Great Plague

The Great Plague

Date	1347-1351
Location	Audonia, Sarpedon, Levantia
Also known as	The Audonian Plague Vilauristrean Scourge Culloc's Bane
Type	Plague
Cause	bacterium Yersinia pestis
Casualties
est. 75-200 million dead (approx. 10-40% of populations affected)
Burial	Mass graves, pyres
Displaced	20-60 million persons moved significantly in attempts to flee
Convictions	13,654 sailors lynched or blockaded into starvation 18 doctors executed by various states at least 4,000 witches lynched

The Great Plague, also known as the Vilauristrean Scourge or the Audonian Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in the Occidental and Audonian world, peaking in Levantia from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which results in several forms of plague (septicemic, pneumonic, and the most common, bubonic), is believed to have been the cause. The plague created a number of religious, social, and economic upheavals with profound effects on the course of history. The Great Plague is thought to have originated in the dry plains of central Dolong, in Audonia, where it traveled along the Silk Road, reaching the Oduniyyad Caliphate by 1336. From there, it was most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that traveled on all Caliphal and Vilauristre Conference merchant ships, spreading throughout the Istroyan, Caneten, and Odoneri basins. From there, it spread to the interiors of Levantia and Sarpedon. It resulted in an approximately 20-year cessation of trade on the Sea of Istroya.

Origins

The plague disease, caused by Yersinia pestis, is commonly present in populations of fleas carried by ground rodents, including in various areas of central Punth. Due to climate change in Punth, rodents began to flee the dried-out grasslands to more populated areas, spreading the disease. Audonian Christian graves dating to 1338–1339 in Pursat have inscriptions referring to plague and are thought by many epidemiologists to mark the outbreak of the epidemic, from which it could easily have spread to Daxia, Kandara, and Tanhai.

The disease may have travelled along the Silk Road with increased trading technologies and capabilities, particularly in the Kandaran basin. By the mid-1330s, the plague had reached the seaports of Audonia, which since the start of the Crusades, were lousy with Levantine merchants. Plague was reportedly first introduced to Levantia via Burgoignesc traders from the Deric city of Rufus Concordia in 1347. During a protracted siege of the city by the opposing army catapulted infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. The Burgoignesc traders fled, taking the plague by ship into the Vilaristre Conference and the south of Levantia, whence it spread north.

In 1350 it was recorded to have spread to Venceia and from there ravaged Sarpedon.

Impacts

Holy Levantine Empire

The Holy Levantine Empire overall was hit the hardest by the Plague, suffering a loss of over a third of its total population which represented more than a half in some of the modern Deric States. The loss of life included the significant disruption of landowning classes, greatly affecting inheritance and political stability throughout the Empire. The Plague was so severe within the Empire that it is recorded not a single member of the Collegial Electorate in 1340 was still seated in the body by 1355. The turmoil lead to contested successions for decades to come. For some families, the Plague presented a golden opportunity. The relatively minor Jazonid dynasty, Dukes of Eagaria, managed to ascend to Emperor of the Levantines by the end of the century. Although the Jazonids managed to provide order by ruling until 1509, the considerable dynastic turmoil set in motion by the Plague would lead to the opening stages of The Anarchy.

Maritime Dericania

Among the first, hardest, and recurrently hit parts of the Occidental world, Maritime Dericania (modern-day Burgundie) suffered four waves of the plague. At the time the country was part of the Kingdom of Gassavelia, Bishopric of Bonavix, Vilauristre Conference, County of Bergendia, and the Bishopric of Mattiusvale. These disparate fiefdoms were still unparalleled in their connection to each other and their freedom of movement. When the trade cities of the Vilauristre Conference were infected, it was only a matter of time before the remainder would soon fall. The spread of the plague turned many Levantines off to the concepts of international trade. This bankrupted the Vilauristre Conference and they soon lost most of their mainland Levantia holdings. Trade in the Sea of Istroya dried up for around 20 years.

