John VI Cantacuzenos

The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire had been the center of a great plague outbreak in the sixth century. The Byzantines lived astride the busy trading routes between Asia and Europe, and thus fell easy victim to frequent visitations of the plague, which had its origins in China and the plains and deserts of central Asia. According to one ancient historian, three hundred thousand people died in the capital city of Constantinople during a plague outbreak in 716–717; the Byzantine emperor Constantinos Copronymos died of the same illness in 775.

After abdicating his throne in 1355, the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenos wrote a history of his realm, in which the following extract describes the plague as it struck the eastern empire in 1347. The emperor begins by describing the death of his own son Andronikos from the Black...