The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[authun]

Please explain why you think this would be the case. Were the rats afraid of the Germanic language?

Hi Vortigern,

The reason is that the fleas kill the rats as well. It's not an airborne disease. Plague is spread by movement of the rats, via trade for example, or by humans or via the movement of farm animals. In all cases there are limits to the distance plague can travel overland as the host carriers die. A sort of grim equilibrium is reached.

This is why we see plague outbreaks jump, from port to port, and then spread inland. Once the hosts die however, the fleas cannot be spread further and the plague stops. Usually though, it has entered another port by this time and spreads inland from there. So it doesn't spread like a wave front but rather a series of outbreaks, each with a limited radial spread from each point. The better the connections/trade routes, the wider the radius.

The most likely situation is that the flea infested rats entered the British and Irish ports trading goods with the Mediterranean and people and rats spread the fleas to those British areas inland that had some sort of connection with the ports. If the germanic speaking areas are to get the plague, they have to either trade with the Mediterranean world directly, or trade with those infected British areas. The lack of plague, mediterranean imports or other british goods in the germanic speaking areas suggests neither.

The plague bacteria continues to survive in places like rat burrows even after the the rats have died. However, once the burrows are reoccupied, a new outbreak occurs but in this instance, the origin is already inland and will radiate out in all directions. However, the type of flea that best carries the bacteria does not survive well in northern europe and so repeated outbreaks are sporadic and with a much reduced capacity to be spread widely.

Nonetheless, there are mentions of plagues upto the 8th cent which may be examples of such re-occurances. These affect the AS areas too and thus may reflect contact between germanic speakers and brittonic speakers during these later centuries.

best

Harry Amphlett