Does anyone have information on their possible rats, fleas, and lice avoidance rules, also rules for dealing with dead bodies (I know quick burial was one)?
~~~~
Live on a dairy farm sometime. They feed grain. There are always cats. The rats which spread plague through fleas thrive on grain stores. The Holy Roman Empire survived on communal grain stores. Turks survived on beef cattle, and Arabs on goats, not grain stores. Beef cattle and goats are ruminants. They can survive on grasses. The 535 ad Krakatoa eruption caused grain crops to fail. The grain stores of the Holy Roman Empire soured and dried up. The rats got sick, and passed their illnesses on to humans via fleas.
None of this happened to cattle eating Turks or to goat-eating Arabs. Both tribes took over the middle east.
If I remember my history, another factor is that the plague rats were black rats which live upstairs, rather than Norway Rats which are cellar and sewer rats. Another factor that did not help was that early Europe was infested with witchcraft pogroms, which often included killing of cats as familiars to witches and warlocks. There was probably a good reason that the Egyptians loved and entombed their cats.