the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

A possible explanation is that no wild rodent species in Europe is known to form a
permanent reservoir for the plague. In other words, once the chain of human
transmission was broken in Europe, the only way for the disease to reappear was
through import from endemic areas. In time, this became less likely because of the
efforts by the European state to impose quarantine and other protective measures.
By contrast, as demonstrated above, the Ottoman territory was located next to
important plague foci. Through human contact with contaminated animals, the
disease could periodically resurface and then quickly spread to the major urban
centers. When reaching the Middle Eastern ports 199 , maritime trade turned it into a
permanent threat for the European nations.
After the first outbreak of 1347/1348, the unstable political conditions and
internecine strive in the Ottoman territory during the rest of the 14th and the 15th
century offered plenty of opportunity for plague outbreaks to flourish. In the Tarihi
Takvimler, the Nurosmaniye chronicle indicates that the Ottomans could have
been suffering as well from the second plague outbreak of the Black Death in
1361/62. The laconic entry for the year 764 states : "764'de umumi ölüm, vebâ ve
taun." 200 Even without this succinct statement, there can be no doubt that the
Ottomans had again been exposed to the pandemic. Fourteen years after the
epidemic had first struck, Europe as well as the Middle Eastern countries of Syria
and Egypt were once more badly hit. That the whole region had severely suffered
was clear from several sources. The Byzantine Short Chronicles or Brachea
Chronika mentions that the whole of the Byzantine empire was suffering from
plague in the years 1361/1362. 201 . The same chronicle also reports the death of
199
Biraben. Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens. Vol. I,
109.
200
Turan, Tarihi Takvimler, 73.
201
Schreiner, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken, 290.
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