Black Death: The Origin Story

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

History Hit

Myths, Folklore, Mystery, History, Ghosts, Society & Culture, Murder, Ufos, True Crime, Paranormal, Supernatural, Serial Killers

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The myth goes thus: the Black Death reached Christendom at the Siege of Caffa when Mongols catapulted diseased bodies over the walls. Where did we get this story? What actually happened at Caffa? And how did the Black Death really enter Europe?

Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney are joined by Professor Hannah Barker, medieval historian from Arizona State University. She's the author of That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 and "Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain Embargoes and the Early Transmission of the Black Death in the Black Sea, 1346-1347".

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling.
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1:14.6	It's 1346 and the port city of Kaffa in modern-day Crimea is under siege. Inside its walls are Italians, Genoans and Venetians.
1:21.6	For three long years, they've hardly drawn breath,
1:26.6	but watched from their walls as their enemies,
1:29.3	the great Mongol army bombards them again and again. For now, their defences hold.
1:39.3	But beyond the battlements of Kaffa, a new enemy has entered the fray. The Mongol army, the great golden
1:47.4	horde, has become overrun, not by weapons or superior force, but by disease. The sickness has
1:58.2	already killed thousands, with more dying every day.
2:02.6	Each soldier struck down as though pierced with arrows.
2:06.6	Stunned and stupefied by the disaster, the dying Mongols are losing interest in the siege.
2:14.6	But they have one last hand to play before they leave. Gathering their dead,
2:20.3	they load them into catapults and fire them at the city. Rotting corpses rain down,
	...

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