An Analysis To The Deaths Of The English Catholic Priests During The Black Death(1347-1352)

From 1347 to 1352,the Black Death ravaged the continent of Europe,and spread to England in the summer of 1348,causing mass deaths in England,and many clergy of England also lost their lives during this pestilence.Many causes lead to the great loses of the clerical lives.First of all,the medical and sanitation conditions in medieval England was in a low level.England suffered from poor sanitation,congested streets,polluted rivers,and indiscriminate disposal of rubbish during the plague,through prayer,escape,aromatherapy,and other means to avoid the risk of illness.Secondly,the climate,personal physical fitness will also have a significant impact on a large number of deaths of clergy.Finally,it is widely believed that the plague was caused by God’s punishment for the sins of the guilty.As a cleric,a priest is responsible for the sacraments,baptisms,prayers,confessions,and anointing the dying or the sick.This also increases the priest’s exposure to the black death,the risk of infection among priests has increased dramatically,resulting in a large number of deaths among Catholic priests in England.The deaths of a large number of English clergymen have created a chain reaction in which normal religious activities are seriously affected,the church was also forced to lower the educational,age and marital thresholds for ordination,and shorten the years required for promotion in order to absorb more clergymen,to alleviate the shortage of priests caused by the plague.In addition,religious services were forced to be simplified and the government actively provided additional financial support for the normal operation of the church.The general public’s psychology was also severely damaged.Even though the priests were active in the front line of the plague,the people still died in large numbers and were not able to stop the rapid spread of the disease.Many clergy have tendered their resignations and abandoned the people they serve,which has greatly affected the image of the clergy and clergy in the minds of the general public.Nor does the plague prevent a man from being deprived of his life because he is a clergyman,nor does the plundering of life differ from one person to another according to his identity,and the differences between people in the face of the plague areactually very small,the sense that everyone had to deal with a catastrophe such as the Black Death on an equal footing also prompted many people to give up on the Christian precepts of the afterlife and focus more on themselves and their earthly lives and immediate pleasures,the changes also helped renaissance spread quickly across the UK.In view of the medical conditions,medical ideas,and treatments available in England at the time,which were inadequate in dealing with the Black Death,as a result,the prestige and status of medical institutions and practitioners in people’s minds have been greatly reduced.