The Chronicle of Seert credits this event for inspiring the Rogationtide Fast of Nineveh, which persisted in phases named for Kavad II Sheroe and Emmaus. Peter Sarris traced emphyteutic church rents to this event during a flurry of laws, like the anti-sodomy edict of Novel 141, that were issued after John of Ephesus compared it to God’s winepress. Gregory of Tours blamed this event for Pelagius II’s replacement by Pope Gregory I. The “dust-veil event” preceded this event, which delayed Abraha’s repairs of the Ma’rib Dam. Evagrius Scholasticus (*) dated this event to two years after the Sack of Antioch began the Lazic War. This event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age was traced to the Tiānshān’s enzootics in 2013, when paleogenetics matched its causative agent to the account of Procopius. For 10 points, what recurring disaster from 541 to 750 CE afflicted millions with Y. pestis, including a Byzantine emperor? ■END■
ANSWER: plague of Justinian [or Justinianic plague or JP; accept first plague pandemic or early medieval pandemic; accept pandemic of 541–750 or other dates in the 540s until “541” is read; prompt on bubonic plague, pestilence, pandemic, epidemic, disease, outbreak, contagion, or equivalents; reject “Black Death” or “second plague pandemic”]
<NJ, European History>
= Average correct buzz position