England and the Black Death

England did not witness some of the things that arose in the wake of the contagion on the Continent, the 'hysterical' elements, which included pogroms, apocalyptic preaching and the upsurge in the Flagellant movement. The chief impact, paradoxically, was a weakening in the authority of the church. So many priests and clerics died that the gap in numbers had to be made good by the hasty ordination of men hardly suited to the task. The resulting decline in educational and moral standards among the clergy saw an upsurge in anti-clericalism among the laity. By the end of the century this was such a well-established feature of English social life that it provided rich ground for the Lollards, a proto-reform movement. Even if they were not attracted by new heretical ideas many people adopted an attitude of morbid scepticism, which eventually found expression in the Danse Macabre, arguably one of the great defining images of the late Middle Ages.

Jews and the Black Death

There is an excellent article entitled Black Death and the Burning of Jews by S. K. Cohn in Past & Present (no. 196). On the basis of an analysis of contemporary chronicles, Cohn argues that attacks on Jewish communities were rarely the spontaneous work of faceless and impoverished mobs. Rather many of the assailants came from the higher ranks of Medieval society, even including the aristocracy. Indeed, some attacks, the author continues, were started by the nobility in accordance with the law. In one particularly chilling letter of the day it is noted that the Jews of Villeneuve "have been burnt by due process." Jacob von Köningshofen, a chronicler based in Strasbourg, explains how "the Bishop and lords of the Imperial cities agreed to do away with the Jews." The notion of the 'lower class' mob, Cohn argues, is a modern invention.

Albert of Cologne, another chronicler, lays stress on the "horrible means by which the Jews wished to extinguish all Christendom, through their poisons of frogs and spiders, mixed into oil and cheese."