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Merge Black Death and Second plague pandemic: suggestion

I suggest merging the overlapping articles Black Death and Second plague pandemic articles, cleaning up both of them to reflect current historical consensus, disagreements, and unknowns. As these two articles stand, both could use some restructuring. And, they disagree with each other on some details about the origin and path of the pandemic from China, or nearby, to Europe, etc. Neither of them has anything about the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa - was it spared? - nor much about South Asia. (Both of those geographic areas likely have some written historical records from the 14th century.) See also summary article Timeline of plague. Acwilson9 (talk) 21:26, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I cautiously agree with this proposal and with the sentiment that a single sentence on China is hardly enough to deal with all the rest of the Old World. I do have reservations though, that the Black Death is sometimes thought of as merely the 1340s-50s first wave or as 14th century or as generally medieval and somehow separate from say, the early modern Great Plague of London, which was nonetheless still part of the second pandemic. Certainly the picture of Napoleon in the Levant would seem out of place in a "Black Death" article, but I certainly would support some rearrangement one way or another. GPinkerton (talk) 21:41, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there is already some confusion in the article. Sometimes "Black Death" is given to mean only the initial epidemics, and somoetimes it's given to refer to the entire Second Pandemic which lasted from the mid-14th century to the 19th century. Someone with a better handle on the specifics than me should go through the articles and clear up that confusion, and I think that would necessarily involve restructuring. One thing we should be careful of is to not lose the sense that the Black Death was part of the overall Second Pandemic, and was not a thing entirely unto itself. Also, the restructuring should not involve any net loss of information, and any stuff which needs to be in both articles (fully in one and in an attenuated version in the other, if that's appropriate) should be in both articles -- i.e., let's not have an ultra-strict separation such that all X goes in one article and all Y in the other. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:05, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and I don't think an overall merge is a good idea. There is enough of a difference between the two to justify two articles, I'm suggesting that it be precisely clear what each encompasses. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:07, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: So, as I understand it, the 2nd plague pandemic ended in the 1770s in Europe and the 1840s in the Ottoman Empire. The Encyclopedia of the Black Death treats the Black Death and the 2nd Plague Pandemic as synonymous and treats it as running through the late mediaeval and early modern eras. Information should not be needless duplicated over multiple pages: WP:DUP. GPinkerton (talk) 00:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

"Needlessly" If it does end up that there are two articles ("Black Death" and "Second Pandemic") then some information will need to be duplicated to provide the necessary context. I'm currently reading Frank Snowden's Epidemics and Society, and my memory is that he dealt with the Black Death as being somewhat differently defined than the Second Pandemic, but I'll take a look back and check that section of the book. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:01, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I can certainly see the appeal in merging the two articles because there is overlap, but like Beyond My Ken I'm generally in favour of having separate pages which explain the distinction. I was at a conference on the Black Death last year and when discussing the public understanding of the topic one of the points that came up was that it is there is confusion over what is meant by 'plague' since it can mean the disease, any one of three pandemics, and the Black Death. One result of this confusion is that there is a fairly common assumption that plague doctor masks were used in the Middle Ages. If we have separate pages we can not only make sure the pages are focused and explain how they relate to each other, but we can make sure that they are visually coherent since images are an effective way of sharing information.

There is the issue that as GPinkerton says the Encyclopedia of the Black Death covers the whole of the second pandemic, but there are plenty of academics who treat the Black Death as being the first episode of the second plague pandemic rather than the whole thing. To be fair, in his timeline on page xxi Byrne lists the second plague pandemic and the Black Death separately, with the Black Death described as "the initial and widespread outbreak of the Second Plague Pandemic". Richard Nevell (talk) 18:24, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell: If that's the case then, we need to move a huge amount of what is now on this page to 2nd Pandemic. But I would also say that Byrne says the subject of the book is the 2nd Plague Pandemic, and it's not called the The Encyclopedia of the Second Plague Pandemic which strongly suggests they are synonymous. "Black Death" very rarely excludes the other fourteenth century recurrences, and very generally refers to bubonic plague altogether. Incidentally, there is no separate page for 1st Plague Pandemic. The phrase is a redirect to Plague of Justinian, even though the Plague of Justinian can usually mean just the mid-sixth century first wave. Something has to move somewhere, and I'd be in favour of treating the whole subject as one coherent whole, with the subject the 2nd Pandemic and the Black Death as the title (it's simply more common). Any especial focus on the first wave is misleading I think, since that wave never ended except locally and the disease was endemic for long afterwards, and there are plenty that say there are synonymous. GPinkerton (talk) 18:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

That suggests to me that his publisher thought Encyclopedia of the Second Plague Pandemic would not sell nearly as well as Encyclopedia of the Black Death. Johnbod (talk) 20:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

"its [Plague's] appearance in the Black Sea region around 1345 marks the beginning of the Second Plague Pandemic. Popularly known as the Black Death, this series of recurring epidemics in the parts of the world dominated by Christianity and Islam, and centred again [like the Plague of Justinian] on the Mediterranean, lasted in Europe until the 18th century and in Ottoman-controlled territories until about 1840. Some evidence suggests China may have suffered plague epidemics, though the Sahara protected Central and Southern Africa, and India seems to have been spared until 17th century." (Byrne, p. XVIII). I would suggest this is basically the definition we should use for this/both this/these articles. GPinkerton (talk) 18:56, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I strongly oppose a merger. Treating the Black Death as synonymous with the Second Pandemic is an alternative and less common usage. Both the books I have on the subject, John Hatcher's the Black Death and John Kelly's The Great Mortality, An Intimate History of the Black Death, are about the outbreak of 1347-51. Merriam and Wiktionary both say 1347-51, while OED gives it as the first meaning with a broader definition as a second alternative. The section on the Second Pandemic refers to the main article on the subject and is quite short, although it could be reduced further.

It would be very odd - and wrong - if the worst outbreak of disease in history did not have its own article, and the Black Death is the best name for it. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:35, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Snowden, in Epidemics and Society (Yale, 2019) says:

"The second plague pandemic began in Central Asia in the 1330s, reached the West in 1347, and persisted for five hundred years until it disappeared in the 1830s. The first wave in Europe, from 1347 until 1353, is often called the Black Death today, although this restrictive terminology began only in the eighteenth century. Various fourteenth-century accounts instead refer to the disaster as the "great pestilence," the "plague of Florence," "the mortality," and the "plague." Partly for this reason, and partly because of the dark buboes and gangrene that are plague symptoms, many scholars still employ the original and more extensive meaning of Black Death -- as a synonym for the whole of the pandemic."

So here is perhaps our intractable problem; "Black Death" is used by different people to refer to different things. But maybe not so intractable at that: If "Black Death" = "Second plague pandemic" then we only need to mention that in the article on the second plague pandemic, i.e "... is referred to by many scholars as the Black Death". But that doesn't relieve us of the necessity for an article on the initial European wave, just as we have an article on the Great Plague of London, which was also part of the second pandemic. The logical and reasonable name for that article is Black Death, which would include something about "...the term is also used by many scholars to refer to the entire second pandemic." The Black Death article would then be culled down to material which is primarily about the initial European outbreaks, with any additional information needed for context included, but general stuff about the second pandemic can be removed. Similarly, the Second plague pandemic article would of course have a section on the initial European outbreaks, but it would not be in the same amount of detail as the Black Death article.

