The Effect of Crisis on Religion in Europe: Black Death vs. Wwii

Little was known about the clergy during the Black Death. For a long time people believed that the Catholic Church had fled from its duty to serve the people, but that could not be further from the truth. In recent discovery it was found that greater than 50 percent of clergy were killed during the Black Death. This was not because the clergy were running away; rather, the clergy stayed and helped the people in villages, knowing the likelihood they would survive would be slim throughout this epidemic. It is my goal in this paper to describe what was occurring during the Black Death and how the Catholic Church and its clergy reacted to the epidemic.

From the depths of the Middle East during the Post-Classical period, two of the most powerful world religions emerged. Islam and Christianity, although sharing many similarities, also had their fair share of disagreements, one being their responses to the Black Death. The religion, demography, and interactions all contributed to the differentiation of Muslim and Christian reactions. Christians thought that the Black Death was sent from God as a punishment and blamed the Jews, while Muslims considered it a blessing and did not accuse any minority of initiating the outbreak.

As a result of the Black Death, Christians and Muslims were the major religions to respond to this event. One would still say, people do not know much about the Bubonic plague. To repeat, Christians were the ones to take this event to the next level, when they started burning the Jews. Muslims just thought of it has a blessing. Muslims was the ones to bring all ethnic groups together in worship and prayer after the plague. Readers would think of it has help to one another or more like allies. For this it proves that religions respond to things different than

One of the most documented Christian responses to the plague was the rise of the flagellants. A spontaneous and unsanctioned movement, the flagellants sought to ward off the plague by physically punishing themselves for the sins that had caused God to send the Black Death to punish them (Tuchman, 1978, p. 125). Flagellant processions would typically remain on the move, marching from town to town, while twice a day beating themselves with whips and other instruments until they drew blood (Slack, 1988, p. 439). They were also known for their singing of religious songs while marching and whipping themselves, which ran counter to the official Catholic Church position and caused church officials no small amount of trouble (Lerner, 1981, p. 535-36). The official reasoning by the Catholic Church was that the flagellant movement was an unnecessary and wrong reaction to the Black Death, since there were equal death rates among Christians and Jews. The flagellants were also part of a Christian movement known as premillennialism (Lerner, 1981, 534). The extensive deaths in Europe cause many Christians to believe that the second coming of Christ was near, which would result in the end of the world. This interest in the events that were prophesied to happen just before the end of the world ran very high during this time. This interest was also a large influence responsible for the rise of groups like the flagellants (Lerner, 1981, 538).

Cantor highlights some of the effects that the Black Death had on religion. The plague had a huge impact on the church because almost forty percent of parish clergy had died from the plague. The change was made to ordain priests at age twenty instead of twenty five, and a priest could take over a church at age twenty. Fifteen-year-olds could receive monastic vows, instead of having to wait until they were twenty. These were "undereducated and inexperienced people" (p. 206) and this indirectly contributed to the spread of the Lollards, who were radical heretics (p.207)

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and into the duration of the Renaissance, the Medieval Church’s social and political power dwindled. Centuries prior the Catholic Church gained a surplus of control, largely due to the stability it maintained during the chaotic breakdown of the Western Roman Empire . Yet toward the end of the Middle Ages the Church set in motion factors that would ultimately lead to its downfall as the definitive figure of authority. However, despite political and social controversy surrounding the church, the institutions it established cleared a path for a new way of thinking, shaping society in an enduring way.

During the time of the second pandemic in Europe, most commonly known as the Black Death, religion has played a big part in people’s lives. Different views, opinions, and approaches where practiced not only by the predominant Christian culture at that time, but also by other religious sectors, such as Islam. In the books Plagues in World History and The Black Death, by John Aberth, the diverse reception, both hopeful and adverse, to the pandemic was explored and discussed for better understanding of the religious structure of the time. The aim of this paper is to examine and discuss those different religious responses and changes during the Black Death of the 14th century. This will be done by doing explaining detailed actions of different

According to the text of the Old Testament, Jewish authorities treated Jesus and his followers with hostility. Many Christians to this day, even though it has been proven not to be true, believe that Jesus’ crucifixion was a direct result of the Jewish people. Christian antisemitism was born from a misconception by Jesus’ followers that was then eternalized by being written in their bible. Christian antisemitism would continue onward through the Crusades in which the persecution of the Jewish people reached an all-time high in Europe, where communities were destroyed, Jewish people were killed, and others were expelled from their lands. Many stereotypes for Jewish people arose from this period because they were restricted to specific “inferior” occupations by the Christian authorities such as tax collectors and moneylenders. This early on compulsory requirement to wear a yellow star began in certain parts of Europe.

