Two years into the Black Death and Europeans were going bat shit crazy in a desperate attempt to halt the worst epidemic to have ever hit the planet.
And seeing that European medical technology was about as advanced as owning an Atari in 2014, it’s no wonder that people turned to quack cures and religious fanaticism. Anything to make the oozy welts go away!
As panic spread, (and with 50-90% death rates, who wouldn’t panic), many people turned to God to save them. Convinced that the plague was God’s punishment for their sinful ways, communities of religious zealots began to form.
This charming group of nutjobs, belonged to The Order of the Flagellants, and they became famous for parading through the cities of Germany, France, and Switzerland flogging themselves bloody with the same kind of whip that the Romans had used on the back of Jesus. They thought they were cleverly making a personal connection with the savior. Sorry, but apparently Jesus wasn’t impressed because your little group died like everyone else–in a whole mess of pain and gore.
The Flagellant movement had been around since the 1200s, but it really got fired up during the height of the Black Death.
Groups ranging in size from fifty to five hundred would just roll into town, with drums beating and singing hymns to God. The noise was so loud that you could hear a Flagellant parade coming long before you could see them. Of course, that was the whole point. By the time the fanatic parade arrived the whole town had turned up to welcome them.
This was a show that you didn’t want to miss, especially since Reality TV wouldn’t be making an appearance for another eight hundred years.
Dressed only in simple white robes with a red cross across their chest, they would walk barefooted— even in the snow, to the nearest church, all the while crying out for God’s mercy. Then the fun would begin. The Flagellants would strip down to the waist and begin circling the church, the whole time beating themselves with leather whips spiked with tiny metal shards.
After each lash they would confess their sins to the crowd and then the flagellant master would administer another lash to their bared backs. Each lash tore away their flesh, leaving them bruised and bloody. But that was the whole bloody point. (insert your best British accent here)
The flagellant’s believed that only through pain and penance would God forgive them. But before you get the impression that the Order of the Flagellants were just a bunch of religious extremists who had lost their minds, the Flagellants had proof of God’s wrath.
So where did the Flagellants get the crazy idea that God was giving orders from behind the scenes? Well, from God himself of course. A letter written by God himself conveniently happened to turn up on in 1343 on the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. In the letter God angrily tells the world “O ye children of men, ye of little faith, Ye have not repented of your sins nor kept My holy Sunday.” God supposedly then goes on to list all of the horrible things that he was about to unleash upon the world from earthquakes to a rat infestation.
Some town leaders were so impressed with the flagellants that they invited them to stay on for a weekly show.
Like a bad Las Vegas act the flagellants would tour for 33 days (to coincide with the number of years that Christ had lived) before moving on to the next stop on the tour. But not everyone was impressed with their act. Pope Clement VI condemned the movement as heretical and began actively trying to stop put an end to the whole bizarre spectacle. It worked. Soon the movement died out almost as quickly as it began.
The History Cat 