There were no prayers that could keep the black death at bay

Kaffa (AKA Caffa) was a major trading port on the north shore of the Black Sea in the region of Crimea. When the Mongols conquered the region in the 1230’s the city came under their rule. It became part of the Golden Horde, a large area of Mongol conquered land that contained much of Russia, central Asia and Eastern Europe.

The Mongol leaders allowed a group of traders from Genoa Italy to control the seaport. This wasn’t done out of the goodness of their hearts, because the Mongols would earn a whole lot of money from this arrangement. This overrode the fact that the Mongols were Muslim and the Italians were Christian. Money was worth more than religion, at least for a while.

In 1343 at the nearby town of Tana some Italians and Muslims got into a fight and a Muslim man died in the scuffle. The Italians fled the town and asked for sanctuary in Kaffa because they knew that they would be killed by the Mongols if they had stayed behind. Kaffa allowed them to hide out, and when the Mongol leader, Jani Beg, asked the city to hand over the men the city refused, Jani Beg then started a siege of the city. Because of being a port Kaffa received supplies and Italian soldiers and were easily able to fight off the Mongols. Jani Beg withdrew his troops, but he left in anger.

Map of how the black death plague spread through Europe and the Middle East.

A new disease came out of central Asia in 1331 and started to spread like wildfire through China and then southern Russia travelling along the Silk Road trading routes. Finally, it entered Crimea. In 1345 Jani Beg started to siege Kaffa yet again, but this time his soldiers started dying of a strange disease,. Day by day his soldiers would break out in boils that would weep puss and blood, then quickly they would die in agony. With his forces quickly diminishing Jani Beg ordered that the corpses be put in catapults and thrown into Kaffa.

This became the first instance of biological warfare ever used in history. The citizens of Kaffa would gather the infected bodies and throw them into the sea, however there was no escaping this plague and people started to die. Some think the plague entered from the fleas on the corpses while others think the fleas entered the city upon rats. Whatever the reason this event would have repercussions that would be felt all over Europe.

In 1347 the Italians finally left Kaffa on 12 ships. In October of 1347 they landed in the Sicilian port of Messina and from there the plague spread throughout Europe and killed over 20 million people.. You won’t find the port of Kaffa on a modern map because Russia took over Crimea in 1783, and renamed the city Feodosiya in 1802. Even today there are skirmishes still happening in the area due to the country of Ukraine breaking off from the U.S.S.R, and Russia wanting the land back. Hopefully, this time, the black death plague won’t make an appearance.