The development of long-distance trade by galleys and cogs from the late 1200s was crucial to plague’s spread, because it linked Europe together and with distant trading stations and commercial hubs near plague focal points in north Africa, the near east, the Middle East, and in southern Russia. In the early 1300s, the probability that plague would arrive in Europe was rapidly increasing; the commercial and demographic requirements for its dissemination were all in place. The historical impact of the Black Death and subsequent plague epidemics resulted in a temporary halt in the development of the early Renaissance, which was not resumed until about 1450.