[gleeaikin]

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.

[Red Badger]

They protected their granaries..................

[SunkenCiv]

The fleas that infected the rats jumped to the cats (and dogs, and livestock), which meant the cats helped spread the plague.

• UK 'plague village' offers lesson for a country under lockdown [03/24/2020]
• Origins Of The Black Death Traced Back To China, Gene Sequencing Has Revealed; A Plague That Killed Over a Third of Europe's Population [02/27/2020]
• Plague in humans 'twice as old' but didn't begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals [07/28/2019]
• The Justinian Plague of 562 A.D. an Electromagnetic Drama? [11/02/2015]
• Rats reprieved as giant gerbils are blamed for the Black Death [02/24/2015]
• New study sheds light on survivors of the Black Death [05/30/2014]
• Black Death may have scuppered Roman Empire [01/28/2014]
• Gloucester's Roman Mass Grave Skeletons Were Plague Victims (Smallpox?) [04/30/2008]
• Plague Victims Discovered After 1500 Years (Justinian) [04/10/2008]
• Secret Of Ancient Athens Plague Is Being Unraveled [01/21/2006]
• Medieval Plague May Explain Resistance to HIV [03/10/2005]
• Bubonic Plague Traced To Ancient Egypt (Black Death) [03/11/2004]
• A 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer already plagued by Yersinia pestis (Yersinia pestis is discovered in a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer from Latvia) [06/30/2021]

[nagant]

Another factor that did not help was that early Europe was infested with witchcraft pogroms
~~~~

There is a quite-plausible explanation for the coexistence of plague, souring grain stores and witchcraft following the 535 eruption. Souring grain stores, especially in rye and barley, promotes the spread of ergot and ergot poisoning. Ergot is deadly. A major symptoms of ergot poisoning is hallucination. Both belief in witchcraft, and the false perception of witches, would be consistent with ergot poisoning.

To avoid publicity it’s been very quiet, but over the last three years there has been a rise in ergot content in northern North American barley. The problem is the shortage of sunshine during the recent and current weak solar cycles. My family is reading cracker labels and avoiding barley.