left to bury the dead or bring in the harvest. Labour shortages raised wages and weakened serfdom, but panic sought scapegoats: well-poisoning accusations and massacres of Jewish communities followed.