Medieval volcanoes may have ignited the Black Death, new research suggests

The Black Death’s horrifying spread across the 14th century has long been linked to rats, fleas and the webs of global trade that ferried disease between continents. But historians and climate scientists now say the devastating pandemic may have been set in motion by a force far more dramatic: volcanic eruptions.

A new study published in Communications Earth & Environment by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) argues that one or several major eruptions around 1345 likely triggered a series of environmental shocks that helped pave the way for the bubonic plague. The pandemic went on to kill between 30 and 50 per cent of people across Africa, Central Asia and Europe.

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