A
plague pit is the informal term used to refer to
mass graveA mass grave is a grave containing multiple, usually unidentified human corpses. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave...
s in which victims of the
Black DeathThe Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged...
were buried. The term is most often used to describe pits located in
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, but can be applied to any place where
Bubonic plaguePlague is a deadly infectious disease caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis . Plague is a zoonotic, primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas. Plague is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death and devastation it brought...
victims were buried.
Discussion
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A
plague pit is the informal term used to refer to
mass graveA mass grave is a grave containing multiple, usually unidentified human corpses. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave...
s in which victims of the
Black DeathThe Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged...
were buried. The term is most often used to describe pits located in
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
, but can be applied to any place where
Bubonic plaguePlague is a deadly infectious disease caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis . Plague is a zoonotic, primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas. Plague is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death and devastation it brought...
victims were buried.
Origin
The plague which swept across
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
in the 14th century is estimated to have killed between one-third and two-thirds of
Europe's populationMedieval demography is the study of human demography in Europe during the Middle Ages. It is an estimate of the number of people who were alive during the Medieval period, population trends and movements...
. Disposal of the bodies of those who died presented huge problems for the authorities, and eventually the normal patterns of burial and funerary observance broke down, usually during the most severe epidemics.
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