<P> In the Late Middle Ages ( 1340 -- 1400 ) Europe experienced the most deadly disease outbreak in history when the Black Death , the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague , hit in 1347 , killing a third of the human population . Some historians believe that society subsequently became more violent as the mass mortality rate cheapened life and thus increased warfare , crime , popular revolt , waves of flagellants , and persecution . The Black Death originated in Central Asia and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries . Arab historians Ibn Al - Wardni and Almaqrizi believed the Black Death originated in Mongolia . Chinese records also showed a huge outbreak in Mongolia in the early 1330s . Research published in 2002 suggests that it began in early 1346 in the steppe region , where a plague reservoir stretches from the northwestern shore of the Caspian Sea into southern Russia . The Mongols had cut off the trade route , the Silk Road , between China and Europe which halted the spread of the Black Death from eastern Russia to Western Europe . The epidemic began with an attack that Mongols launched on the Italian merchants ' last trading station in the region , Caffa in the Crimea . In late 1346 , plague broke out among the besiegers and from them penetrated into the town . When spring arrived , the Italian merchants fled on their ships , unknowingly carrying the Black Death . Carried by the fleas on rats , the plague initially spread to humans near the Black Sea and then outwards to the rest of Europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another . </P>
<P> In the Late Middle Ages ( 1340 -- 1400 ) Europe experienced the most deadly disease outbreak in history when the Black Death , the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague , hit in 1347 , killing a third of the human population . Some historians believe that society subsequently became more violent as the mass mortality rate cheapened life and thus increased warfare , crime , popular revolt , waves of flagellants , and persecution . The Black Death originated in Central Asia and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries . Arab historians Ibn Al - Wardni and Almaqrizi believed the Black Death originated in Mongolia . Chinese records also showed a huge outbreak in Mongolia in the early 1330s . Research published in 2002 suggests that it began in early 1346 in the steppe region , where a plague reservoir stretches from the northwestern shore of the Caspian Sea into southern Russia . The Mongols had cut off the trade route , the Silk Road , between China and Europe which halted the spread of the Black Death from eastern Russia to Western Europe . The epidemic began with an attack that Mongols launched on the Italian merchants ' last trading station in the region , Caffa in the Crimea . In late 1346 , plague broke out among the besiegers and from them penetrated into the town . When spring arrived , the Italian merchants fled on their ships , unknowingly carrying the Black Death . Carried by the fleas on rats , the plague initially spread to humans near the Black Sea and then outwards to the rest of Europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another . </P>
what was the host animal of the black plague
what was the host animal of the black plague
the fleas on rats
the fleas on rats