Estimates are that like the Kingdom of Gassavelia, the principalities of Maritime Dericania lost upward of half of their total population, estimated to be around 16 million people. It shook the very fabric of the mercantile coast of the Kingdom of Dericania, plunging its rich cities into poverty, and forcing a massive migration from the urban ports to the countryside. It was not until the Great Confessional War one hundred years later that the port towns returned to anywhere near the numbers that had been prior to the plague.

It saw a resurgence of the Church in society. Fiery sermons on the evil excesses of urban-internationalism rang throughout the land. A call to return to the communal poverty of the times of Christ could be heard from every pulpit. Those who remained in the cities died in greater numbers, seemingly evidence of the Church's teachings. Societally there was a return of strong fiefdoms as peasants returned from the cities. However, they were freemen, and a rise in tenancy occurred in the era. While not ubiquitous it was more prevalent in the southern Kingdom of Dericania than in the central and northern parts of the kingdom.

Gassavelia

The Great Plague is viewed as the pivotal event in the history of the Kingdom of Gassavelia, ending a century-and-a-half golden age which represented the height of power and prestige for the Kingdom. As a consequence of its proximity to Maritime Dericanian trade cities, Gassavelia was among the first places in Levantia for the plague to spread. With the first mass deaths being reported in 1347, by 1351 most modern historians estimate the Kingdom lost approximately half of its total population.

The island of Isti was so devastated that the Kingdom of Gassavelia revoked its claim there and the island fell into the sphere of the also flagging Vilauristre Conference.

Urcea

The impact of the Great Plague was relatively limited in Urcea, the reasons of which have been a matter of contentious scholarly debate. Beginning in the 1940s, a twin-theory consensus emerged: that the ongoing Saint's War had depleted trade to the extent that travel from infected areas to Urcea was non-consequential, and; that Urcea's topographical features (as it was then contained by the Ionian Mountains) prevented fatal exposure to the rest of Levantia. Some demographic historians have posited that the lack of a significant Plague impact in Urcea is the single biggest historical factor for its emergence as the world's most populous country, though this theory is disputed.

Historical evidence suggests that Urcea was not totally isolated from the effect of the Plague, with 21st century scholarship demonstrating a 5-10% loss of population. The Saint's War and casualties of the Great Interregnum have complicated the picture due to the significant loss of life as a result of those conflicts.

Faneria

Northern Faneria and Caergwynn were largely insulated by their cold climates, but the principalities of the Vandarch Basin suffered a secondary wave of plague during its later years which killed roughly ten to fifteen percent of Celts outside of the HLE. The plague directly lead to increased warfare between local Princes over control of peasant populations, which contributed to the formation of the Kingdom of the Fhainn fifty years later.

Kiravia

Coscivian sailors learned to fear the plague, and it devastated trade between Coscivian and Levantine civilizations for nearly a century after the beginning of the plague's recognition by Coscivian cultures. However, the Plague has a slower and less deadly spread across Kiravia due to both the climate and incidental use of primitive flea-killing measures intended to mitigate the impact of lice. Its impact was significantly greater in South Kirav and the Baylands due to their higher population density and warmer climate.

Legacy

Social

The Great Plague resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th-century Maritime Dericania that, when taken with other factors, led to the Dericanian Renaissance. Maritime Dericania was particularly badly hit by the pandemic, and the resulting familiarity with death may have caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife. It has also been argued that the Great Plague prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art. As a result of the drastic reduction in the populace, the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer the increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most favorable position economically, many leaving the coastal cities where the plague was most rampant and returning to the countryside. Prior to the Great Plague, the Holy Levantine Empire was considered a feudalistic society, composed of fiefs and city-states frequently managed by the Catholic Church. The pandemic completely restructured both religion and political forces; survivors began to turn to other forms of spirituality and the power dynamics of the fiefs and city-states crumbled. The survivors of the pandemic found not only that the prices of food were lower but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited property from their dead relatives, and this probably contributed to the destabilization of feudalism. The interior of the Kingdom of Dericania villainized the urban-globalist trading states of Maritime Dericania, setting in motion the concept that would eventually become the Two Derics and the Fraternal Wars in the late modern period.