Plague of Justinian

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This article is about the first episode of the First Plague Pandemic, 541–549. For the series of plague pandemics, 541–767, see First plague pandemic.
Plague of Justinian
see caption
Saint Sebastian pleads with Jesus for the life of a gravedigger afflicted during the plague of Justinian. (Josse Lieferinxe, c. 1497–1499)
DiseaseBubonic plague
LocationMediterranean basin, Europe, Near East
Date541–549
Deaths
15 million – 100 million (estimated)
A characteristic of Yersinia pestis infection is necrosis of the hand. (photo from 1975 plague victim)
A map of the Byzantine Empire in 550 (a decade after the Plague of Justinian) with Justinian's conquests shown in green

The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (AD 541–549) was an epidemic that afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, severely affecting the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, especially Constantinople.[1][2][3] The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), who according to his court historian Procopius contracted the disease and recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of the population in the imperial capital.[1][2] The contagion arrived in Roman Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula until 549. By 543, the plague had spread to every corner of the empire.[4][1] As the first episode of the first plague pandemic, it had profound economic, social, and political effects across Europe and the Near East and cultural and religious impact on Eastern Roman society.[5]

In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the plague of Justinian was Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death (1346–1353).[6] Ancient and modern Yersinia pestis strains are closely related to the ancestor of the Justinian plague strain that has been found in the Tian Shan, a system of mountain ranges on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China, suggesting that the Justinian plague originated in or near that region.[7][8] However, there would appear to be no mention of bubonic plague in China until the year 610.[9]

History

Incomplete basilica in Philippi; its construction is believed to have been halted by the plague of Justinian.

The Byzantine historian

buboes associated with the disease but survived. During the disease's four returns in his lifetime, he lost his wife, a daughter and her child, other children, most of his servants and people from his country estate.[12]

According to contemporary sources, the outbreak in Constantinople was thought to have been carried to the city by infected rats on grain ships arriving from Egypt.[10][13] To feed its citizens, the city and outlying communities imported large amounts of grain, mostly from Egypt. The rat population in Egypt thrived on feeding from the large granaries maintained by the government, and the fleas thrived as well.[citation needed]

Procopius,[14] in a passage closely modelled on Thucydides, recorded that at its peak the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople daily, but the accuracy of the figure is in question, and the true number will probably never be known. He noted that because there was no room to bury the dead, bodies were left stacked in the open. Funeral rites were often left unattended to, and the entire city smelled like the dead.[15] Given such circumstances, it is highly probable that a sudden increase in mortality rates may not have been as accurately recorded, hence why the overall death toll is based on an estimate.[16] In his Secret History, he records the devastation in the countryside and reports the ruthless response by the hard-pressed Justinian:

When pestilence swept through the whole known world and notably the Roman Empire, wiping out most of the farming community and of necessity leaving a trail of desolation in its wake, Justinian showed no mercy towards the ruined freeholders. Even then, he did not refrain from demanding the annual tax, not only the amount at which he assessed each individual, but also the amount for which his deceased neighbors were liable.[17]

As a result of the plague in the countryside, farmers could not take care of crops and the price of grain rose in Constantinople. Justinian had expended huge amounts of money for wars against the

intestate.[18]

The plague's long-term effects on European and Christian history were enormous. As the disease spread to port cities around the Mediterranean, the struggling Goths were reinvigorated and their conflict with Constantinople entered a new phase. The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at a critical point, when Justinian's armies had nearly retaken all of Italy and the western Mediterranean coast; the evolving conquest would have reunited the core of the Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Roman Empire. Although the conquest occurred in 554, the reunification did not last long. In 568, the Lombards invaded Northern Italy, defeated the small Byzantine army that had been left behind and established the Kingdom of the Lombards.[10][19]

Gaul is known to have suffered severely from the plague,[20] and plague victims at an early Anglo-Saxon burial site at Edix Hill near Cambridge show that it also reached Britain.[21]

Onset of the first plague pandemic

Main article: First plague pandemic

The Plague of Justinian is the first and the best known outbreak of the first plague pandemic, which continued to recur until the middle of the 8th century.

deadliest pandemics in history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 15–100 million people during two centuries of recurrence, a death toll equivalent to 25–60% of Europe's population at the time of the first outbreak.[23][24][25][26] Research published in 2019 argued that the 200-year-long pandemic's death toll and social effects have been exaggerated, comparing it to the modern third plague pandemic (1855–1960s).[23][27] Furthermore, historians seek to play down the effects of the late-antique bubonic plague, arguing that our eyewitness accounts of the disease are hysterical in tone and misleading in effect.[28]

Epidemiology

Genetics of the Justinian plague strain

The plague of Justinian is generally regarded as the first historically recorded epidemic of Yersinia pestis.[29][30] This conclusion is based on historical descriptions of the clinical manifestations of the disease[31] and the detection of Y. pestis DNA from human remains at ancient grave sites dated to that period.[32][33]

Genetic studies of modern and ancient Yersinia pestis DNA suggest that the origin of the Justinian plague was in

Eurasian steppe, such as the Xiongnu and the later Huns, had a role in spreading plague to West Eurasia from an origin in Central Asia.[8]

