Society Shattered

The plague did more than kill bodies — it broke the bonds that held society together. Parents abandoned sick children. Priests refused to give last rites. Out of the terror rose the flagellants: crowds who marched from town to town whipping themselves bloody, certain that public suffering would win God's mercy.

Fear curdled into cruelty. A rumor spread that Jews were poisoning the wells, and mobs took savage revenge. In Strasbourg, hundreds of Jews were burned alive in February 1349 — before the plague had even reached the city. Pope Clement VI declared them innocent, yet the killings went on.