The Black Death Hysteria and Rise of the Flagellants by Angel Davina Lawson

God’s punishment of Christians began with the Black Death epidemic raging Europe from 1346 to 1353. As the Avignon papacy failed to appease Christian hysteria, many looked to others to pacify God’s wrath on Europe such as the Flagellants. The Flagellant movement consisted originally of nobility who had paid to join the sect to resolve their sins through self-flagellating themselves. The clerical chronicle Continuatio Novimontensus claimed that Flagellants walked ‘two by two, totally naked except for a white cloth’ through Europe, and to show their piety would sing ‘hymns in the Honours of the Passion’. The self-flagellation was described as ‘consisting of a stick with three knotted thongs’ and sharp metal, which would then be whipped into the skin and ripped out repeatedly. Flagellation acts would frequently be performed in public to show the Flagellant’s humility and to allow lower classes to appease their sins also. The act of someone whipping themselves repeatedly until they couldn’t is described by the Dominican Henry of Herford, stating ‘A man would need a heart of stone to watch this without tears’. It’s believed the act of whipping brought them closer to the suffering of Jesus Christ who was also whipped by Roman soldiers. In seeing nobility, who pride themselves on their status and wealth in society kneeling before peasantry to whip themselves for their sins, demonstrated the desperateness for God’s forgiveness.

With an increase in popularity throughout Europe from their processions, Flagellants began to be more radicalised in their beliefs as a sect including supernatural powers. The Flagellants claimed that their presence could grant absolution of sins and healing of the sick which contradicted the principles of the Church. The peasantry demand for Flagellant visits is understandable when taking into context the lack of priests in local areas. As the Black Death ravaged through Europe, many priests fled and refused to visit the locals, with the Franciscan Michele da Piazza accounting ‘priests, judges and notaries refused to visit them’. With the lack of priests to perform last rites, baptisms, or confessions, it is understandable why many turned to the Flagellants as a response of not accessing the church’s services. Additionally, it’s believed a “heavenly letter” was recited by minority groups of the sect which claimed of worse punishments and demand for reform of Christian behaviour. Being read to the local populations, the heavenly letter was believed to have been delivered from an angel on St Peter’s altar in Jerusalem. It claimed the end of the world was near if the world did not abide to the values of Christianity. With the reduced power of the Avignon papacy, and the lack of leadership over the uncontrollable Flagellant groups marching around Europe, this stirred antisemitic violence. The most famous massacre of the Black Death, the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre, demonstrated the raw anxiety of Christians over minorities who could’ve caused the end of the world. Strasbourg’s government in February 1349 was struggling in terms of maintaining power over its own people with Strasbourg defending the Jewish community. With Jewish relations fragile, the ninth of February 1349 marked the beginning of the massacre with anti-Jewish figures succeeding in a coup. This new council ordered a roundup of Jews on the fourteenth of February with Jews ‘completely stripped of their clothes by the mob’. Robbing the Jews of their money, the Strasbourg Jews were burnt resulting in 2,000 estimated dead. Whilst the Flagellants cannot solely be blamed, the radicalisation of the Flagellant groups and their acts in procession impacted the severity of hysteria in Europe.

The Church’s response to the Flagellants began on the twentieth of October 1349, with the Pope ordering the suppression of the Flagellant group because of their increasing heretical beliefs. Whilst the Flagellants by law were condemned, this blatantly was not the case with some Flagellants taking pride in their lack of support for the Avignon papacy. It’s been recorded that some Flagellants believed ‘it is better to die with a skin tanned with dust and sweat than one smeared with a whole pound of priestly ointment’. Contributed with apparent cases of violence against priests, the separation of the Flagellants and the Papacy brought tensions for the support of Christians. As a result of the papal bull condemning Flagellants, the group dwindles in the coming years and flared in times of religious peril. Whilst the Flagellants were deemed heretics of the Church, their popularity continues throughout history to the present day for the forgiveness of God.