Template:1349-00-00-Poland

1349

After referring to the spreading of the Black Death in the entry for 1348, Jan Dlugos adds that in 1349 the Black Death reached Poland. After it had killed many people, the remaining took to religious practices and humiliated themselves through flaggelation and other treatments until God had mercy with them.

Pestifer hic annus eciam aput Polonos fuit morboque epidimie passim grassante multi mortales tam de nobilitate quam de plebe consumpti sunt. Dum quoque diuturni mali nullum esset remedium et plures non domos solum, sed opida et villas pestis desertasset, homines ad religionem conversi, credentes id malum propter indignacionem Divinam sceleribus hominum provocatum accidisse, conversi flagellis virgisque se mutuo verberabant aliisque penitencie generibus se affligebant, donec propiciata Divinitas pestiferam auram sustulit et mortalitatis molem cessare fecit.

This year brought the plague to Poland, too, and as it spread everywhere, many people among the gentry as well as among the peasantry died. And when no remedy could be found for this long-lasting vexation, and when the plague not only killed many in houses but also depopulated whole towns and villages, people convinced themselves that all their troubles fell on them as a divine retribution for their crimes and thus they turned to religious practices. So, they flagellated and birched each other, and humiliated themselves with other forms of penance until God showed his mercy towards them and took away the plague and let the acute mortality cease. (Translation: Maurice Michael)

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