Template:1350-07-25-Erfurt2

1350, July 25 – 1351, February 2 VN: 12.000

Arrival of the Black Death in Erfurt and Thuringia, great mortality of 12.000 people. Victims are buried, according to doctors' advice, in mass graves outside the city. The epidemic last half a year.

Anno eodem pestilencia grandis epidimialis in Thurinigia exorta est et fere in tota Alamania et precipue in Erfordia, adeo ut decima pars amplius hominum morerentur, quia morbus contagiosus erat. Porro cives cum consilio phisicorum inhibuerunt, ut nemo amplius inibi sepeliri deberet. Tanta erat multitudo sepulchrorum in cimiteriis ubique, ut duo vel tres ad unum sepulchrum ponerentur. Deinde facta sunt XI fossata in cimiterio ville Nusessen prope Erfordiam, ad que deducta sunt XII milia corpora hominum in bigis et curribus, qui continue de festo sancti Iacobi usque ad purificacionem numero III vel IIII vehebantur. Excepits hiis multi alii sepulti sunt in civitate occulte et in villis ubique circumiacentibus.

In the same year, a great epidemic pestilence broke out in Thuringia and nearly throughout all of Germany, especially in Erfurt, to the extent that more than a tenth of the population perished, as the disease was contagious. Furthermore, the citizens, in consultation with the physicians, forbade any further burials there. Such was the multitude of graves everywhere that two or three bodies were placed in a single grave. Subsequently, eleven pits were dug in the cemetery of the town of Neuses near Erfurt, into which around twelve thousand bodies of people were brought in wagons and carts. These were continuously transported, three or four at a time, from the feast of Saint James until Candlemas. Besides these, many others were secretly buried in the city and in the surrounding villages. (Translation: Martin Bauch)

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