Worksheet

Thirty Days Outside the Walls: Ragusa's Plague Council, 1377

Grade 7 geography: trace Silk Road, Indian Ocean and Saharan goods, ideas and plague to Ragusa, then weigh a mock council debate on its 1377 waiting rule.

Grade 7Social StudiesInteractive · Printable

Aligned toGEO.7.3

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1 C3 Framework standard
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11 questions
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Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students trace how goods from the Silk Road, Indian Ocean and Sahara routes reached a Mediterranean port.
Students explain how trade routes spread ideas and the Black Death.
Students weigh arguments for and against a trade rule using evidence.

How to use

Read the passage and trace each route on a wall map, then hold the council meeting aloud with students reading the speakers' parts before they answer and vote.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

GEO.7.3

Trace the Silk Road, Indian Ocean and trans-Saharan trade routes and explain how they spread goods, ideas and diseases.

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Thirty Days Outside the Walls: Ragusa's Plague Council, 1377

Trace three trade networks to one port, then weigh a real council's choice.

Three networks, one port

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Roads That Met at the Adriatic

1In the 1300s, Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, in Croatia) was a small walled city-republic on the Adriatic Sea. It had little farmland, so its people lived largely by trade. Ragusan ships sailed to ports around the Mediterranean, and mule caravans carried goods inland to the silver mines of the Balkan hills. Many goods unloaded in its harbor had already traveled thousands of miles along three great networks of trade.

2Silk Road routes ran overland from China through Central Asia. By the 1300s, many caravans ended at trading ports on the Black Sea, such as Tana and Caffa, where Italian merchants bought Chinese silk and shipped it west. Indian Ocean sea lanes linked China, Southeast Asia, India, Arabia and East Africa. Pepper from India usually crossed the ocean to the Red Sea and was carried on to Alexandria, in Egypt, where Mediterranean merchants bought it. Trans-Saharan camel caravans carried West African gold north across the desert to ports such as Tunis, and historians think much of the gold in Mediterranean coins came this way.

3Ideas traveled with the merchants. Muslim traders and teachers helped spread Islam along the Indian Ocean coasts and across the Sahara. In the late 1100s, a merchant's son from Pisa, Italy, named Leonardo, later known as Fibonacci, learned the Hindu-Arabic numerals, including zero, while his father worked in the North African port of Bugia. In 1202 Leonardo published a book that taught Italian merchants to calculate with them.

4Disease traveled too. The Black Death, a plague probably spread by fleas on rats and from person to person, moved west from Central Asia along trade routes. In 1346 it struck Caffa. Within about a year, Italian ships had carried it to Constantinople and to Sicily, and early in 1348 it reached Ragusa. Like many Mediterranean cities, Ragusa lost many of its people, and the plague returned several times in later years.

5In July 1377, Ragusa's Great Council voted on a new rule. Anyone arriving from a place with plague, by sea or by land, had to stay for a month on the small island of Mrkan or in the nearby town of Cavtat before entering Ragusa. Later, Venice and other ports made travelers wait forty days. The Italian word for forty, quaranta, gave English the word quarantine.

Using paragraph 2, which path did pepper most likely follow to reach a Ragusan ship?

A. India → Central Asia → Tana
B. India → across the Sahara → Tunis
C. India → Black Sea ports → Caffa
D. India → Indian Ocean and Red Sea → Alexandria

Use paragraphs 2 and 4. Sort each item by the trade network that carried it toward the Mediterranean.

Chinese silk bought at TanaGold carried north to TunisPepper unloaded at AlexandriaThe plague that reached Caffa from Central Asia in 1346Spices loaded onto ships in India

Silk Road	Indian Ocean	Trans-Saharan

Underline the sentence from paragraph 3 that tells how a new way of counting first reached Leonardo.

Muslim traders and teachers helped spread Islam along the Indian Ocean coasts and across the Sahara.In the late 1100s, a merchant's son from Pisa, Italy, named Leonardo, later known as Fibonacci, learned the Hindu-Arabic numerals, including zero, while his father worked in the North African port of Bugia.In 1202 Leonardo published a book that taught Italian merchants to calculate with them.

