Universal Encyclopedia
What was the Black Death?
It arrived on trading ships in 1347 and killed a third of Europe. The plague was a catastrophe — and, perversely, the great liberator of the medieval worker.
Last updated: October 2026
No war, no invasion, no revolution in this series killed more people than a bacterium the size of a speck of dust. The Black Death did not just empty cities; it emptied the Middle Ages of their logic.