Ulf Büntgen

From the countryside around, this is a grain-producing region.

There's lots of grain there.

It just wasn't coming into the city because of the siege.

So one of the first things they're going to do in order to relieve the horrors of the siege is bring food.

food into the city.

What travels with grain?

Rats and mice.

What travels with the rats and mice?

Fleas.

So there's plenty of other situations, other evidence that we have more in modern times, right, of grain shipments with rats or mice or other rodents that are carrying plague.

They don't understand what we understand about bacteria and plague transmission.

They're aware that there's a disease.

They think they probably are likely to get it.

But they don't connect food shipping with disease transmission.

So as far as they're concerned, what do you do to protect the population?

You want them to be well-fed.

They're already suffering because of the siege.

Bring food into the city so people can be well-fed.

They don't realize that that is what is going to bring the disease into the city.

So as soon as the siege is lifted, the grain shipments start to move again.