Siege of Kaffa and the spread of the Black Death along Mongol trade routes
- Date
- 1346–1347 CE
- Category
- Social & demographic
- Region
- Crimea & the Mediterranean (Black Sea trade)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
The Genoese Black Sea trading colony of Kaffa (modern Feodosia) in Crimea was besieged in the 1340s by Jani Beg, khan of the Golden Horde, amid conflict with the Italian merchants.
According to the chronicler Gabriele de' Mussi, the plague-stricken Mongol army catapulted the corpses of its dead over the walls—an early reported instance of biological warfare, though modern scholars dispute that this was the actual vector. What is clearer is that the bustling, Mongol-secured trade networks linking Inner Asia, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean carried the plague westward: Genoese ships sailing from Kaffa helped introduce the Black Death to the Mediterranean in 1347. The same integrated Eurasian commerce fostered by the Pax Mongolica that had carried silk, silver and ideas now spread pandemic disease with devastating speed. The resulting Black Death killed a large share of Europe's, the Middle East's and parts of Asia's populations, a demographic catastrophe entangled with the very connectivity the Mongol empires had created.
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Empires active in 1346–1347 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Mongol Empire1206 CE – 1368 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Sukhothai Kingdom1238 CE – 1438 CE
Related social & demographic events
- The Black Death sweeps Europe, North Africa and the Middle East1347–1351 CE
- The Columbian Exchange and the demographic collapse of Indigenous AmericaFrom 1493 (16th century)
- Banu Hilal Migration Arabises the Maghrebc. 1050 onward (11th century)
- Rise of Cahokia, the largest city of Mississippian North Americac. 1050 CE
- Zanj Rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate869-883 CE
- Collapse of the Classic Maya lowland city-statesc. 800–900 CE
Further reading
The wider story
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