By now another voice was fomenting attack upon the Jews. The flagellants had appeared. In desperate supplication for God’s mercy, their movement erupted in a sudden frenzy that sped across Europe with the same flery contagion as the plague. Self-flagellation was intended to express remorse and expiate the sins of all. As a form of penance to induce God to forgive sin, it long antedated the plague years. The flagellants saw themselves as redeemers who, by re-enacting the scourging of Christ upon their own bodies and making the blood flow, would atone for human wickedness and earn another chance
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