However, the Y. pestis genotype identified in our skeletons from Bergen op Zoom differed from those found in Hereford and Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, implying that Bergen op Zoom (and possibly other parts of the southern Netherlands) was not directly infected from England or France in AD 1349.
This is the crucial evidence for the second path.
Figure 1 The spread of the Black Death in northern Europe, 1346–1351.
This means there is already a basic route out there. My final GIS map will be used to see if this basic picture is right or if the newer theories about human parasites make a different visual pattern.
The following year the Black Death had the entire country in its grip according to contemporary chronicles, annals, and anniversary of deaths registers.
This validates my plan to use chronicles and death registers as the primary source of my timeline data.
Rats and fleas and thus the contagion itself could also be spread by transport going in the opposite direction, carrying residues of grain and grain-based provisions that would feed the carriers of the disease on their journey.
This is a deeper detail for my map. I shouldn't only map where things were exported, but also mention/point out the return trips of ships, as they could have also carried the disease.
trade in heavy goods like timber, cloth, artefacts in limestone and lead, and not least grain over long distances rapidly gained impetus from the middle of the 12th century.
This is why my project to map the plague against trade routes makes sense. The article proves that a major trade network was already in place to carry the disease.
It progressed up through the Bristol Channel to Bristol before advancing along the Severn to Gloucester.
This confirms that rivers and major travel routes were the most important paths, which I can trace when I build the map.
it struck Norway on two fronts: in Oslo, by then the largest town in the southern part of the country,40 and Bergen on the west coast.41 From these two points the infection spread inland along main roads and pilgrim routes, both south of the Oslo fjord and all the way up north to the Archdiocese of Nidaros, where the archbishop himself succumbed in 1349.42From Norway the plague must have been transmitted to Denmark, where, in the autumn of 1349, it erupted in the port of Halmstad
Oslo, Bergen, Norway and Halmstad, Denmark. Date: 1349. This gives me key points for mapping the very northern part of Europe.
From Grimsby and Hull, both situated at the entrance to the Humber, the epidemic advanced inland along the rivers of Trent and Ouse until it eventually reached the cathedral city of York in May 1349.
Route Data: York, England. Date: May 1349. This is a very specific route (along the rivers).
the Black Death arrived in Dalkey and Drogheda, two small towns situated in the English colony known as the Pale on the east coast of Ireland, in August 1348.
Third Data Point: Dalkey and Drogheda, Ireland. Date: August 1348. This helps trace the route over the sea.
the infection spread along the Thames from east to west to reach London towards the end of 1348.
Second Data Point: London, England. Date: End of 1348. This is important for showing how the disease followed a river.
he Black Death spread from France in the summer of 1348 to the port of Weymouth on the southern coast of England
First Data Point: Weymouth, England. Date: Summer 1348.