Plague of Justinian
This article concerns the worldwide pandemic starting in 541, with a focus on material available from European records and accounts. For detailed information on the most commonly accepted cause of the disease, see bubonic plague.The
Plague of Justinian (
541-
542) is the first known
pandemic on record, and it also marks the first firmly recorded pattern of
bubonic plague. It is comparable to the
Black Death of the 14th century, in the context of the 6th century, it was nearly world-wide in scope, striking central and south Asia, North Africa and Arabia, and Europe as far north as Denmark and west to Ireland. The plague would return with each generation throughout the Mediterranean basin until about 750. The plague would have a major impact on the future course of European history.
The outbreak may have originated in
Ethiopia or
Egypt and moved northward until it reached the large city of
Constantinople. The city imported massive amounts of grain to feed its citizens—mostly from Egypt—and grain ships may have been the original source of contagion, with the massive public granaries nurturing the rat and flea population.
The
Byzantine historian
Procopius records that, at its peak, the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople every day; there was no room to bury the dead, and bodies were being left stacked in the open. The Byzantine Emperor
Justinian I ensured that new legislation was swiftly enacted so as to deal more efficiently with the glut of inheritance suits being brought as a result of the plague deaths (Moorhead, J., 1994).
Justinian had expended huge amounts of money for wars against the
Vandals in the
Carthage region and the
Ostrogoth Kingdom of Italy. He had also dedicated significant funds on the construction of great churches like the
Hagia Sophia. Coming in the middle of these great expenditures, the plague's effects on tax revenue were disastrous. As the plague spread to port cities around the
Mediterranean, it gave the struggling
Goths new opportunities in their conflict with Constantinople. The plague weakened the
Byzantine Empire at the critical point when Justinian's armies had nearly wholly invested
Italy and could have credibly reformed a
Western Roman Empire. It also may have helped to set up the success of the
Arabs a few generations later. The long term effects on European and
Christian history were enormous. As it was, the gamble Justinian took backfired and the overextended troops could not hold on.
Italy was decimated by war and fragmented for centuries as the
Lombard tribes invaded the north.
It should be noted that ancient historians, and Byzantine historians in particular, and Procopius above all, did not hold to modern standards of fact-checking or numerical accuracy. The actual number of deaths will always be uncertain. Modern scholars believe that the plague killed up to 5,000 people per day in Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic. It ultimately killed perhaps 40 percent of the city's inhabitants. The initial plague went on to destroy up to a quarter of the human population of the eastern Mediterranean. New, frequent waves of the plague continued to strike throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, often more localized and less virulent. A maximum figure of 25 million dead for the Plague of Justinian is considered a fairly reasonable estimate. Some such as Josiah C. Russell (1958) has suggested a total European population loss of 50 to 60 percent between 541 and 700.
After around 750, major epidemic diseases would not appear again in
Europe until the
Black Death of the
14th century.
*
Black Death*
Bubonic Plague *
Climate changes of 535-536*
Epidemics *
Medieval demography *
Plague*
Third Pandemic*
McNeill, William H. "Plagues and Peoples." Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., New York, NY, 1976, ISBN 0-385-12122-9.
* Moorhead, J.,
"Justinian", London 1994.
* Orent, Wendy.
"Plague, The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease.", Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY, 2004, ISBN 0743236858.