This is pretty much what I was agreeing to above, not merger and elimination of the Black Death article, but editing and focusing each article on their respective subjects, Black Death on the initial Eurpean epidemics, and Second plague pandemic on the entire 500-year course of the plague pandemic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:58, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this except that I do not agree that it should be "culled down to material which is primarily about the initial European outbreaks" (and the start date of 1347 which I mentioned above is too late). The article currently and correctly covers the plague from its outbreak in Asia. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:27, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I certainly agree that any article on the first European appearances of the plague would have to include its origin in Central Asia. The article woulldn;t make sense without it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:12, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I've never heard of any scholar using BD for something that lasted until the 1830s, and they would be courting severe misunderstanding if they did so, imo. Clearly, no one actually wants a move or rename, so I suggest we move on. Johnbod (talk) 20:53, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Johnbod, why would a professor of medical history at Yale [1] say "many scholars still employ the original and more extensive meaning of Black Death -- as a synonym for the whole of the [second] pandemic" if that wasn't the case? When a subject expert makes a statement like that, what grounds do we, as non-experts, have to doubt it? Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:19, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, he casts his net widely: "Fields of interest: Modern Italian history; Fascism; Social history; History of medicine". Sometimes academics say odd things - I'd like to see examples. In my field of interest, academics (as opposed to publishers) try to avoid sensational terms as much as possible. Johnbod (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Johnbod: I'm sorry, but that's hardly a convincing argument. I see nothing "sensational" about Snowden's comment, I see an academic subject expert summarizing in a matter-of-fact way the state of play in his subject of interest. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:12, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Epidemics and Society:

• Guardian review: "illuminating and persuasive"
• The New Yorker interview
• Wall Street Journal review
• Vox interview
• Journal of Military and Veterans Health: "The ‘Black Death’ of Europe in 1347 to 1352"
• The Lancet: "Frank Snowden, historian at Yale University, is an established expert of the history of epidemics"
• Nature review

(obviously) "sensational" refers to calling something the "Black Death" rather than "the second plague pandemic". Johnbod (talk) 04:01, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, I think it's obvious that no one agrees with that assessment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

You don't think "Black Death" is a "sensational" epithet? Well, we must be using different dictionaries. But, as I've said, this is a completely pointless discussion, & we should stop having it. Over & out. Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Who appointed you arbiter of what is "odd"? Perhaps making grand assertions about the state of academic literature on the basis of personal ignorance is not a valid way of constructing a mainstream encyclopedia. Why is your "I have never heard of ..." more respectable than a published scholar in the field's "many scholars employ..." ? GPinkerton (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

The list of things you haven't heard of is doubtless a long one Johnbod but nonetheless, it is a common usage, and one listed by the OED, among others, not least the very Encyclopedia of the Black Death mentioned already. Your claim that Clearly, no one actually wants a move or rename is refuted by the at least two editors in this thread that propose that very thing and for which this thread was begun. GPinkerton (talk) 21:56, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Who, apart from the guy at the top? I've commented on Encyclopedia of the Black Death above. Johnbod (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

You made an argument that sounds a lot like you think the primary word for 2nd Plague Pandemic is Black Death. GPinkerton (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

?? So I'm the Second Editor? No, I'm not. Johnbod (talk) 04:02, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Dudley Miles: The issue is when the "Black Death" ended and the rest of the history of the pandemic began. If we call plague in Cairo in 1348 the Black Death, why are we not calling it the Black Death when there is the very same plague in Cairo in 1363, 1367, 1381, 1388/9, 1416, 1429/30, 1438, 1444, 1449, 1459/60, 1468/9, 1476/7, 1492, 1498, or 1505? Which should appear in which article? GPinkerton (talk) 21:56, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

The OED lists it as a secondary usage with the primary one being the mid fourteenth century worldwide pandemic. The 1348 plague in Cairo was part of the pandemic which caused the deaths of more people than any other disease outbreak in history. The later outbreaks were local or regional, as were outbreaks in many other places. If some scholars regard them as part of a second pandemic I am not going to get in an argument about it, but they are not part of the Black Death in common usage or in the usage of most scholars. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Dudley Miles: You said he 1348 plague in Cairo was part of the pandemic which caused the deaths of more people than any other disease outbreak in history which is accurate, but the statement could equally applied to any of the epidemics I mentioned above. They are all listed in the Encyclopedia of the Black Death and all are part of the deadliest human pandemic. If the local outbreaks were local or regional, how come there were plague epidemics in Paris and London in many of the same years as in Cairo? Is the plague of 1363 that occurred in all three places somehow different to the disease that all admit is called the Black Death only 10 years beforehand? Which article should it be presented in? GPinkerton (talk) 23:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Your interpretation is based on a minority viewpoint. We follow the majority view. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:27, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Dudley Miles: What interpretation? If what you say is true then the fact remains the original issue; that this article is mostly about the 2nd Pandemic, not the Black Death. GPinkerton (talk) 16:58, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Black Death is the popular name given to the most devastating pandemic of plague in history. Occurring between 1348 and 1365, it killed between a third and a half of all Europeans, more in some areas than in others, amounting to 20–25 million in five years. Plague recurred at intervals until the pandemic of 1664–5, the Great Plague, after which it virtually disappeared from northern and western Europe. It probably originated in China, and spread to the rest of Asia and Europe by two main routes: the Silk Road and the pilgrim's way to Mecca.

- The Oxford Companion to Medicine (3 ed.) GPinkerton (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you to all who contributed to this very useful discussion, which I initiated. I now concur with the decision, summarized below, to NOT merge the two articles. Acwilson9 (talk) 19:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Merger of Black Death and Second plague pandemic

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the articles Black Death and Second plague pandemic be merged into a single article? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey only, please, put discussion in the section above

• No - Enough people, including subject experts, use "Black death" to refer specifically to the beginning phase of the second pandemic, and it is worthwhile preservig this distinction. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
• No The term 'Black Death' is most commonly used to refer to the first outbreak of the second plague pandemic rather than the entirety of the second pandemic. Richard Nevell (talk) 08:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
• No per above. Johnbod (talk) 12:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
• No, for the reasons given above. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment This is not a RfC matter, it is a WP:MERGE matter; and whilst step 1 has been followed, step 2 has not. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:45, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Referencing style

The referencing style is a hodgepodge at the moment, with some references giving full details and some giving Harvard references to the bibliography section. Is there any preference for which to use as the article is developed further? Personally, I like having a bibliography section as at a glance you can see the works involved, but if it doesn't contain all the works used in the article (as is currently the case) it gives a handful greater prominence. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, stick to sfn and use the unused cited works. ——SN54129 07:23, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be simpler to revist this issue after the article stabilizes itself. Acwilson9 (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Wrong settlement names on the map (containing false information)

The map image in this article contains post world war II names of the settlements, not their original name of the era of the Black Plague.

• Kaliningrad should be Königsberg
• Istanbul was Constantinople until 1453
• Dubrovnik was Ragusa
• Oradea was Nagyvárad
• Budapest did not even exist until 1873 (it was 2 separate towns: Buda and Pest)
• I also think Gdansk is wrong (should be Danczik or Danzig?) and Wroclaw should be either Wrotizlava or Breslau.

Due to this, I think this map is misinforming people about the geography of the Black Death in Europe and is not fit to be in a wikipedia that's supposed to correctly inform people. I don't have the rights to edit the map, and neither do I have the resources to make a new one. It would be much more preferable to replace the map with this one used in many of the non-English versions of this article: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blackdeath2.gif

Thank you. モラー (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:08, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@モラー: I have undone your changes because I think the map is worth having, and I don't think it gives a false impression - maps are very often modified for convenience of comprehension by modernizing the cities' names. I have nonetheless kept the animated map you suggested in the article, next to the section on Europe - the animated map is smaller, covers a limited area - Europe and western Asia without Africa - and covers a more limited range of time that the existing map. For this reason I've left both in what I think is the best place for them. Thanks for finding the animation. GPinkerton (talk) 16:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I think historic names are better, modern names paint a wrong picture of what was what back then.--Pestilence Unchained (talk) 09:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

The picture is not really wrong any more than any other map (all flat maps are inherently inaccurate). The cities existed and they are the same cities in the same places as today and they didn't use English names (or accurate cartography) anyway. In any case the present map is better because it shows more of the world, even if it still omits most of the regions affected. The map proposed in the edit before only showed Europe, which certainly does "paint a wrong picture of what was what back then", so that map really belongs in the section on Europe, to illustrate the text, as it does now. In a perfect world the map would have 14th century names, but it doesn't, but it's still a better map than the animation. GPinkerton (talk) 14:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Both! historical names, and modern anmes in parentheses might be best, unless that makes the map unreadable. Acwilson9 (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Reprise (of discussion of 2nd/"Black" and of 1st plague pandemics' articles)

