Ulf Büntgen

And so we know that he was in Piacenza throughout the 1340s.

He didn't travel.

He was there.

So his information about Piacenza is fantastic.

His information about Caffa in the Black Sea is not, because that's thousands of miles away, and he wasn't personally there.

So as a historian, I want to ask, can we do better?

Can we find someone who was in Caffa in 1345, 1347, 1350, this period, and

who is not only at the right time, but also at the right place?

And the answer is yes.

They also say in this letter, We want to re-fortify the city because the Mongols left, because they are suffering from an endless plague of death.

So there it is.

The disease is not transmitted during the siege because this is a petition that was written after the siege and the disease hasn't been transmitted yet.

In the letter.

They talk about the horrors of siege.

And when medieval people talk about the horrors of siege, what they usually mean is starvation.

So this is a situation where they've been besieged for a little while.

They were definitely running short on food.

They were very afraid of that.

Now the siege has been lifted.

They're going to start importing food, right?