52. When Kinship Failed: Cyprus & The Black Death with Tassos Papacostas
The History of Cyprus PodcastShow Notes
"Out of necessary cruelty, fathers abandoned their sons, and sons fled from their fathers, as the evident danger overcame all the rules of kinship, love, and nature." - Francesco Loredano AKA Henry Giblet on the Plague in Cyprus, 1660.Historian Tassos Papacostas joins The History of Cyprus Podcast to unravel the devastating impact of the Black Death on the island of Cyprus. While many are familiar with the broader European toll of Yersinia pestis, Papacostas helps us trace the origins, symptoms, and staggering mortality rate of the plague — and brings the conversation home to the Eastern Mediterranean.We delve into the earliest known records of the plague’s arrival on Cypriot shores in 1348, including the vivid testimony of Giovanni Francesco Loredano and references in chronicles by Leontios Makhairas, Florio Bustron, and others. How did the plague spread? What parts of the island suffered most, and who were the victims? Papacostas guides us through the archival and textual evidence, including funeral slabs, tax records, and population data, while also addressing monastic donations that reveal the deep scars left by the pandemic. We explore one particularly fascinating manuscript, Parisinus Graecus, a Cypriot copy of the Synaxarion of Constantinople filled with marginal notes recording deaths and donations -- a testament to fear, faith, and survival.
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