Since we agree that the two articles should remain as such, I propose we need to:

• 1.) consider the issue of Plague of Justinian and First plague pandemic, and
• 2.) decide what information should go in which article. Should Black Death cover until 1353, 1357, or 1365? Should most of the social/economic analysis move to the early sections of Second plague pandemic? Should everything not directly related to the 1340s-60s (subsequent epidemics &c.) move to Second plague pandemic? GPinkerton (talk) 15:54, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Also, there ought to be a hatnote explaining the terms from the outset. GPinkerton (talk) 16:00, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

But do we agree that the two articles should remain as such? serial ^# 16:15, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• Given your "process for the sake of process" close, we don't actually know, do we? Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:51, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

  @Serial Number 54129: I didn't ask for this; I asked for some {{merge}}/{{merge from}}/{{merge to}} tags to be added to the relevant articles. That's all. Discussion may continue; and indeed should continue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Uh-uh. The discussion is continuing; it's currently kicking ~3K words, so you're in no danger, it would seem, of seeing wind fall in those sails. Hope you're all staying indoors and staying calm  :) serial ^# 18:37, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• Regarding GPinkerton's points above:

• (1) I'm not aware of anyone who considers these as separate things, although I certainly could be wrong about that. My understanding is that it was contemporaneously called "the Plague of Justinian", and only modern investigation determined that it was indeed Plague (disease), and not "plague" as a catchall description, and therefore the "First plague pandemic". Given that, the current situation, where First plague pandemic redirects to Plague of Justinian would seem to be justified.
• (2) I'd have to refresh myself on the specifics of the first European wave to talk about a specific end date. I think, though, that social and economic information specifically about the 14th century epidemic should stay in the Black Death article. There should also be some small amount of info about recurrences, with a "Main article" pointer to Second plague pandemic. Pretty much everything else not specifically related to the 14th century events should go to Second plague pandemic. The watchword here should be "judgment" and not mechanical cutting and pasting.
• (Hatnote) Yes.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:31, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: The situation with the first plague pandemic is the same as the second. There is the Justinianic plague (which was not contemporaneously distinguished from any other disease) which was in the middle 6th century which historians labelled as such from the words of Procopius that infected, among others, Justinian I. And there is the first plague pandemic, which lasted until the later 8th century and of which the devastating Plague of Justinian was just the first episode of at least fifteen to eighteen known pandemics between 541 and 767. This is also called the Early Medieval Pandemic (EMP). So there is the two century-long First Plague Pandemic which is known from epidemiology and the three year-long Plague of Justinian (the deadliest first wave, the one caught by Justinian and exploited for military purposes) which is known from classical texts and which lasted from 541 to 543 in the eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire. GPinkerton (talk) 20:53, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I see. Is there enough known about the rest of the first pandemic (outside of the Justinian plague) to justify a separate article? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:18, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: There's certainly a lot more known than the thin treatment the article gives at present. (One or two sentences at the end on "recurrences" and a bit in the lead.) I don't know the sources well, but there is reference in places to Arabic sources which suggests there's a lot more of out there that's not in the article at the moment and would probably jar with the blow-by-blow account of the 540s plague that certainly should go in this article. I expect the historiography will be in Byzantine and Islamic fields and thus less-well thumbed than Black Death-related literature, but that shouldn't be an obstacle. The following sources are cited in the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity and I think none are yet cited in Plague of Justinian:

P. Horden, ‘Mediterranean Plague in the Age of Justinian’, in Cambridge Companion Justinian, 134–60.

L. K. Little, ed., Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750 (2007).

D. Ch. Stathakopoulos, Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire: A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises and Epidemics (2004).

M. Meier, ‘The “Justinianic Plague”: The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic in the Eastern Roman Empire and its Cultural and Religious Effects’, EME 24/3 (2016), 267–92.

So I guess there's work to do on that as well as on the late medieval conundrum! GPinkerton (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

We actually have sub-articles on the Justinianic plague already at Plague of Amwas, Plague of Mohill and Roman Plague of 590, which is currently at AFD. The second pandemic lasted much longer and is much better recorded than the first, so the Black Death/second pandemic distinction is much stronger than the Justinianic plague/first pandemic distinction. We could, however, certainly limit the current article to the first wave and spin off a first pandemic article to discuss the whole period 541–750. Srnec (talk) 02:27, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I think that would only be fair; the coverage at the moment gives hardly an inkling of the centuries' misery that came after Justinian himself recovered. GPinkerton (talk) 02:51, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll just add that we should not be having extended discussion of the first pandemic articles here - there is also another front open at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Plague of 590. Probably both the bits here and there should be copied to Talk:Plague of Justinian & continued there, with a link here. Also I don't think there should be a hatnote here, but explanation early in the lead text. Johnbod (talk) 03:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Does the term "Black Death" only refer to the plague as it manifested in the greater region of Europe and the Mediterranean & Black Sea basins, or does it also refer to the 14(+?)th-century plague in the rest of Asia and possibly also sub-Saharan Africa? (I'm guessing that any answer is somewhat ambiguous, but thinking about it might help us in improving both articles. Again, I appreciate the recent comments from all of you, most of whom know more about the topic than I.) Acwilson9 (talk) 19:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Acwilson9: 1.) Asia: yes, 2.) sub-Saharan Africa: no, it seems it didn't reach there until later for whatever reason. There is definitely a big question mark over China, India (apparently no sure evidence of plague there til c. 1700), &c. that might be beyond WIkipedia's scope to resolve. GPinkerton (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

It's certain beyond our scope to resolve. If experts disagree, we report all sides. If there's a mainstream view, we feature that, while WP:FRINGE views can be presented as long as it's not WP:UNDUE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: @Beyond My Ken: - thanks for your clarifications. After these two articles stabilize, the summary Timeline of plague article should be revisited to ensure that its content is consistent with the other two, which it might not be right now. For one thing, you suggest that it's still uncertain whether the plague bug moved from China to Byzantium or from Byzantium to China (or neither), but Timeline of plague currently only states that it moved from China to Byzantium, and it also states that the bug was in India in 14th c. Hopefully, we'll also get citations if we don't already have them, if only to testify what is not known. Acwilson9 (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

@Acwilson9: So, the exact origins of either pandemic are basically uncertain, but as I understand it the environmental conditions in central Asia are a major factor, and that the plague(s) repeatedly emerged from a reservoir of bacteria in the rodents native thereabouts. So it certainly never spread to China from the Med. or vice versa but probably arrived on opposite shores of Eurasia at similar times, spreading out from the centre. Also, China has changed size and shape a lot, and vast amounts of central Asia are inside the PRC that would not have been considered China historically and still sit comfortably in Central Asia (Tibet, East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, Jungaria, &c.) I have read of bacteriological evidence tying the second pandemic strain to Kygyzstan or the mountains round there, but I think the field is evolving too fast to make any definite statements. Safer to say that we know it came from (western) central Asia in that one instance when it arrived on the Black Sea that one year. The evidence for India is disputed I believe, but from what I've read the pre-modern evidence is very thin and proponents have previously resorted to very questionable quote-mining. The timeline of plague article looks like a lot of work is needed! GPinkerton (talk) 04:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Tx. You're right that "China" is an ambiguous term, historically and geographically. For this topic, I myself will for now refer to "East Asia" instead. Acwilson9 (talk) 00:13, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Acwilson9: Probably suitably vague! GPinkerton (talk) 00:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Black Death in east Asia?

