Clement VI
Pope whose court at Avignon lived through the plague of 1348. He granted absolution to the dying, declared the charge that Jews had caused the plague false and forbade attacks on them, and in 1349 condemned the flagellants. Earlier he had proclaimed the jubilee of 1350.
Clement dated his letters of 1348 and 1349 from Avignon, in the seventh and eighth years of his pontificate (Clement VI, bulls of 4 July and 26 September 1348 (Raynaldus, 1348, §33)) (Clement VI, Inter sollicitudines, Raynaldus, 1349, §§20–22). A Life quoted by the annalist Raynaldus says that during the plague he appointed physicians to visit the poor of the city and bought a field for a cemetery (Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, 1348, §32 (vol. 25, p. 454), quoting a Life of Clement VI). A Paris chronicler records that he gave the dying, in many towns, absolution from guilt and penalty through their confessors (Jean de Venette, Chronicle, 1348 (Géraud, vol. 2, p. 213)), and the English chronicler Knighton that a count of the dead at Avignon was made before him and that he wrote to the kings urging peace, since these things had come upon men for their sins (Knighton, Chronicle vol. 2, pp. 59–60).
Twice in 1348 he forbade violence against the Jews, the second time arguing that they could not have caused a plague from which they themselves were dying (Clement VI, bulls of 4 July and 26 September 1348 (Raynaldus, 1348, §33)). In October 1349 he ordered the bishops to put down the flagellant companies (Clement VI, Inter sollicitudines, Raynaldus, 1349, §§20–22). His bull of 1343 announcing the jubilee sets out the doctrine of the treasury of merits (Clement VI, Unigenitus). See the Black Death.
In the timeline
- 1347 to 1351, estimated dateThe Black Death
Plague spreads through Europe, reaching Florence, Avignon and Paris in 1348. Priests and friars die with the rest or flee. Jews are accused of poisoning the wells and burned, though Pope Clement VI calls the charge false. In 1349 he bans the flagellants.