The Black Death and the Decline of the Influence of the Catholic Church

“One could hardly get a Chaplin to serve a church for less than ten pounds or ten marks.

Whereas before the pestilence, when there were plenty of priests, anyone could get a Chaplin for five or even four marks”.

From around the late twelfth century, a divide had already began to appear in the church between those who believed churchmen should denounce their worldly possessions and lead lives of poverty, and those that believed that at least some wealth and properties were needed so that they were in a position to do good works and preach in the towns. 

Many of the religious orders who vowed poverty, especially in the monasteries, survived the Black Death in greater numbers as a result of their isolation and were therefore viewed by many as being shown favour by God.   For this reason, the Mendicant Orders emerged with heightened credibility after the plague years, often making the normal priesthood jealous.  In 1351, senior churchmen partitioned the Pope in a bid to bring the order to an end, or at least curb their power to preach and to hear confessions.  Pope Clement VI defended the Mendicant Orders stating;

“If their preaching be stopped, about what can you preach to the people?  If on humility, you yourselves are the proudest of the world, arrogant and given to pomp.  If on poverty, you are the most grasping and most covetous …. If on chastity – but we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what each man does and how many of you satisfy your lusts”.

Clement goes on to accuse the clergy of wasting their money “on pimps and swindlers and neglecting the ways of God”.  The fact that the Pope made these accusations against his own priests suggests that these opinions, that echo those of many of the contemporary laymen, were probably generally accurate. 

John Wycliffe and his followers the Lollards believed that a sinful priest had no sacramental powers but any good Christian, whether cleric or layperson, were in fact themselves priests and therefore had sacramental powers.  Lollards complained that churchmen form the Pope down to the normal clergy were more interested in finding ways to make money than fulfilling their religious duties.  They complained that the Pope accepted money in return for benefices, pardons and bulls.  Bishops, according to the Lollards, were taking money for the giving of orders and for the correction of offences.  Priests were accused of making profits from tithes by prayers for the dead. 

Some scholars claim that the failings of the church during the period led directly to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century by prompting dissenters like Wycliffe to speak out against the church.  While this is probably an oversimplification of the causes of the Reformation, the dissatisfaction with the clergy brought about through their ineffectiveness during and after the plague years did create an ideal atmosphere for church reformists to gain support from growing numbers of people from all walks of life.

In the years that followed the plague, the quality of the clergy dramatically decreased as a result of high death rates, especially for many of the more pious churchmen.  Many of the new priests being taken on after the epidemic were inadequately trained, or were more interested in making money than serving their community.  All this made many disillusioned with the church as an institution and led many to question the need for clerics.  Church dissenters like the Lollards began to grow and eventually ideas that gained strength and a widening audience in the plague years, helped to split Christendom and bring about the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.