Did the Black Death hit China and other parts of east Asia? IF not, why not, given Mongolian trade routes? If so, shouldn't Chinese historical sources exist? Acwilson9 (talk) 05:37, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

See Yersinia pestis. The plague has hit worldwide, including China, for a long time.--Pestilence Unchained (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

This isn't the point; was there a plague epidemic in China at the same time as the 1340s Black Death? (Obviously, the Black Death per se did not spread worldwide - how could it have got to the Americas in the 14th century?) The article is presently quite Eurocentric in this regard, even though the implication is that western Asia and Africa were struck, it doesn't explain whether or not (and why) it affected East Asia or the Subcontinent, for example. Neither does it mention non-European names for the disease, something surely lacking. GPinkerton (talk) 18:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

You're not wrong about the Eurocentrism, but it can at least be fixed. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:09, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

To get some thoughts on fixing the Euro- & Byzantia-centrism, I've asked (offline) a couple of history professors (friends) at Northwestern U for possible sources on this plague in E and S Asia, and in E Africa. If they &/or I turn anything up, I'll report it back here on this Talk page, for use (if & as appropriate) by all of us interested editors. (It might turn out to be helpful to have editors who can read medieval Chinese, medieval Hindi, and/or medieval Arabic, which are way beyond my ken. I read French well, and, with free internet translators, can sometimes muddle through other European languages when the adverbs and verb tenses are obvious from context.) Acwilson9 (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I am interested in editing the page to remove statements that the Black Death originated in China, or at least to clarify that this is not proven. I've been reading Benedictow's book on the Black Death, and he states emphatically that there is no evidence of plague in China in this time period. Since China is very commonly cited as the origin, this got me curious about the evidence, and looking through the citations in this article for China they all seem pretty poor. Cambridge History of China states only that there were "serious epidemics" in the 1340's-50's, not plague specifically. The study by Achtman et al. states that Y. pestis originated in China long before the Black Death, but does not say anything about whether the Black Death hit China in the 1300's (which of course didn't stop every media outlet reporting on the study from saying "Black Death originated in China"). Wu Lien-teh's book from 1936 specifically states that Chinese sources don't identify a plague epidemic in the 1300's, but he still assumes the Black Death originated there. On Eurocentrism, I think "worldwide" should be edited to "Europe, North Africa, and West Asia" because that is where there is actual evidence of plague epidemics at this time. With that edit, other Eurocentrism concerns should be alleviated, since the Black Death was actually centered on Europe. If you hear from your professor friends of evidence in other places, please report back. Again, I'm willing to edit to adjust this when I have some time, hopefully in the next week or so. If anyone has other concerns please let me know! Shmarrighan (talk) 06:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 May 2020

3 requests here

1. The 3rd paragraph of the page states that: The Black Death most likely originated in Central Asia or East Asia,[11][12][13][14][15] from where it travelled along the Silk Road, reaching Crimea by 1347. From there, it was most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that travelled on Genoese merchant ships, spreading throughout the Mediterranean Basin and reaching Africa, Western Asia, and the rest of Europe via Constantinople, Sicily, and the Italian Peninsula.

In fact the most recent research, shows that this is false. One of the references included [11] written in 2020, disproves the other references written a decade ago: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/23/asia/plague-china-history-intl-hnk-scli/index.html ″About a decade ago, some scientists argued that the plague could have originated in East Asia over 2,600 years ago. The second pandemic could have started in China, they said, and been brought to Europe through the Silk Road, an ancient trade route that connects China to Europe. They also posited that the disease could have been brought to Africa by Zheng He, a Chinese explorer who traveled around the world in the 15th century, and who has drawn comparisons with Italian explorer Marco Polo.

But scientists have since found DNA evidence that the plague could have existed much further back than previously thought -- there's evidence it existed in Europe some 5,000 years ago.″

2. In this section it falsely states the cause of Black Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Causes There is no evidence of black death in China, thus attributing it to the 13th Century Mongol of China is ludicrous.

https://contagions.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/did-india-and-china-escape-the-black-death/ ″For the most part, modern historians have accepted their accounts of plague in China and India without scientific or historical evidence from China and India themselves.

On the other hand, Sussman notes that the first obvious medical description of plague in China dates to 1644.

So in conclusion, what are we left with? First, western reports of plague in the east may be more rhetoric than reality. Even if there were small unrecorded outbreaks in India, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of population decline. For China, it would help to have more evidence of the nature of the northern epidemic. ″

3. In section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Transmission outdated information As shown in the links above, the research cited from 2010 has been disproven

a) The subsection name should be changed from "Transmission within Asia" to "Transmission to Asia"

b) The subsection named "Transmission outside of Asia" should be eliminated based on research above

c) In subsection "European outbreak" it states "the Mongol Golden Horde army of Jani Beg, whose mainly Tatar troops were suffering from the disease," However the reference provided [64] doesn't say anywhere that the Mongol Golden Horde army was suffering from the disease Aufumy (talk) 21:36, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aufumy: The CNN article is not a good source to try and overturn scientific consensus that the Black Death originated in Asia. This is because 1.) it is not a scientific or academic source and 2.) the CNN article says the Black Death originated in Asia. I will respond to your points in order

• 1.) it existed in Europe some 5,000 years ago does not mean that the Black Death (i.e., the Second plague pandemic) did not begin in Asia. It means there were epidemics of plague in Europe 5,000 years ago. These are two wholly separate facts. Nothing in the section is false. The plague came from Central or East Asia in the 1340s. Nothing in your CNN report (not exactly a scientific source) contradicts this. In fact, it actually says in black and white it came from Central Asia: "DNA evidence extracted from the skeletons of medieval plague victims, and genetic analysis of the bacteria, suggest that the outbreak probably originated in central Asia, and moved east into China, and west into Europe via trade routes, said Black".
• 2.) There is no evidence of black death in China, thus attributing it to the 13th Century Mongol of China is ludicrous The section you are objecting to does not say the plague originated in China. It says there were many causes of the pandemic and the pandemic arrived in China after the Mongol conquest. The CNN article agrees with this.
• 3.) research cited from 2010 has been disproven The CNN article is not research and it does not disprove the fact that the Black Death began in Asia. On the contrary, it says the Black Death originated in Asia.

a.) The subsection name should be changed from "Transmission within Asia" to "Transmission to Asia" The articles cited all say the plague originated in Asia. This will not be changed, and the CNN article to refer also says the pandemic originated in Asia. "Transmission within Asia" is therefore the appropriate wording.

b.) The subsection named "Transmission outside of Asia" should be eliminated based on research above Nothing in the CNN news article (not research) contradicts what this section says.

c.) the reference provided [64] doesn't say anywhere that the Mongol Golden Horde army was suffering from the disease I'm not sure how you can make this claim! The source you have pointed out quotes the primary source at length: "But behold, the whole army was affected by a disease which overran the Tartars and killed thousands upon thousands every day. It was as though arrows were raining down from heaven to strike and crush the Tartars’ arrogance. All medical advice and attention was useless; the Tartars died as soon as the signs of disease appeared on their bodies: swellings in the armpit or groin caused by coagulating humours, followed by a putrid fever. The dying Tartars, stunned and stupefied by the immensity of the disaster brought about by the disease, and realizing that they had no hope of escape, lost interest in the siege. But they ordered corpses to be placed in catapults and lobbed into the city in the hope that the intolerable stench would kill everyone inside." Another cited reference says "a regional epidemic of plague struck the Mongols and "the European foreigners" according to both a Russian and an Italian account. Gabriele de Mussisreports reports in his chronicle that the Italians contracted the plague when the Mongols flung their plague corpses over the city's walls". See the Encyclopedia of the Black Death, page 65, as cited.

Thanks @GPinkerton for reviewing maybe I a bit hasty my points, such as the Mongols, and differentiating between Central Asia and East Asia, but I believe there is a lot of inaccuracy in this wikipedia page, and will supply other links besides CNN

1st point: you mentioned CNN is not a good source, but you claim "it says the Black Death originated in Asia"

It didn't quite say that exactly. It specified it originated in Central Asia and moved to East Asia (China). While it may be technically correct to say that Black Death came from Asia, but I don't think most people would associate countries such as Kazakhstan with Asia. Most people would immediately think of China as Asia, especially with all the previous research which tried to claim China was the source. Thus saying it came from Asia is misleading. At least clarify that Black Death came from "Central Asia" and specify that it did not likely originate from China, based on current research. I will supply other links besides CNN below.

