The Black Death (1348-9)

1348-1349

The Black Death reached Britain in 1348, killing about one-third of the population. Ideas about what caused the Black Death and how it could be treated tell us a lot about how people Late Medieval England thought about illness and disease.

Most historians today think this disease was bubonic plague, carried by fleas living on black rats, which brought the disease to different countries on trading ships. Bubonic plague is passed to humans when an infected flea bites them ant the disease enters their blood.