Women and the Church


Near the close of the first half of the fourteenth century, after the
terrible ravages of the great plague had abated, the people were
prostrate with fear and terrorized by the merciless words of the
priests, who had not been slow to declare the pestilence as a mark of
the wrath of God and who were utilizing the peculiar possibilities of
this psychological moment for the advancement of the interests of the
Church. In the churches--the wondrous mediæval structures which were
newly built at that time--songs of spasmodic grief like the _Stabat
Mater_, or of tragic terror such as the _Dies iræ_, were echoing under
the high-vaulted arches, and the fear of God was upon the people. In a
great movement of this kind it is but to be expected that women played
no little part; their more sensitive natures caused them to be more
easily affected than were the men by the threats of everlasting torment
which were constantly being made by the priests for the benefit of all
those who refused to renounce worldly things and come within the
priestly fold. There was a most remarkable show of contrition and
penitence at this time, and thousands of persons, men and women of all
classes, were so deeply moved that they went about in companies, beating
themselves and each other for the glory of God, and singing vociferously
their melancholy dirges. These were the Flagellants, and there were
crowds of them all over Europe, the number in France alone at this time
being estimated at eight hundred thousand. One of the direct results of
this state of religious excitement was an increased interest, on the
part of women, in religious service, and a renewed desire to devote
themselves to a religious life.