The Silk Road Carried Silk, and the Plague That Killed Nearly Half of Europeans
Starting in 1346, the Black Death killed two thirds of Londoners and a large majority of Italians, and it rode trade routes from the East.
CrashCourse · The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History #9The Silk Road was not one paved highway. It was a network of overland and sea routes linking China to Central Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and beyond, with goods reaching Rome by the Mediterranean and Central Asian goods traveling as far as Japan and Java.
Very few traders traveled the whole distance. Instead, merchants moved back and forth between neighboring towns, selling silk and other goods to the next trader, who carried them a little farther and marked up the price. For a very long time, all that silk came from only one place, China.
People and goods were not the only things moving town by town. Germs moved that way too. When distant populations that had rarely mixed were linked by trade, measles and smallpox traveled the routes, and so did bubonic plague.
Plague reached western lands from eastern ones three times, in 534, in 750, and then in 1346 with by far the worst toll. Historians describe that last arrival, known as the Black Death, as the largest drop in population in human history. In four years, nearly half of Europeans died. In Italy, a large majority died, and in London two thirds died.
It quite possibly would never have arrived without that web of trade. People enduring the epidemic in London likely did not connect their suffering to distant trade routes, yet those routes helped make it possible.
That is the other side of connection. The network touched far more lives than just wealthy buyers of silk, much as worldwide trade today creates both benefits and risks for ordinary people.
Questions people ask
What causes bubonic plague?
A bacterium called Yersinia pestis causes plague, and it usually spreads through the bites of infected fleas that live on rodents such as rats. People can also catch pneumonic plague through cough droplets when the infection reaches the lungs. Antibiotics can treat it today if it is caught early.
Why was the Black Death so deadly in Europe?
Most Europeans had no prior exposure and therefore little immunity to that strain, while crowded housing, poor sanitation, and lots of rats helped fleas spread it quickly. Malnutrition and other illnesses made people more vulnerable, and medieval medicine had no effective treatment. Once it reached ports and towns, constant trade and travel carried it from place to place.
Did silk itself carry the plague?
No, silk cloth did not spread plague in any meaningful way. The bacteria travel mainly in infected fleas, rodents, and people, who moved along the same caravan routes and crowded rest stops as the merchandise. Silk was simply the most famous cargo on a network that also moved living carriers of disease.