Innocent VI

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Christ as Ruler, with the Apostles and Evangelists (represented by the beasts). The female figures are believed to be either Santa Pudenziana and Santa Praxedes or symbols of the Jewish and Gentile churches. Mosaic in the apse of Santa Pudenziana, Rome,A

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Innocent VI

Q: How many people died during the Black Death?

It is not known for certain how many people died during the Black Death. About 25 million people are estimated to have died in Europe from the plague between 1347 and 1351.

Q: What caused the Black Death?

The Black Death is believed to have been the result of plague , an infectious fever caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis . The disease was likely transmitted from rodents to humans by the bite of infected fleas.

Q: Where did the Black Death originate?

The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350.

Q: What were the symptoms of the Black Death?

Yersinia causes three types of plague in humans: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Although there is DNA evidence that Yersinia was present in victims of the Black Death, it is uncertain which form the majority of the infection took. It is likely that all three played some role in the pandemic. Bubonic plague causes fever, fatigue, shivering, vomiting, headaches, giddiness, intolerance to light, pain in the back and limbs, sleeplessness, apathy, and delirium. It also causes buboes: one or more of the lymph nodes become tender and swollen, usually in the groin or armpits. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and causes symptoms similar to those of severe pneumonia: fever, weakness, and shortness of breath. Fluid fills the lungs and can cause death if untreated. Other symptoms may include insomnia, stupor, a staggering gait, speech disorder, and loss of memory. Septicemic plague is an infection of the blood. Its symptoms include fatigue, fever, and internal bleeding.

Q: How did the Black Death affect Europe?

The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many laborers died, which devastated families through lost means of survival and caused personal suffering; landowners who used laborers as tenant farmers were also affected. The labor shortage caused landowners to substitute wages or money rents in place of labor services in an effort to keep their tenants, which benefited those surviving tenants. Wages for artisans and other workers also increased. Art in the wake of the Black Death became more preoccupied with mortality and the afterlife. Antisemitism greatly intensified throughout Europe, as Jews were blamed for the spread of the Black Death, and many Jews were killed by mobs or burned at the stake en masse.

Q: What are other names for the Black Death?

The Black Death has also been called the Great Mortality, a term derived from medieval chronicles’ use of magna mortalitas . This term, along with magna pestilencia (“great pestilence”), was used in the Middle Ages to refer to what we know today as the Black Death as well as to other outbreaks of disease. “Black Plague” is also sometimes used to refer to the Black Death, though it is rarely used in scholarly studies.

pope

Also known as: Étienne Aubert

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Original name:: Étienne Aubert

Died:: Sept. 12, 1362, Avignon, Provence

Title / Office:: pope (1352-1362)

Role In:: Avignon papacy

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Innocent VI (born, Monts, Fr.—died Sept. 12, 1362, Avignon, Provence) was the pope from 1352 to 1362.

A professor of civil law at Toulouse, Fr., Innocent VI took holy orders and was appointed to the French bishoprics of Noyon (1338) and Clermont (1340). A cardinal priest in 1342, he was made cardinal bishop of Ostia, Papal States, in 1352 by Pope Clement VI, whom he succeeded on Dec. 18, 1352. As pope, Innocent promoted clerical and monastic reform, prohibited the granting of innumerable benefices to one recipient, urged prelates to reside in their sees, and reformed the papal Curia at Avignon, where the papacy resided from 1309 to 1377. In August 1352 he released the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo, who had been excommunicated by Clement for heresy because of his rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire and imprisoned by Archbishop Ernest of Prague. Innocent used Rienzo in 1353 to assist Cardinal Albornoz, vicar general of the Papal States, in restoring papal power at Rome, hoping to make possible a return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. Rienzo, however, was killed on Oct. 8, 1354, in a Roman riot, and Innocent died before he could return to Rome.

Innocent maintained Clement’s alliance with King Charles IV of Bohemia, whom he caused to be crowned emperor at Rome in 1355. The following year Charles published the Golden Bull, excluding papal intervention in the election of the German ruler, but Innocent raised no objection. In 1360 he arranged the Treaty of Brétigny between England and France, which ended the first phase of the Hundred Years’ War. The last years of his pontificate were occupied with preparations for a crusade and with negotiations for the reunion of the Roman and Eastern churches.

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Black Death

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Know the investigations of researchers using genomic information to reconstruct the cause and transmission routes of the bubonic plague and the Black Death

second pandemic of the Black Death in Europe

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Black Death Key Facts

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Black Death Causes and Effects

Black Death

pandemic, medieval Europe [1347–1351]

Also known as: Great Mortality

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Last Updated: Jul 17, 2025 • Article History

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Date:: 1347 - 1351

Location:: Europe

Context:: pandemic

On the Web:: Historic UK - The Black Death (July 11, 2025)

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How many people died during the Black Death?

What caused the Black Death?

Where did the Black Death originate?

What were the symptoms of the Black Death?

How did the Black Death affect Europe?

What are other names for the Black Death?

News •

Tower of London dig unveils possible links to Black Death • July 17, 2025, 5:14 AM ET (The Telegraph)

Black Death, pandemic that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. It is estimated that 25 million people died.

The Black Death is widely believed to have been the result of plague, caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Modern genetic analyses indicate that the strain of Y. pestis introduced during the Black Death is ancestral to all extant circulating Y. pestis strains known to cause disease in humans. Hence, the origin of modern plague epidemics lies in the medieval period. Other scientific evidence has indicated that the Black Death may have been viral in origin.