Epidemics of plague devastated Europe’s population throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Genetic studies of modest numbers of skeletal remains indicate that the causative agent of all these epidemics was the bacterium Yersinia pestis , but such analyses cannot identify overall patterns of transmission dynamics. Analysis of thousands of archival records from London, United Kingdom, reveals that plague epidemics spread much faster in the 17th century than in the 14th century. Historical records reveal the temporal patterns of a sequence of plague epidemics in London, United Kingdom, from the 14th to 17th centuries. Analysis of these records shows that later...
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