<P> Because 14th - century healers were at a loss to explain the cause, Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague's emergence . The governments of Europe had no apparent response to the crisis because no one knew its cause or how it spread . The mechanism of infection and transmission of diseases was little understood in the 14th century; many people believed the epidemic was a punishment by God for their sins . This belief led to the idea that the cure to the disease was to win God's forgiveness </P> <P> There were many attacks against Jewish communities . In February 1349, the citizens of Strasbourg murdered 2,000 Jews . In August 1349, the Jewish communities in Mainz and Cologne were annihilated . By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed . These massacres eventually died out in Western Europe, only to continue on in Eastern Europe . During this period many Jews relocated to Poland and Russia, receiving a warm welcome from King Casimir . </P> <P> The plague repeatedly returned to haunt Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries . According to Biraben, the plague was present somewhere in Europe in every year between 1346 and 1671 . The Second Pandemic was particularly widespread in the following years: 1360--1363; 1374; 1400; 1438--1439; 1456--1457; 1464--1466; 1481--1485; 1500--1503; 1518--1531; 1544--1548; 1563--1566; 1573--1588; 1596--1599; 1602--1611; 1623--1640; 1644--1654; and 1664--1667 . Subsequent outbreaks, though severe, marked the retreat from most of Europe (18th century) and northern Africa (19th century). According to Geoffrey Parker, "France alone lost almost a million people to the plague in the epidemic of 1628--31 ." </P> <P> In England, in the absence of census figures, historians propose a range of preincident population figures from as high as 7 million to as low as 4 million in 1300, and a postincident population figure as low as 2 million . By the end of 1350, the Black Death subsided, but it never really died out in England . Over the next few hundred years, further outbreaks occurred in 1361--1362, 1369, 1379--1383, 1389--1393, and throughout the first half of the 15th century . An outbreak in 1471 took as much as 10--15% of the population, while the death rate of the plague of 1479--1480 could have been as high as 20% . The most general outbreaks in Tudor and Stuart England seem to have begun in 1498, 1535, 1543, 1563, 1589, 1603, 1625, and 1636, and ended with the Great Plague of London in 1665 . </P>

When did the black death happen in europe