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Handout #138 |
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The Black Death (1347-1348 A.D.) |
| There was current
at this time a common and general mortality, throughout the world, from a
sickness which was called the plague, which took some on the left arm and
others, in the groin. They died within three days, and when it struck a
street or a lodging, one caught it from another, which is why few people
dared to help or visit the sick. Nor could they make their confessions,
for it was almost impossible to find a priest who would hear them, nor did
they dare to clothe or touch the sick ...
People could not think what to make of the affliction or what remedy to offer it, but many believed that this was a miracle and divine vengeance on the sins of the world. Hence it came about that some began thenceforward to do great penance in diverse ways by way of devotion. Among others, the people of Germany began to go through the country on the main roads in companies, carrying crucifixes, standards and great banners, as in processions; they went through the streets two by two, singing loudly hymns to God and our Lady, rhymed and with music; then they assembled together and stripped to their chemises twice a day and beat themselves as hard as they could with knotted lashes embedded with needles, so that the blood flowed down from their shoulders on all sides, while all the time they were singing their songs. Then they threw themselves to the earth three times in devotion and went about among one another with great humility. When people saw that this mortality pestilence did not cease as a result of penitence that they did, a rumor was heard that this mortality came from the Jews and that the Jews had thrown poison into wells and fountains throughout the whole world to poison all Christianity, so as to have lordship and control over all the world. Therefore everyone, great and small, was so aroused against them that they were all burned and put to death in the market places where the flagellants went, by the lords and justices of those places. And they went to their deaths dancing and singing as joyfully as if they were going to a wedding. They did not want to become Christians nor would they allow their children to receive baptism ... They said that they had found in the books of their prophets that when this sect of flagellants ran through the world all Jewry would be destroyed by fire and the souls of those who died joyously in their firm faith would go to paradise. Jean le Bel, Canon of Liege (1290-1370),Vrayes Chroniques (1326-1361 A.D.). |