Flagellation and Genocide to Ward the Black Death
Thousands of Jews were massacred in attempts to ward the Black Death. Some were summarily executed, others were crammed into their homes or synagogues which were then set alight, and others were murdered in various, fiendishly cruel ways. The fact that none of the preceding cures worked reinforced the belief that their misfortunes were the result of divine displeasure. God was mad at mankind for its sins, so he sent the plague as punishment. Many reasoned that God might stop punishing them if they punished themselves. So they flogged themselves. Flagellants – people who mortified their flesh with whips – had been around since at least the 1200s. However, the practice peaked during the Black Death, when flagellant groups arose spontaneously throughout Europe. Religious zealots paraded around, seeking atonement for their sins by vigorously whipping themselves in public displays of penance.
Practices like trying to achieve redemption through flagellation were most popular in times of crisis, and flagellant numbers soared during the Black Death. The Church condemned the practice, but the movement spread like wildfire throughout Europe. Clad in white robes, large groups of flagellants – sometimes in the thousands – roamed the countryside, dragging crosses while flogging themselves and each other into a religious frenzy. In one episode, hundreds of flagellants arrived in London from Flanders. They paraded twice a day, stripped to the waist, and flogged themselves bloody with three tailed scourges, some of them knotted and with nails affixed to them. Needless to say, flagellation proved as ineffective as all the other remedies for warding off the plague. The practice proved a temporary fad, and enthusiasm for flagellation waned as suddenly as it had arisen.