2nd point: There is a big difference between what causes something (birth of) vs how it was spread to a region. True that if Black Death existed in China (which there isn't evidence yet of), then likely it is because of the Mongol conquest of China. However the CNN article does not state that the Mongol conquest of China caused Black death. China is considered to be East Asia. Black death is said to come from Central Asia.

The "Transmission within Asia" subsection should at least be broken up into 2 subsections "Transmission within Central Asia" and "Transmission to East Asia"

3rd point: I admit that I misread the article about the Tartars. However the article on the wikipedia page is still misleading. It makes it sound that the Tartar army was infected, and then immediately passed the infection to the residents. However, they were besieging that city for 3 years before they got infected, and then started dying in droves. If there hadn't been a wall, the residents would have been infected but in a slower fashion, because of the lack of social distancing, they were hemmed in together.

https://www.history.com/news/silk-road-black-death

Kaffa, a Crimean Black Sea port now known as Feodosia, “seems to be the jumping off point for the primary wave of the medieval Black Death from Asia to Europe in 1346-7,” Welford says. “Genoese or Venetians left Kaffa by boat, infected Constantinople and Athens as they made their way to Sicily and Venice and Genoa. But I suspect [Black Death] also made it to Constantinople via an overland route.”

https://www.academia.edu/33710676/Climate_and_Disease_in_Medieval_Eurasia

Twitchett has posited that outbreaks in China in the 7th century were also due to plague, yet at the moment, we have neither phylogenetic nor palaeogenetic evidence to confirm the presence of plague in eastern China under the Tang, and no medical descriptions sufficiently detailed to make an identification of plague.

Yet as already noted, the new genetics does not support a southern Chinese origin of the Second Pandemic.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312816302086

as mentioned in the 26 Feb 2020 talk: When I look at the same 2016 article [6], it seems to show the plague originating in Europe and moving in the opposite direction, with foci in East Asia, but not originating there: “Our phylogeny is compatible with popular demographic scenarios wherein the Black Death cycled through the Mediterranean (Barcelona), spread to Northern Europe (London), subsequently traveled east into Russia (Bolgar), and eventually made its way into China, its presumed origin and ultimate source of the modern plague pandemic.”

I suspect this is not academic enough, but this https://www.medievalists.net/2020/03/black-death-covid-19/ talks about the spread of the plague to China not from China to Europe as was previously thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aufumy (talk • contribs) 06:03, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is another link that shows there is no evidence as to the true origin of black death, its just all speculation at this point. Directly from US Gov CDC website, I don't know how much more authoritative you can get than that. "Historians generally agree that the outbreak moved west out of the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, and its spread through Europe and the Middle East is fairly well documented (Figure 1). However, despite more than a century of speculation about an ultimate origin further east, the requisite scholarship using Chinese and central Asian sources has yet to be done. In any event, the Crimea clearly played a pivotal role as the proximal source from which the Mediterranean Basin was infected." https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article

Aufumy (talk) 08:32, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

(Should have checked this far down before posting in the above section, sorry) I agree with Aufumy that I am interested in editing the page to remove statements that the Black Death originated in China, or at least to clarify that this is not proven. I don't think the CNN article is necessary or particularly strong as a source. For another high-quality source, Benedictow's book on the Black Death states emphatically that there is no evidence of plague in China in this time period, and that "The outbreak is narrowly and unambiguously associated with the area of the plague focus that stretches from the north-western shores of the Caspian Sea into Southern Russia." The study by Achtman et al. states that Y. pestis originated in China long before the Black Death, but does not say anything about whether the Black Death hit China in the 1300's. Wu Lien-teh's book from 1936 specifically states that Chinese sources don't identify a plague epidemic in the 1300's, though he still assumes the Black Death originated there. I think one reason for the continuing confusion is because of the difference between "plague" (the disease) and "the Black Death" (the specific plague pandemic that swept Europe/N. Africa/W. Asia between 1346-53). It seems well-established that Y. pestis originated in China, but long before the Black Death (this was the conclusion of Achtman et al.'s study), but not well-established that the event of the Black Death in the 1300's started in China. I am prepared to edit to reflect these differences if there are not further objections. Shmarrighan (talk) 06:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Shmarrighan: Yes I agree with Aufumy that 14th century China is not known to be the source of the Black Death, and the article should not suggest that. But it should also not say Y. pestis originated in China, which is not known at all. Y. pestis has been around for a very long time (1000s of years), but the unique strain that caused the Second plague pandemic emerged in central Asia (possibly inside the modern PRC, possibly not) in the period 1100-1330 and was transmitted to humans somewhere there. All modern strains of plague are descended from that strain, including the plague strain presently endemic in China and the USA. I would stress that the articles Theories of the Black Death and Black Death migration exist currently, and I am hoping to merge them with the Second plague pandemic - see the discussion here: Talk:Second_plague_pandemic#Merge Black Death migration and Theories of the Black Death with Second plague pandemic. I feel discussion of the epidemiological side of things should go into the Second plague pandemic. Unfortunately the papers Aufumy cited are interpreted incorrectly, referring either to modern plague, the third pandemic's origin in China, or the genetic origins of modern plague, or are non-specialist news articles about Winston Black's new source book, which might be useful but we can't cite its findings or arguments on the basis of podcasts and non-academic CNN reviews. What paper do you mean by "Achtman et al.'s study"? There are quite a few "Achtman et al." studies, some more recent than others. Over the past ten or twenty years the science of plague has changed rapidly and radically, so it might be best to have a review of what's still reported in recent papers and what has been discarded in the light of constantly evolving genetic science. I really think it would be helpful to have all the ideas discussed in one article, ideally Second plague pandemic. I don't really think the "origins" of the Black Death need to be discussed extensively here at all; a detailed section in the pandemic article should be enough. GPinkerton (talk) 18:27, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Here is the Achtman study to which I was referring, from 10/31/2010. It is already referenced in the Wiki page by this Telegraph article that erroneously mixes the terms "Black Death" and "plague". The actual study uses language that is slightly less certain, like "Y. pestis evolved in or near China" and "One important conclusion is that Y. pestis probably evolved in China." But in the Telegraph article Achtman says more forcefully, "What we know is that the bacterium evolved in China, and has been in China all the time, and seems most likely to have come out of China... We do not know, however, how the Black Death travelled to Europe." Regardless, I'm comfortable removing the origins of the evolution of Y. pestis from the Black Death article, and leaving them to be discussed in the more general plague articles. This would mean substantially cutting or re-writing the "Causes" and "Transmission" sub-sections of the "14th century plague" section, but those sub-sections are kind of a mess anyway so a rewrite is probably overdue. Shmarrighan (talk) 05:47, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Shmarrighan: A substantial rewrite is certainly in order, I was just hoping to get all the ideas on one page before throwing out what is extraneous or contradictory. 2010 is ancient history as far as genetics goes, and it's always dubious to use old articles to say "we don't know" something. There's a lot we know now. It was only in 2011 and thereafter that we got absolutely final proof the Black Death even was Y. pestis at all, and in 2018 (I think) an article came out tying the second pandemic to the Tien Shan mountains, with a centre of genetic diversity today somewhere in the wilds of Kyrgyzstan. (i.e., not China but certainly central Asia.) I don't think we can rely on The Telegraph to get these things right, journalism about science is always trash compared with the actual scientific paper! GPinkerton (talk) 16:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: Please establish a consensus for these alterations since these will substantially change the article. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 18:07, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Once that requested consensus is achieved and then some editor(s) make the appropriate edits, it be great if they would also update the flawed tables in the article Timeline of plague, for consistency. Acwilson9 (talk) 04:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The type of plague (bubonic vs pneumonic)