The Europeans’ response to the Black Death were extremely varied in many aspects: social, economic, religious, artistic and medical. Two moments need to be analyzed when talking about the people’s response to something, the during and the after. At the very beginning of this chaos, when the plague was just starting to hit Europe, the response was very “medieval”. However, after some time suffering from this horrendous disease, and after it slowed down, Europeans started to view things differently, responding with characteristics of a “Renaissance” outlook. This episode in history served as a rebirth of culture and society.

Many people thought that it was a punishment from God, so this led to people about questioning their faith. This concerns the religious impact of the Black Death, the plague that devastated Europe during the middle of the fourteenth century. It goes into the effect of the Black Death on the Catholic Church and the religious movements that emerged in response to it. The Catholic Churches played a significant role during the Middle Ages because religion was an important aspect of daily life for European Christians. When the Black Death struck Europe somewhere around 1347, the Church struggled to deal with the plague’s “damaging consequences and its reputation suffered as a result.” (History.com, 2010) “ Moreover, a large number of Catholic priests died during the Black Death...this made it even more difficult for the Catholic Church to recover from the shaken faith of its following”. (History.com, 2010). Since many priests had died because of the plague, several uneducated people did not fully understand why this disease was spreading around. They last almost all their faith in God which led to fewer people going to church and practicing their faith. This concludes that the “Black Death contributed to the decline in the confidence and faith of the Christian laity towards the institution of the Church and its leadership”(History.com, 2010). During the middle ages, Catholic Churches held enormous power in Europe and were still very religious and political even after the impact of the Black

According to Robert S. Gottfried, author of the book The Black Plague: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe, the Black Plague had a huge impact on human behavior and psychology, “the mechanics and commonplaces of everyday life simply stopped, at least initially “(77-78). With the devastation of the plague, “peasants no longer ploughed, merchants closed their shops, and some, if not all, churchmen stopped offering last rites” (Gottfried 78). In his book The Decameron, Boccaccio described many of the responses of the people during this time:

During the Nazi German era, which took place from 1933 until 1945, Christianity played a very important role in the rise of Hitler’s regime. The Christian churches greatly influenced not only the formation of the Nazi regime, but also the German folk. The most influential churches were the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. Even though Christianity itself faced a state of decline in the early 1930s, the higher clergy of the Christian churches in Germany still managed to make a significant impact. The amount of influence that the churches exerted can be measured not only through the impact of their resistance towards the Nazis, but conversely through the resistance carried out by

The Black Death took place between 1315 and 1317, this Bubonic plague killed 10 percent The Catholic church failed to explain the cause of the Black Death, many church officials refused to treat the sick; leaving dying people behind. Citizens were desperate during the disaster, some had given up on life. They began living without rules and restrictions, they abandoned themselves into sexual and alcoholic indulgences. People lost their faith in Christianity, some extremists began to blame the Jews for causing the plague. An outbreak of anti-Semitism took place during the Black Death which caused the destruction over 60 major Jewish communities by the year of 1531. The plague also gave birth to a group of extreme believers called the flagellants in Germany who whipped themselves for forgiveness from God. The Black Death damaged the reputation of the church and many people lost faith in God.

Moreover, it is these persecutions of differing beliefs and backgrounds that can demonstrate the effects of foreign groups upon a homogenous society. Jews in Medieval society were often persecuted as a result of religious differences or from often misattributed blame for destructive events. The sheer ideological differences were simply

“The actual war had an effect on religion but not politics as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was based on survival of the fittest” (Weigls 28).The war ended in 1918, and the leaders of the Allies made a pact to keep peace within all nations. As a result of World War I, the treaty damaged Germany economically, politically, and socially, and mostly an end to most monarchies collapsed. Even though Germany endured majority of the punishment, Austria-Hungary engaged in more involvement. If Germany did not pledged support for Austria-Hungary after the Archduke assassination, Russia would have not supported Serbia when Germany declared war (“Great War Revisited”). Germany had entered the war as one of the greatest powers with the German people