The Black Death

1. The Black Death How did the Black Death affect the church?

2. Black Death The Black Death was a disease carried by rats. It’s official name is the bubonic plague.This pandemic occurred during the Middle Ages and killed 75 million people. This affected everything, including the church.

3. The Church in the Middle Ages The Church during the Middle Ages had a lot of power because people believed they could communicate with God. But During the Black Death all of this changed and the beliefs of the people changed too.

4. How did the Black Death affect the Church? There were many things that the church did during the black death that would affect them negatively. Here are most of them: • Promising a cure • Promising a reason • Flagellants • Many deaths • Promised treatment

5. Promising Cures The church promised the people that they would give them a cure to this disease. The people began to think that they could not protect them resulting in the people having second thoughts about what they believed in.

6. Promising an Explanation The church promised an explanation for the disease that was killing so many people. They said that it was a punishment from god because people did not repent their sins. People ended up getting mad at the church because the supposedly could speak with god and they thought the church wasn’t doing anything about it.

7. Flagellants The flagellants were a group of men revolting against the church. They travelled from town to town whipping each other with leather rope that had razor blades tied onto the end for 33 days straight. These people believed the church spread the plague and try to convince people the Black Death was the churches fault. They gained many followers resulting in the church losing believers.

8. ManyDeaths-Priests During the Black Death many people died including priests this means the church had to replace the priests. When so many priests died they had to fill those spots quickly sometimes with less eduacated priests. People would get mad at the less eduacated priests which resulted in less respect for the church.

9. Many Deaths - doctors The Black Death killed so many people including lots of doctors. Everyone had to help the sick because they’re were not enough doctors for everyone. The church helped out by caring for the people like doctors so they could help the sick but people got mad that they weren’t curing them. The people were scared and blamed the church because they weren’t curing them.

10. Many Deaths - peasants The church was expected to repent the sins for the dying and with so many people dying it was impossible to keep up. The situation got so bad that Pope Clement VI declared that the sick could confess their sins to anyone even a woman. He also granted remission of all sins for black death victims. This made the act of repenting sins less valuable which made the church lose value.

11. Promising Treatment The church promised to treat the sick and did but the once thought to be invincible church started getting sick and many priests died. They died because they helped the sick and caught the disease themselves. This led to belief that the priests and peasants weren’t so different after all.

12. Jewish Religion Many Jewish people were killed because many Christians believed they caused the Black Death. Since the Jews didn’t accept Christianity they believed god punished humanity by giving them the Black Death. The church captured and tortured or often killed the Jews.

13. Conclusion The church was greatly affected during the Black Death and went through a massive change. They lost prestige, power and spiritual authority. This was one of histories darkest moments and affected everyone and everything.

14. The End PowerPoint Presentation by Kyler