title: The Black Death, tragedy, and transformation
abstract: The Black Death – which circumnavigated Europe, from the Crimea toMessina, through western Europe to Scandinavia, and eventually to Moscow,in less than five years – was Europe’s worst demographic calamity. Horrors such as the famine of 1315 to 1317, Europe’s most severe, claimed no more than 10 percent of certain populations but struck only northern Europe. Even the world wars of the twentieth century were minor in comparison, scything little more than 3 percent of Europe’s population. Estimates