Crisis And Coping - British Church Studies During The Black Death

In medieval, the plague was regarded as something with religion by Christians. For them, mental treatment would be more effective than physical therapy. This concept has been taken root in the heart of clerics and ordinary Christians what had played the role of the church was self-evident.As a connecting link between God and the secular, clerics had enjoyed certain privileges, one of the most important was the judicial immunity which was guilty of a felony clerics from secular court trial; At the same time of privilege, they also had performed the duty of a certain priest, especially emphasized the abstinence of clergy. The revenues of Church mainly came from the benefice, namely the ordination put his ideas into the field of income, pay tithe and Christians of all kinds of donations for church. On account of the Christian propaganda, Christians had a great fear of death. Paradise had great temptation for believer, and the fire of hell had let fear of eternal punishment, each Christian had preparing for his death actively.The Black Death, the church had mainly stayed in the understanding of the theory of "God's Punishment", namely plague was a means of god's punishment to human's behavior. Under the theory of "God's Punishment", the church had do the best in the range of their own ability, but still could not resist the damage caused by plague. Black Death had brought great impact in the whole England, the first one had caused huge numbers of deaths. Priest, especially the parish clerics who had more intimate contact with parish residents, they had a great impact which many priests had died in the Black Death. Economically, as the population of a large number of deaths, the church's revenue was reduced, parishes had laid a situation of poverty. The economic downturn of the whole society, and because of reduce the labor and wages, priests had also became more greedy who had seeking higher income for their service.In the face of growing demand for religious services, many parish churches became empty. Based on this situation, the church had a lot of ceremonies of ordination. In Ecumenical Councils, for "priests" had some certain requirements and standards. In addition to basic requirements, different level of the cleric has the corresponding standards, such as age and seniority. As awarding ceremony held in a hurry which caused many unqualified candidates entered the priest class. Such as age what was less than the lower limit of church law and not be able to tamiliar with liturgy and Latin, in which brought a lot of trouble in the parishioners'daily religious life. In order to restrain the clerics'greedy in this case, the church had issued article of "Effrenala" which limited cleric's wage, but it had little success. And the poor church also resulted in some of other consequences, such as parish's merger and appropriation which was benefice in turn to the monastery.In the face of the serious consequences caused by the Black Death,the Church of England had done the best it could to reply actively and take all kinds of measures to deal with. Not only that, the priest's criminal behavior had gradually become more. This mainly displayed in violent offense and moral turpitude. Because of the church's powerless against the plague, the survivors had brought into question about the authority of the church. Then, they began to seek God's mercy through their own efforts.For priests, they disappointed and began to seek other ways to salvation, such as the saints, the foundation of new religious holiday. Confess chapel had emerged in endlessly, the soul the popularity of mass and held on a large scale, various brotherhood organization spontaneously redemption.