Lecture 34: The Great Plague
bishops, although they still relied on secular authorities to carry
out their decisions.o Even more extreme, Innocent IV’s Ad extirpanda in 1252
authorized the use of torture by the inquisition, although
there is no evidence of its use in the 13th century. Those
found to be heretics who repented received the same sorts
of penances (fasting, pilgrimages) that other sinners would
receive after confession. Serious offenders could be confined
in the inquisition’s prisons and burned at the stake by secular
authority; perhaps three people a year, on average, were
thus executed.o The inquisition was turned against the Knights Templar by
Philip IV of France in 1307 and was even used by Pope John
XXII against Franciscan “spirituals” in 1318.o In the late 15th century, Spanish rulers received permission from
Sixtus IV to organize the inquisition against “Christianized
Jews.” After an auto-de-fé (“act of faith”) confessing their
crime, those convicted were executed.• The hostility toward, and persecution of, Jewish communities that
began with the First Crusade and was expressed in the controlling
laws of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)— and the burning of
the Talmud in Paris (1242)—exploded in unparalleled violence in
response to the great plague: Jews became a handy scapegoat for
the sudden and unexplained deaths.
o Fear and hysteria were fomented by rumors of Jews’ poisoning
wells or causing the plague by sacrificing Christian children.o In 1349, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne
were wiped out; in the same year, 2,000 Jews were murdered
in Strasbourg. In all, some 60 major Jewish centers and 150
smaller settlements were destroyed during these irrational and
violent outbursts.