Re: Plague of Justinian 541CE
- From: J A <jantero159@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:03:07 -0800 (PST)
On Jan 29, 8:58 pm, bernardz <berna...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 30, 11:52 am, J A <jantero...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 29, 3:48 pm, Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:37:18 +1100,bernardZ<Berna...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In article <00isp3dcifokcm951d5dl4ubukc40e0...@xxxxxxx>,
eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx says...
On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:03:50 +1100,bernardZ<Berna...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Do you agree or disagree?
1) A maximum figure of 25 million dead for the Plague of Justinian is
considered a fairly reasonable estimate. A total European population
loss of 50 to 60 percent between 541 and 700 is credible.
2) Justinian's plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at the critical
point when it could have credibly rebuilt the Western Roman Empire!
3) The Eastern Roman Empire and Persia were so weakened that it allowed
the rise of the Arabs who were coming out of a region not badly effected
by the plague. Similarly the rise of the Franks.
For some details please read here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian
The Plague of Justinian appears to be associated with two world-wide
climate down-turn events. It is unlikely that any part of the world
was completely unaffected.
Constantinople probably suffered more than most because it had so many
people crammed together in the one place with all the hygiene problems
that this implies.
Generally the more developed the civilization the more affected. This
might help to explain the rise of the Franks and the Arabs.
The Roman Empire was already very shaky (rotten?) and it did not need
much of a push to make it fall over. It may have been that several
years of bad crops (famine?), disease, and the functional collapse of
the capital city were enough to allow surrounding survivors to give
the Roman Empire the coup de grace.
Indeed Empire building costs money and people.
For more information about the plague aspects I recommend reading "New
Light on the Black Death" by Mike Bail lie. British Amazon has it at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Light-Black-Death-Connection/dp/075243598...
orhttp://tinyurl.com/28yadh
The book is mainly about the 14th century plague but does contain some
interesting information about the Plague of Justin as well. Baillie
thinks there is good evidence that the plagues were associated with
comets.
I doubt that they were caused by comets (that is just my view for all it
is worth).
Read the book and you may change your mind.
I won't say that Baillie is able to prove his case beyond all possible
doubt - there just isn't enough solid evidence. But he does have a
prima facie case. There are global climate down turns derived from
tree rings, marked atmospheric haze reported in both Europe and China,
absence in ice cores of the acid traces typical of volcanoes, peculiar
things happening to the C12/C14 calibration curve at the dates of the
apparent down turn and reports of comets e.g. Roger of Wendover
writing:
I don't if comets had anything to do with it,
I have not read the book but I suspect that it is based on the Hoyle's
theory, that the comets have germs in them.
Germs on steriods with heating blankets...
It is not mainstream but
it is not considered crackpot theory as quite a few eminent people eg
Mike Bail, do accept it.
but relatively slight
climate changes that resulted in migrations in the central asian
landmass of small animals (and the fleas they carreid), and humans,
aka barbarians, toward Europe and China, are likely explanations for
the barbarian waves and plagues.
I agree with this although I would say carts and ships are more
important then humans. Sick humans with plague die quickly unlike rats
carried on ships and wagons
The idea isn't that the flea ridden rats go all the way from their
previously habitibal areas, to Europe, neccessarily. It's that they
start moving to places they previously haven't been, some of them
being ports, and come into contact with new populations of animals
etc.
Which brings you to the issue of rat population. If the rat population
drops dramatically which does not take much climate change to occur
the fleas have to look for new hosts so they bite humans so spreading
diseases from the rats to humans. Most of these diseases are harmless
but sometimes these rat diseases since humans are not used to them
causes havoc.
"In the year of grace 541, there appeared a comet in Gaul, so vast
that the whole sky seemed on fire. In the same year there dropped
real blood from the clouds ... and a dreadful mortality ensued."
As far as the "real blood" is concerned, seehttp://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=986C6...
or http://tinyurl.com/26omnu
Alsohttp://tinyurl.com/ywevvu
It does seem as though Baillie has established a case to answer.
Eric Stevens- Hide quoted text -
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