The early triumphs of Swiss valour were saddened by the breaking out of
that great plague, which visited with its ravages the greater part of
Europe and Asia, and of which the most vivid delineation ever written
(except that of a similar pest by Thucydides) has been preserved in the
Decameron of Boccacio. Whole towns were depopulated. Estates were left
without claimants or occupiers. Priests, physicians, grave-diggers, could
not be found in adequate numbers; and the consecrated earth of the
churchyards no longer sufficed for the reception of its destined tenants.
In the order of Franciscans alone, 120,430 monks are said to have perished.
This plague had been preceded by tremendous earthquakes, which laid in
ruins towns, castles, and villages. Dearth and famine, clouds of locusts,
and even an innocent comet, had been long before regarded as fore-runners
of the pestilence; and when it came it was viewed as an unequivocal sign
of the wrath of God. At the outset, the Jews became, as usual, objects of
umbrage, as having occasioned this calamity by poisoning the wells. A
persecution was commenced against them, and numberless innocent persons
were consigned, by heated fanaticism, to a dreadful death by fire, and
their children were baptized over the corpses of their parents, according
to the religion of their murderers. These atrocities were in all
probability perpetrated by many, in order to possess themselves of the
wealth acquired by the Jews in traffic, to take revenge for their usurious
extortions, or, finally, to pay their debts in the most expeditious and
easy manner. When it was found that the plague was nowise diminished by
massacring the Jews, but, on the contrary, seemed to acquire additional
virulence, it was inferred that God, in his righteous wrath, intended
nothing less than to extirpate the whole sinful race of man. Many now
endeavoured by self-chastisement to avert the divine vengeance from
themselves. Fraternities of hundreds and thousands collected under the
name of Flagellants, strolled through the land in strange garbs, scourged
themselves in the public streets, in penance for the sins of the world,
and read a letter which was said to have fallen from heaven, admonishing
all to repentance and amendment. They were joined of course, by a crowd of
idle vagabonds, who, under the mask of extraordinary sanctity and humble
penitence, indulged in every species of disorder and debauchery. At last
the affair assumed so grave an aspect, that the pope and many secular
princes declared themselves against the Flagellants, and speedily put an
end to their extravagancies. Various ways were still, however, resorted to
by various tempers to snatch the full enjoyment of that life which they
were so soon to lose, at the expense of every possible violation of the
laws of morality. Only a few lived on in a quiet and orderly manner, in
reliance on the saving help of God, without running into any excess of
anxiety or indulgence. After this desolating scourge had raged during four
years, its violence seemed at length to be exhausted.--_Ibid._
* * * * *