The article has 9 hits for "pneumonic" and 29 for "bubonic" and suggests that black death was a bubonic plague without committing to it, except in a couple places (like in the intro box) but without sources. Yet the introduction includes:

"Current evidence indicates that once it came onshore, the Black Death was in large part spread by human fleas – which cause pneumonic plague – and the person-to-person contact via aerosols which pneumonic plague enables, thus explaining the very fast inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than would be expected if the primary vector was rat fleas causing bubonic plague.[16]"

Which to my understanding is correct. If the pneumonic theory is indeed what the relevant experts today think it should be presented as the prevailing theory, even if the bubonic plague theory had lots of older (possibly outdated) sources. In any case, the article should either say what the modern consensus is or more clearly describe disagreements, if any. Polystratus (talk) 19:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Polystratus: You're substantially right. The difference between these different plagues is mostly the method of infection. If you get an airborne transmission, you get pneumonic plague in the lungs. If you get bitten by lice or fleas you can get bubonic plague. The Black Death was probably both and absolutely certainly bubonic plague, since the buboes are described exactly in numerous contemporary accounts (as in the first plague pandemic). See also Theories of the Black Death and Black Death migration, both of which I would prefer to see merged with Second plague pandemic. (Please contribute at Talk:Second_plague_pandemic#Merge Black Death migration and Theories of the Black Death with Second plague pandemic if you have an opinion on this!) GPinkerton (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Polystratus:@GPinkerton: I agree with GPinkerton that the answer is both, not one or the other. For clarification, there's a missing link in the etiology here, which is that secondary pneumonic plague occurs in between primary bubonic plague and primary pneumonic plague. Infection by plague-carrying rat fleas mostly results in bubonic plague, but sometimes it spreads from the lymph nodes to the respiratory system, causing secondary pneumonic plague (meaning it's secondary to bubonic plague in that particular host). People who contract secondary pneumonic plague can spread it through coughing to other humans, and then those humans contract primary pneumonic plague without fleas as a go-between. My concern is regarding the phrase "spread by human fleas - which cause pneumonic plague". I think both that the human fleas part is incorrect (my understanding is that human fleas are ineffective vectors compared to rat fleas) and that fleas don't cause primary pneumonic plague. Frustratingly, the pages from Snowden's book that are cited here are not all available online, so I can't check to see if the source actually says this. Anyone else able to access the book or corroborate the information? Shmarrighan (talk) 06:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Shmarrighan: I think you're quite right about this. Now, a lot of this hinges on the idea (repeated by Snowden) that the Black Death came to Iceland and/or Greenland and so, without the natural populations of rats and fleas that existed in warmer parts, the Black Death must have been some mystery disease spread independently of rats or fleas or whatever. (It's an old idea, predating the breakthroughs of the past decade.) However, as Ole Bendictow has pointed out very thoroughly, the idea that plague came to the sub-arctic is basically wrong. The evidence for an epidemic in Iceland or Greenland is slim or not specific to plague (epidemics of not-plague happened all the time in the Middle Ages), and the idea that fleas couldn't live in Scandinavia either is roundly dismissed (Norway is not subartic as some researchers have claimed, most Scandinavians lived in the far south where its plenty warm enough for strawberries etc, pre-modern Norwegian slang for "bed" was "fleabox", and so on.Unfortunately, Snowden appears to have missed Benedictow's book from 2010, which I think is called What Disease Was Plague? (Answer: plague). This issue is not, to my knowledge discussed on Wikipedia but of obviously of huge importance. GPinkerton (talk) 16:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Interesting, I wasn't aware of the controversy over Iceland. Then is it fair for the introduction to say, as it does now, that "current evidence" indicates it was spread on land primarily by human fleas and pneumonic plauge? Or should it say something vaguer, like "spread by a combination of rat fleas - which cause bubonic plague and, secondarily, pneumonic plague - and by human-to-human transmission of pneumonic plague"? Shmarrighan (talk) 06:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Shmarrighan: Honestly for a global perspective I'd prefer something even more general like: "spread both by human-to-human transmission and a variety of animal vectors" or "a variety of parasites and rodents" might cover it. The natural reservoir originally involves a handful of central Asian rodents (marmots, jerds, possibly others) and I don't think it's possible to say there was one vector for the whole pandemic, which spread over three continents all with different climates, parasites, and mammalian fauna. Black rats and particular species of fleas wouldn't account for the virulence of the disease. Personally I suspect the migrations of the black rat through Europe and of other rodents in central Asia was enabled or caused by the plague, rather than the other way around, although there're some theories about changes in climate in central Asia that could have caused the spread of plague-endemic rodents into new territory. I'm not sure why we need to say "on land" at all. Humans are land animals and plague doesn't spread underwater! You can see here about the Nordic countries and plague here and the nearby pages. GPinkerton (talk) 16:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

See also as a source for the pneumonic theory: “Epidemiological characteristics of an urban plague epidemic in Madagascar, August–November, 2017: an outbreak report” The Lancet --DTLT (talk) 01:34, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry DTLT that paper doesn't deal with the Black Death or the second plague pandemic, so whatever its relevance to Wikipedia, it lies elsewhere. Plague in Madagascar is substantially different to most places in the world, (it's a new strain and, like all strains, evolving) and the world today has very different plague to the plague in the 14th century. In between the Black Death and now there is the whole Second plague pandemic and then the whole Third plague pandemic. Descendants of both pandemic strains exist all over the place. This paper cannot be used in this article. The environment of modern Madagascar is completely different to conditions in the centre of mediaeval Asia and to draw any conclusions about the 1340s from a medical paper about an epidemic in 2017 that never mentions the Second pandemic, let alone the Black Death is definitely violating WP:SYNTH. GPinkerton (talk) 04:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Contemporary name

According to GPinkerton in this edit, "Pestilence" and "Great Mortality" were not used during the period in question, but the footnote says "Great Mortality" was used sometime in the 14th century. If all of these names were used in retrospect, what was it called at the time? I think the definition sentence should clarify which terms are only used in retrospect. -- Beland (talk) 17:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Beland: See the etymology section. In (Middle) English in the 14th century during the Second Pandemic (but nonetheless after the Black Death) it was called the furste moreyn or "first pestilence" in comparison with subsequent 14th-century episodes of the pandemic. Magna mortalitas was the Latin label given the Black Death, or the Second Pandemic, or plague generally, in the 14th century. GPinkerton (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I just had to keep reading a little further. 8) The section differs from what the edit summary said, but I'll take it as authoritative since it's referenced. I tweaked the intro to clarify that Black Death, at least, wasn't contemporary, and leaving the details about the others to that section. -- Beland (talk) 18:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

There are quite a few problems with this article, resulting in part from lack of clarity both on WIkipedia and elsewhere about whether "Black Death" covers just the 1347-53 first wave or the entire 400 year-long Second plague pandemic. A lot of the sources use them interchangeably, but others use "Black Death" to refer to that part of the pandemic that was in the 14th century, or in the Late Middle Ages, or in Europe, or some combination of all these. Others again simply use "Black Death" as a synonym for "plague". I wrote the etymology section, which was in a parlous and contradictory state beforehand. I hope it's clearer now than a few months ago! GPinkerton (talk) 20:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Affect on society

Can we add an 'Affect on society' section just above the 'In popular culture' section please. I can't edit the article yet as I'm new.-Thanks Midshipman Percy (talk) 09:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Midshipman Percy: Consequences of the Black Death and Black Death in medieval culture articles already exist and could be improved. Personally I think the subjects of some of these overlap with the Second plague pandemic, rather than just the Black Death per se, and that needs sorting out. Also, it would be "effect" on society, not "affect". GPinkerton (talk) 11:52, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Darn Grammar.ly! I think I'll begin editing on the articles you sent me!-Thanks! Midshipman Percy (talk) 12:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Struck-through comments by CheckUser blocked editor. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:34, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

200 million number seems high

Back then the population was around 400 million, many living in the Americas. If the 200 million number is right then it would have killed over half the population of EURASIA and Africa.

