Where did the Plague come from? Well it all started in Asia and worked its way toward Europe. According to ancient legion the Black Death started late in 1346 at the fortified trading port of Caffa (now Theodosia). The Oriental Rat Flea made its home on rats and humans. Many of those rats got on board Mediterranean trading ships, this spread the fatal disease all around the Mediterranean area. Soon the fatal disease started to spread to northern Europe not by rats but by humans! People fled their towns hoping to find a safe refuge, it might have saved some peoples lives but overall it just spread the epidemic more. (in 1994, when an estimated 500,000 persons left the town in fear of a plague epidemic.)