When the Black Death swept through Europe beginning in 1347, the plague wiped out more than half of the continent’s population, upending societies and interrupting wars.New research suggests that a volcanic eruption or multiple eruptions, unknown to Europe’s inhabitants, most likely catalyzed the pandemic’s arrival on the continent’s shores.The theory, described in a study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, suggests the eruptions set off a series of events that enabled the fleas that spread the plague to proliferate in Europe.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe eruptions dimmed global temperatures for a few years, causing a sudden climate shift that affected harvests in Europe. With crops failing and fears of starvation rising, some wealthy Italian city-states like Florence and Venice imported grain from elsewhere in the world. And on those ships most likely came plague-infected fleas.The actions of Florence’s leaders prevented mass starvation — tens of thousands of famine refugees migrated there, and the city was able to feed them in addition to its own citizens. But the imports unwittingly ushered in a pandemic.City leaders were proud of their accomplishment in providing enough food for so many people, said Martin Bauch, an author of the new study and a medieval historian at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Germany.“They couldn’t have an idea of what danger was there,” he said.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe research offers a historical example of the way that changes in the climate can alter human societies and animal ecosystems in hard-to-predict ways and with incredible downstream consequences.Researchers have debated and chased details of the plague’s origin and spread for decades, but this study is the first to outline in detail the potential role of a volcanic eruption. Previous research has suggested climate shifts could be responsible for introductions of the plague at various points in history, but most studies were vague about it, according to Henry Fell, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham and the University of York in England.“This paper, I think, is really good for being quite specific on the mechanism that’s driving it,” said Fell, who was not involv …
