The Plague of Justinian

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the plague that broke out in Constantinople 541AD, in the reign of Emperor Justinian. According to the historian Procopius, writing in Byzantium at the time, this was a plague by which the whole human race came near to being destroyed, embracing the whole world, and blighting the lives of all mankind. The bacterium behind the Black Death has since been found on human remains from that time, and the symptoms described were the same, and evidence of this plague has since been traced around the Mediterranean and from Syria to Britain and Ireland. The question of how devastating it truly was, though, is yet to be resolved. With John Haldon Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies Emeritus at Princeton University Rebecca Flemming Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge And Greg Woolf Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:04.8	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:07.3	There's a reading list to go with it on our website,
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0:12.8	at BBC In Our Time.
0:14.7	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:16.8	Hello, in 541 AD in the reign of Justinian,
0:20.0	there was a plague by which the whole human race
0:22.6	came near to being destroyed, embracing the whole world
0:25.8	and blighting the lives of all mankind.
0:28.5	That was the claim of the historian Procopius,
0:30.9	writing in Byzantium at the time,
0:33.2	and evidence of this plague has since been traced
0:35.6	around the Mediterranean from Syria to Britain.
0:38.8	Yes, Procopius exaggerated, but the bacterium behind the black
0:43.0	death in the 14th century has since been found
0:45.4	on human remains from this time, and the symptoms of the same,
0:49.4	and the question of how devastating it truly was
0:52.2	is yet to be resolved.
0:54.0	We'd be to discuss the plague of Justinian R.
0:56.4	John Haldon, Professor of Byzantine history
0:58.6	and Hellenic studies at Princeton University,
	...

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