Earlier samples of Yersinia pestis DNA have been found in skeletons dating from 3000 to 800 BC, across West and East Eurasia.[40] The strain of Yersinia pestis responsible for the Black Death, the devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, does not appear to be a direct descendant of the Justinian plague strain. However, the spread of Justinian plague may have caused the evolutionary radiation that gave rise to the currently extant 0ANT.1 clade of strains.[41][42]

Virulence and mortality rate

The number of deaths is uncertain. Some modern scholars believe that the plague killed up to 5,000 people per day in Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic.[27] According to one view, the initial plague ultimately killed perhaps 40% of the city's inhabitants and caused the deaths of up to a quarter of the human population of the Eastern Mediterranean.[43] Frequent subsequent waves of the plague continued to strike throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, with the disease becoming more localized and less virulent. [citation needed]

A revisionist view expressed by scholars such as Lee Mordechai and Merle Eisenberg argues that the mortality of the Justinian Plague was far lower than previously believed. They say that the plague might have caused high mortality in specific places, but it did not cause widespread demographic decline or decimate Mediterranean populations. According to them, any direct mid-to-long term effects of plague were minor.[27] However, their position has been the subject of a concerted critique by Peter Sarris. Sarris challenged both their core methodology and their handling of the sources. Sarris also provides up-to-date discussion of the genetic evidence, including the suggestion that the plague may have entered Western Eurasia via more than one route, and perhaps struck England before Constantinople.[21]

See also

Notes

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
    , retrieved 2020-05-16
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-866262-4
    , retrieved 2020-05-16
  3. ISBN 978-1933823942
    . The Justinian plague (bubonic plague) also attacked the Sasanian lands.
  4. S2CID 163966072
    .
  5. ^ Gârdan, Gabriel-Viorel (2020). ""The Justinianic Plague": The Effects of a Pandemic in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages". Romanian Journal of Artistic Creativity. 8 (4): 3–18. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
  6. ^ "Modern lab reaches across the ages to resolve plague DNA debate". phys.org. May 20, 2013.
  7. ^
    PMID 29073248
    .
  8. ^
    S2CID 13670282
    .
  9. S2CID 144954310
    . Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Wade, Nicholas (October 31, 2010). "Europe's Plagues Came From China, Study Finds". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved November 1, 2010.
  11. ^ John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History, part 2. Translation of relevant portions here.
  12. ^ Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiae, IV.29.
  13. ^ Eiland, Murray (2022). "Networks of Rome, Byzantium, and China". Antiqvvs. 4 (1). Interview with Johannes Preiser-Kapeller: 44.
  14. ^ Procopius, Persian War II.22–23.
  15. ^ Procopius: The Plague, 542
  16. S2CID 144954310
    . Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  17. ^ Procopius, Anekdota, 23.20f.
  18. ^ Justinian, Edict IX.3; J. Moorhead 1994; Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395–600, 1993:111.
  19. ISBN 978-0-670-03855-8
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-19-821731-2
    .
  21. ^
    doi:10.1093/pastj/gtab024
    .
  22. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhaa510
    .
  23. ^
    PMID 31792176
    .
  24. ^ Maugh, Thomas. "An Empire's Epidemic". www.ph.ucla.edu. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  25. ISBN 978-0-670-03855-8
    .
  26. ^ "The Plague of Justinian". History Magazine. 11 (1): 9–12. 2009.
  27. ^
    ISSN 0031-2746
    .
  28. S2CID 144954310
    . Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  29. S2CID 46979303
    .
  30. ^ "Justinian's Plague (541-542 CE)". World History Encyclopedia.
  31. ^ Procopius, History of the Wars, 7 Vols., trans. H. B. Dewing, Loeb Library of the Greek and Roman Classics, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914), Vol. I, pp. 451–473.
  32. ^ Wiechmann I, Grupe G. Detection of Yersinia pestis DNA in two early medieval skeletal finds from Aschheim (Upper Bavaria, 6th century A.D.)" Am J Phys Anthropol 2005 Jan;126(1) 48–55
  33. PMID 23658525
    .
  34. PMID 21037571
    .
  35. ^ Yohannes Gebre Selassie (2011), Plague as a Possible Factor for the Decline and Collapse of the Aksumite Empire: a New Interpretation, Northeast African Journal of Social Sciences
  36. ^ Peter Sarris (2007), "Bubonic Plague in Byzantium: The Evidence of Non-Literary Sources", in Lester K. Little (ed.), Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, Cambridge University Press, pp. 119–132, at 121–123
  37. ^ Michael McCormick (2007), "Toward a Molecular History of the Justinianic Pandemic", in Lester K. Little (ed.), Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, Cambridge University Press, pp. 290–312, at 303–304.
  38. S2CID 144954310
    . Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  39. PMID 24480148
    .
  40. PMID 26496604
    .
  41. ^ McGrath, Matt (12 October 2011). "Black Death Genetic Code 'Built'". BBC World Service. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  42. PMID 21993626
    .
  43. ^ Cyril A. Mango (1980). Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome. emphasizes the demographic effects; Mark Whittow (1990). "Ruling the late Roman and Byzantine city". Past and Present. 33. argues against too great reliance on literary sources.

Sources

Further reading

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