The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History

How did it spread to Western Europe from Eurasia during the mid-1300s?

What insights into the epidemiological history of the Black Death do primary sources such as wills and chronicles provide?

Compare the Black Death’s spread in the Iberian Peninsula to its transmission in the British Isles.

Although the Black Death originated in southern Russia, according to Benedictow, Russia was the final part of Europe “conquered” by the pandemic. Why?

What evidence supports Benedictow’s claim that the primary form of plague that spread during the Black Death was bubonic rather than pneumonic plague?

Benedictow asks, “Did it [the Black Death] have an impact of epoch-making or period-forming significance? Or were the effects of the mortality it caused only of passing significance” (246)? What are his answers?

What misconceptions about the Black Death does Benedictow challenge and disprove?

Benedictow argues for a much higher mortality rate from the Black Death in late medieval Europe than previous scholars have identified. What is the basis for his assertion, and what evidence supports it? What evidence refutes his findings?