That number does not pass the smell test! The wired article author(citation 3) may have confused the total deaths to date with the deaths when it hit. Other sources say a death toll of about 75 million, which seems to be more accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.131.163 (talk) 23:44, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Wired is a popular magazine, why not use a scholarly source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pestilence Unchained (talk • contribs) 06:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The figure is clearly wrong, the linked sources say 200 million in the 14th century, this may or may not be true, but the black death is not regarded as having lasted for that time frame. The black death itself lasted from 1346 to 1353. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.240.8 (talk) 08:34, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Three of the seven citations are links to articles that merely repeat the number of 200 million without any analysis, support or rationale. That’s why I’m removing them. Poihths (talk) 01:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, I would remove them, but there are structures in there that I don’t understand. Would someone with better chops take care of it, please? Poihths (talk) 01:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

A book on the subject (p. 383) suggests an overall 60% mortality rate and thus estimates the death toll to be around 50 million people in Euorpe alone. This source should be cited. Given that the plague was most severe in Western Europe, it seems unlikely that the total number would be four times as much as in Europe. Kolorado (talk) 12:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 September 2020

california is misspelled 2605:E000:1301:4777:80D:7F6D:19C6:D1EF (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I cannot see where. What is the (incorrect) spelling? Dudley Miles (talk) 21:35, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Califonia: I think I've fixed it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. TwoTwoHello (talk) 21:52, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 October 2020

Please add an ISBN for the book by Netzley. It's 9781560063759. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/37573540 64.203.186.103 (talk) 15:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 16:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2020 to clarify "Biraben" in "Second plague pandemic"

Change "Biraben" in first line of first paragraph of "Second plague pandemic" section to "Jean-Noël Biraben"

Rationale: The first two lines of this section contain the only two references to "Biraben" in the entire article. Identifying who "Biraben" is would be very useful. By checking the second reference to Biraben more closely (source, in footnote 143: Roosen & Curtis, doi: 10.3201/eid2401.170477), it is clear that "Biraben" refers to Jean-Noël Biraben, who, in 1975-76, published a seminal study on outbreaks of the plague ("Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays méditerranéens") which scholars have been relying on to some extent ever since. For further verification of Biraben's identity and the importance of his work, see https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/seminars-and-workshops/biraben-black-death-digital-archive ("Biraben 2.0: A Black Death Digital Archive").

Giving readers Biraben's complete name will also help in allowing anyone who wants to find out more about him and his work to find the information more quickly and to avoid confusion with others with the last name Biraben (e.g., Maïtena Biraben, French-Swiss television presenter; for others, see, e.g., https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=biraben.) Boga Joe (talk) 03:35, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Boga Joe, thanks for pointing that out; I've added it in. Perhaps he ought to have an article of his own! GPinkerton (talk) 03:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Searching for 14th century India/China Plague information and possibly the origin in this region

"However, research on the Delhi Sultanate and the Yuan Dynasty shows no evidence of any serious epidemic in fourteenth-century India and no specific evidence of plague in fourteenth-century China, suggesting that the Black Death may not have reached these regions.[69][70][71]"

Above quote is from the current version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death. But in the related article, with possibly new scholarship and/or different analyses indicated that " In fact, Creighton provides extensive evidence that the outbreaks that were consistent with the European disease post-date the European epidemic by several years.[11] On the heels of the European epidemic, a widespread disaster occurred in China during 1353–1354. Chinese accounts of this wave of the disease record a spread to eight distinct areas: Hubei, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan, and Suiyuan,[12] throughout the Mongol and Chinese empires. "

Please revise the section if you (editor) find the new materials convincing and useful.

Thanks.

• Creighton's book is dated 1891 and is far too old to be useful. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tpaullee: I agree with Dudley Miles that Creighton seems a poorer source than the three sources referenced in your quote from the Black Death article (which are from 2011, 2010, and 2004 respectively). But I would also point out that your quote from Black Death migration is not substantially different from what you quoted in Black Death; Creighton doesn't say anything about India, and he shows evidence of epidemic disease in China, but not of plague specifically. And Creighton is specifically ruling out origin in China, since he is showing that the Chinese epidemics occurred after the Black Death hit Europe. In any case, this is a good alert that the migration article could be made clearer, so thank you for that. Shmarrighan (talk) 07:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

What about the Romani?

Why is there a separate link to Jewish impact of black death, but none to the Romani? Just means that Romani are more marginalised even today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.173.241.162 (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Good question. Generally, the existence of an article on Wikipedia requires both notability and verifiability. There are some famous examples of persecution of Jews during the Black Death, like the Strasbourg Massacre, and the separate article on persecution of Jews during the Black Death looks reasonably well-sourced, if short. If persecution of Romani was similarly widespread, and if there are good sources for it, then it would make sense for it to have its own article. Unfortunately this article doesn't even list a source for persecution of Romani, so there's nothing to use as a starting point. If you have good sources for persecution of Romani during the Black Death, then I encourage you to create a new article on it (and also add the sources here). Shmarrighan (talk) 07:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 February 2021

{{subst:trim|1=

The plague is thought to have originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was likely spread by trading ships, though recent research has indicated the pathogen responsible for the Black Death may have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C.

This is already covered. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

30-60% of Europe wiped out is not correct by it's own source

The national geo source says:

Three particularly well-known pandemics occurred before the cause of plague was discovered. The first well-documented crisis was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 542 A.D. Named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, the pandemic killed up to 10,000 people a day in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), according to ancient historians. Modern estimates indicate half of Europe's population—almost 100 million deaths—was wiped out before the plague subsided in the 700s.

The Wikipedia article currently says:

and is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population

Which is incorrect. There is one other source which is unquoted so I don't know where the upper limit of 60% is coming from given we actually have an estimate from Nat Geo a reputable source.

Quote Nat Geo referring to the black death:

The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a third of the continent’s population.

Someone should amend this because I'm already seeing videos of people saying the Black Death wiped out half of Europe which is a gross exaggeration. If someone can provide a source with a higher estimate than 25 million please amend and link the source. Otherwise I think it makes sense to give the figure from Nat Geo.

95.44.164.114 (talk) 09:49, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

The Plague of Justinian and the Black Death are two separate events separated by several hundred years. The article could, however, do with better sourcing than National Geographic. Richard Nevell (talk) 09:56, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Some Requests

I would have liked to see more written about the different types of bubonic plague, pneumonic and septicemic. Also, there was nothing written about how people dealt with the Afro-Eurasian epidemic, or about their poor cleanliness, and there is only a short reference to miasmas. There is also nothing about plague doctors, which I definitely think should be included. I've also read that Europeans killed black cats because they thought that they were bad luck, but the cats were killing the rats, so after they killed the cats, the rats stayed alive, although I'm not sure how true that is. I've also read that the song "Ring Around the Rosie" as I always called it, or "Ring a Ring O' Rosie" as the Wikipedia article says, was based on the Black Plague, which is in the article about the song, but not mentioned here, although I think it does deserve one. 67.85.219.4 (talk) 14:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

bubonic plague, pneumonic plague and septicaemic plague are different types of plague, not different types of bubonic plague. Cats are not good at controlling rats; cats are too small. The mass killing of pets happened, to my knowledge, in the Great Plague of London (in 1666) but that doesn't have anything to do with the Black Death, which was in the mid-14th century, and three hundred years before that wave of the second plague pandemic. There isn't the slightest historical evidence Ring a Ring o' Roses has anything to do with plague, and certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the Black Death. It did not exist before the late 18th century. GPinkerton (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with GPinkerton on these points. I'll also point out that the article has sub-sections on bubonic vs. pneumonic vs. septicaemic plague, all of which include links to articles that talk about them more extensively. I don't think they necessarily need a deeper treatment here. To address two of your other points: 1) Plague doctors. If you're thinking of the archetypal plague doctors with the mask with the beak, those did not show up until a few centuries after the Black Death. 2) Poor cleanliness and miasma. I think there is certainly room to expand on these two points, and the article could be improved by giving them more attention. If you would like to write some text on the subjects and post it an edit request here, go for it! Or if you have some good, easily accessible sources that an editor could use for these specific points, feel free to post them.--Shmarrighan (talk) 06:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Shmarrighan, I don't think that I know enough about any of this to actually write about it in the article, I just wanted to share my thoughts. For the Ring a Ring o' Roses, GPinkerton, the Wikipedia article about it states "the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England.", and I have heard the same from various other sources, so I still believe that to be true. Could you cite something that states otherwise? Also, I didn't mean to say that pneumonic and septicemic plague were different kinds of bubonic plague, that was a typo on my part.67.85.219.4 (talk) 22:19, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

If you look back at the Ring a Ring o' Roses article, you may notice that while it discusses the plague explanation, it doesn't actually endorse it. The "Meaning" section starts with "The origins and meanings of the game have long been unknown and subject to speculation. Folklore scholars, however, regard the Great Plague explanation that has been the most common since the mid-20th century as baseless." There is also a short sub-section titled "Counterarguments" that explains the conflict reasonably well. If you're interested in reading more, here is a good discussion of the evidence (or lack thereof).--Shmarrighan (talk) 07:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Human flea?

