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A global outbreak of bubonic plague that originated in China in 1334, arrived in Europe in 1347.

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What is plague?

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The Silk Road Becomes a Network for Infection

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The Silk Road Becomes a Network for Infection

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Starting in China, it spread through central Asia and northern India following the established trading route known as the Silk ROad. The plague reached Europe in Sicily in 1347. Within 5 years, it had spread to the entire continent, moving onto Russia and the Middle East. It claimed 25 millions lives in its first wave.

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The Strain of Y. pestis emerges in Monoglia, according to John Kelly's account in "The Great Mortality." It is possibly passes to humans by a tarabagan, a type of marmot.

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Here the plague kills half the population and moves to Messina. Fleeing residents then spread it to mainland Italy, where 1/3 of the population is dead by the following summer.

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Black Death reaches London, Scotland and Beyond...
Eventually killing more than 100,000 people at this point. All while learning about a new strain of the virus and still dealing with the first strain.

Although the virus stuck around for nearly 800 years.

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If an infected wild rodent strays near human habitations and then shares its fleas with rats living around the settlement, Yersinia can spread from rodent to rat, and from rat to man.
The rat is just an intermediary and is not a reservoir of bubonic plague: its role is to die and then pass on the infection. A number of dead rats will usually be found during an outbreak of bubonic plague in humans: in a small village perhaps just a few; in a large South African township perhaps many barrow loads.

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Before 1347, bubonic plague had been grumbling along for centuries in Asia with occasional severe epidemics.
But from the mid-19th century the disease gathered momentum and erupted in Canton and Hong Kong in 1894, Calcutta in 1895, and Bombay in 1896 and the pandemic of the 20th century had begun. Steamships carried infected rats and fleas from the infested warehouses of the Chinese ports to many of the warmer parts of the world, wherever suitable rodent hosts could be found.
But endemic bubonic plague never became established in Europe, despite numerous introductions in the 20th century.

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The incubation period is typically 2 to 6 days after exposure and the characteristic symptom is the bubo. Typically the onset is sudden with chills and rigors and a rise of temperature to 38.8°C–39.4°C.
The patient has a severe, splitting headache and often pains in the limbs, the back, and abdomen. They become confused, restless, irritable or apathetic, their speech slurred, and they may vomit. Within a day or 2 the person is prostrate with all the symptoms of shock.
Most patients die between the 3rd and 6th day: if they are alive on the 7th day they may struggle through to recovery.

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The Plague's spread significantly begins to fade out, thanks to quarantine efforts.
Causing the death of 25-50 million people, leading to a massacres of 210 Jewish communities.
All total;, Europe had lost about 50% of its population.

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Public Health Measures - The Invention of Quarantine 

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Public Health Measures - The Invention of Quarantine 

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Even in the 14th century the health authorities in northern Italy had established the importance of a 40 day quarantine period, which became the gold standard for continental Europe for the next 300 years.
The 40 day quarantine was not adopted in England until the 16th century and even then it was changed to 30 days only to find that this was completely ineffective, whereupon this regulation was speedily rescinded.