Franciscan Friars in German--124,434
Minorites in Italy--30,000


This short catalogue might, by a laborious and uncertain
calculation, deduced from other sources, be easily further
multiplied, but would still fail to give a true picture of the
depopulation which took place. Lubeck, at that time the Venice of
the North, which could no longer contain the multitudes that
flocked to it, was thrown into such consternation on the eruption
of the plague, that the citizens destroyed themselves as if in
frenzy.

Merchants whose earnings and possessions were unbounded, coldly
and willingly renounced their earthly goods. They carried their
treasures to monasteries and churches, and laid them at the foot
of the altar; but gold had no charms for the monks, for it brought
them death. They shut their gates; yet, still it was cast to them
over the convent walls. People would brook no impediment to the
last pious work to which they were driven by despair. When the
plague ceased, men thought they were still wandering among the
dead, so appalling was the livid aspect of the survivors, in
consequence of the anxiety they had undergone, and the unavoidable
infection of the air. Many other cities probably presented a
similar appearance; and it is ascertained that a great number of
small country towns and villages, which have been estimated, and
not too highly, at 200,000, were bereft of all their inhabitants.

In many places in France, not more than two out of twenty of the