The article says There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death was in large part spread by human fleas – which cause pneumonic plague. But the "human flea" article says that the species originated in South America, and probably became cosmopolitan only "after the 18th century". Presumably a different species of flea commonly fed on humans in Afro-eurasia before the Columbian exchange? --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

It was rat fleas. I have corrected. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:19, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Other rodents?

I see in the current article: "...likely carried by fleas living on the black rats..." which is certainly the conventional wisdom. However I do remember reading several years ago that some historians felt the rats had gotten a bad rap, that the fleas had actually been carried by "Asian gerbils". I had never heard about this, and still know nothing about it... but it might be interesting if the article had more coverage of the evidence we have for specific forms of transmission, and for alternative theories, if there are serious historians who believe in them.

This is covered in note e. The theory is that plague is endemic in gerbil fleas in Central Asia. When the gerbil population booms and crashes the fleas move to alternative hosts, including rats. The disease is then carried by the rats to Europe. There are no gerbils in Europe. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2021

142.154.47.142 (talk) 06:17, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

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 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — LauritzT (talk) 08:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

A sentence in the introduction is self-contradictory

"There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death was in large part spread by fleas – which cause pneumonic plague –" - That would be the bubonic form, not the pneumonic form, right? --Svennik (talk) 11:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I have corrected the error. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:25, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

25 million deaths

According to the research I have done online the Black Death killed 25 million people. The number provided is a little to high from what I see on the internet from reputable sites.

Could some fix this

It is true that the sources cited for death figures are poor and we need better ones, but it is very unlikely that they would give a figure as low as 25 million. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

25 million deaths is thought to of died in Europe alone TaipingRebellion1850 (talk) 02:15, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

“According to the research I have done online” Yeah thats not how wikipedia works--2601:3C5:8200:97E0:9D56:1D0A:24D2:94C4 (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The truth is that scientists just don't know how many people died from a relative poorly documented disease from almost 700 years ago. Wikifan153 (talk) 22:22, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Source

“Most likely from rats on Genoese slave ships is an absurd assertion and there is zero scholarly assertion on this point which seems inflammatory. Salvatoredelcaverno (talk) 03:31, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Scholarly consensus, sorry Salvatoredelcaverno (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

This phrase needs to be removed Salvatoredelcaverno (talk) 04:20, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Pollen study

This would be a good visual addition, but I guess it would be subject to copyright? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01652-4/figures/6 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatjpw (talk • contribs) 18:15, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

This source is now suitable for citing now that it has been published in nature ecology & evolution, although I think that the newspaper report should be removed as it is not a reliable source. I do not however think that the edit accurately summarises the source:"However, a 2022 pollen study found "uninterrupted agricultural growth in Central and Eastern Europe, and several regions of Western Europe," indicating the impact of this particular plague, one of many, may have been exaggerated by later historians." The source is about variability and nowhere, and so far as I can see does not mention mentions exggeration. To avoid another edit war I suggest wording for discussion: "A study published in 2022 of pollen samples across Europe between 1250 and 1450 was used to estimate changes in agricultural output before and after the Black Death. The authors found great variability in different regions, with evidence for high mortality in areas of Scandinavia, France, western Germany, Greece and central Italy, but uninterrupted agricultural growth in central and eastern Europe, Iberia and Ireland." Dudley Miles (talk) 19:53, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Dudley Miles, for making sure that the Wikipedia article accurately represented the research paper. I have also removed the NYT summary as it is redundant to the original paper. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Al-Andalus

Well, this should have been one of the participants coming to the talk page - but instead of reverting over and over, why not discuss on the talk page. Al-Andalus is not strictly speaking "modern day Spain" as Al-Andalus included also much of modern day Portugal. Perhaps "Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula" might work best? Ealdgyth (talk) 14:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for raising the point here, your suggestion sounds like a sensible approach. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Goodness, I can't say I would ever expect someone to start an edit war over this. Well, my position is the same as it was when I unwittingly touched this all off: I simply don't see why further clarification is necessary. We could put in something clumsy but accurate, but why? There are wikilinks on both Almería and al-Andalus, for anyone who wants more information, and we don't have similar clarifications like "Constantinople (in modern-day Turkey)" or "Delhi Sultanate (modern-day India)". -- asilvering (talk) 18:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Constantinople and Delhi are different as almost most readers will know where they are, but many readers of an article on the Black Death will not be familiar with Al-Andalus. I support Ealdgyth's suggestion although I would prefer "Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula". Dudley Miles (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

(ec) Well, yes, we very often do, and rightly so. Of course the Delhi Sultanate at times included most of modern Pakistan & Bangladesh, & bits of Nepal, which shows why such explanations are often useful. One would be better using a subcontinental approach. Johnbod (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm talking about this article - if you want to add similar descriptions to every place listed in it, be my guest I guess, but that's going to get unruly very quickly. For what it's worth, if the place name needs explaining, I think a much better option would be to omit Al-Andalus entirely - "Almería (in modern-day Spain)" is not misleading or incorrect, and if we're presuming that readers don't know what Al-Andalus is and won't click a wikilink to find out, there's no point in mentioning it in the first place. -- asilvering (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikilinks are useful for more information, but articles should include enough information to understand the subject as a standalone piece of writing. Providing some geographic context for where Al-Andalus is reasonable and means we're less likely to lose a reader because they have to click away to orient themselves. An extra three or four words isn't especially unwieldy. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Elsewhere in the article Spain is used without qualification, including in two quotes, so it would be odd to qualify it here. I think "Almeria in Spain" would be fine. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Another revert

I reverted an edit by Qiushufang at [2] with the comment that it does not refect the source. The editor re-reverted asking which part does not reflect the source. The edit says "The Chinese physician Sun Simo who died in 610 mentioned a "malignant bubo" and plague that was common in Lingnan (Guangzhou). Ole Jørgen Benedictow believes that this indicates it was the Plague of Justinian which made its way east." The source says his name was Sun Szu-mo who died in 652. It also says the First Plague Pandemic, not the Plague of Justinian. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Sun Szu-mo and Sun Simo are the same person but different transliterations. One is wades-giles which is older, and the other is pinyin, which is the modern version used. Wades giles is not found anywhere except in academia by older scholars. The Plague of Justinian is the first outbreak of the First Plague Pandemic. Qiushufang (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You should follow the source on the name as you cannot expect readers to know about transliterations. You also have a different date of death. More important is saying Plague of Justinian, which is an error because you are wrongly saying the source specified which outbreak of the First Pandemic he is referring to. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:27, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You are right on the date and outbreak, which I have corrected. On the transliteration, I simply opted for what Wikipedia itself uses in the links, especially for premodern Chinese subjects, which are all in pinyin format regardless of source. For example, Beijing is not Peking or Peiching. Qiushufang (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2022 (UTC)