Paragraph 4 traces the plague from Caffa (1346) to Constantinople and Sicily (about 1347) and then to Ragusa (1348). What does this order best suggest?

A. The plague followed sea routes west from the Black Sea.
B. The plague began in Ragusa and moved east to the Black Sea.
C. The plague struck Caffa, Sicily and Ragusa in the same season.
D. The plague reached these ports by caravans from the Sahara.

Use paragraphs 4 and 5. Subtract the earlier year from the later year.

The Black Death first reached Ragusa in 1348. The Great Council voted on its waiting rule years later.

The council meeting

Read the mock council meeting. Then answer the questions.

A mock meeting of Ragusa's Great Council, July 1377 (the speakers are made up; the rule and the vote are real)

Marin, a merchant (against): "My ships bring pepper bought in Alexandria and silk bought in the Black Sea ports. If every crew must sit on Mrkan for a month, captains will take their cargo to other harbors where they can unload at once. Our city has little farmland. Without trade, we cannot buy grain."

Doctor Jakov, the city's doctor (for): "I treated the sick in 1348. The sickness came to us by ship. It struck Caffa, then Constantinople and Sicily, and then our harbor. A sailor can look healthy when he lands and fall ill days later. If he waits a month away from the city, we will know before he walks our streets."

Stjepan, a caravan leader (against): "My mules come from the silver mines in the hills, not from the sea. And who can say for sure which towns have the plague? One rumor could stop all trade with a town that is perfectly healthy."

Councilor Nikola (for): "This rule does not close our port. Ships and caravans may still come; they only wait. A month of waiting costs less than a city full of the dying. Dead merchants buy and sell nothing."

Luka, a notary (against): "Travelers bring us more than goods. They bring letters, news from distant courts and new skills, such as the Arabic way of counting. Hold them back a month, and we learn everything a month late."

Result: the council passed the rule.

Sort each argument from the meeting: does it support the waiting rule or oppose it?

Sickness can appear days after a sailor lands.Captains may take their cargo to other harbors.A rumor could cut off trade with a healthy town.The rule delays travelers but does not ban trade.Travelers bring news and new skills as well as goods.The plague of 1348 arrived by ship.

Supports the rule	Opposes the rule

Marin's ships carry pepper from Alexandria and silk from the Black Sea ports. Using paragraph 2, which two networks does his cargo depend on?

A. The trans-Saharan routes and the Balkan caravans
B. The Indian Ocean routes and the Silk Road
C. The Indian Ocean and the trans-Saharan routes
D. The Silk Road and the trans-Saharan routes

Doctor Jakov says the sickness came by ship. Which detail from the passage best supports him?

A. Paragraph 1: Ragusa had little farmland and lived by trade.
B. Paragraph 4: Italian ships carried the plague from Caffa.
C. Paragraph 3: Leonardo learned new numerals in Bugia.
D. Paragraph 5: Venice later made travelers wait forty days.

In 1380 a ship arrives from a port where plague has been reported. It carries silk bought at Tana. Under the 1377 rule, what happens?

A. The crew stays a month on Mrkan or at Cavtat before entering Ragusa.
B. The ship is turned away to sell its silk in another harbor.
C. The crew waits forty days in Venice before sailing on to Ragusa.
D. The crew may enter at once, since silk comes from China, not a plague port.

10.

Stjepan asks who can say for sure which towns have the plague. Which weakness in the rule is he pointing to?

A. It applies to ships but leaves out land caravans.
B. It forces Ragusa to close its harbor each summer.
C. It depends on reports that may be late or wrong.
D. It lets sick sailors walk straight into the city.

11.

You are a member of the Great Council in 1377. Would you vote for the waiting rule? State your claim. Use at least one argument from each side of the meeting and one detail from the passage as evidence, and explain your reasoning.