In London, where people lived in side-by-side houses and rats flourished in street-tossed garbage, the plague became an epidemic at lightening speeds. Even people in the countryside were not spared. Hundreds of years would pass before Europe recovered from its total population loss.

A contemporary chronicler observed: “What I am about to say is incredible to hear, and if I and others had not witnessed it with our own eyes, I should not dare believe it (let alone write about it), no matter how trustworthy a person I might have heard it from.”

Take a virtual trip to medieval Europe to discover how people lived and how they coped with the unimaginable tragedy of the Black Death. Learn what it is, and how it spread among fourteenth-century people. Compare what is known today to what was known then.

Examine the bacterium (called Yersinia pestis) which causes the plague, and see how fleas transmit it from rats (and other rodents) to humans. Observe the scientific processes which cause epidemics.

Find out how the pestilence came to be called “bubonic plague.” Learn about the two forms of plague and why “pneumonic plague” is often fatal.

Learn about the breakdown of society and how certain groups of people were blamed, then targeted for reprisals. Observe the Valentine’s Day Massacre (in 1349) when about two thousand Jews were massacred. Discover how the feudal system, then in place, was impacted by the plague and how the rights of peasants were ultimately affected in a positive way.