the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

impious barbarians, has been destroyed and has become empty of
population,
for all Christians have been slain by them and all houses and settlements
with
their churches have been devastated by them in the whole East, completely
crushed and reduced to nothing." 365
This bleak description of the Byzantine Empire would find its echo in the lament
of Manuel Paleologus while on campaign for Bayezid in 1391:
Certainly the Romans had a name for the small plain where we are now
when they lived and ruled here... There are many cities here, but they lack
what constitutes the true splendour of a city, that is human beings. Most
now lie in ruins... not even the names have survived.
Both in the 11th and the 14th century, Turkish conquest was accompanied
by the outbreak of a very serious epidemic that ravaged Constantinople, if the
Syriac chronicler Gregory Abû'l-Farac (Bar Hebraeus) 366 (199:328) is to be
believed, who records for 1077/8 that the Byzantine strategus Nicephorus
Botaniates besieged Constantinople for four months. The siege resulted in
shortages with sharp increases in food prices. The shortages were followed by a
plague 367 that must have mirrored the Justinian plague in magnitude if the
testimony of an eyewitness is to be believed 368 , who claimed to have earned 160
000 obolus (one obolus for each corpse) during four months, for having
transported the plague victims' bodies for their 'burial' 369 . This would bring the
365 Vasiliev (1952: 355) who quotes this paragraph from the work Anonumon Synopsis Chronikon
Sathas, Bibliotheca Graeca Medii Aevi, VII, 169. While describing the impact of the incursions of
the Seljuks into Byzantine territory, Vasiliev omits to give any information on the devastating
plague epidemic that was rampant in the empire in 1077-78.
366 (199:328)
367 Although the translator, Doğrul (1999:328) uses the word 'veba' we cannot be sure that the
epidemic was the same disease that caused the Justinian plague and the Black Death.
368 Bar Hebraeus himself was disinclined to believe the testimony of the man. The numbers do
indeed seem inflated, for if the man personally carried away the deceased, he would have had to
transport more than thousand bodies daily in order to earn the money he claimed. Conceivably, he
might have coordinated a crew of grave 'diggers'.
369 After the burial places (grave yard) of the church was filled, the man opened the door of the
church and threw the bodies into the adjacent sea.
97