Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

Even before the Black Death, the power and wealth of the Church attracted people to the priesthood who were motivated by personal advancement rather than spiritual concerns. So many clergy perished that the Church had no choice but to loosen the entry requirements in order to replace them, resulting in an influx of inexperienced and, in many cases, even more unsuitable people into the priesthood.[53] The portrayal of the clergy in the literature of the second half of the fourteenth century demonstrates how little they were respected. In Boccaccio’s Decameron, priests, monks, mendicant friars and even nuns are on the prowl for sex wherever they can find it. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales satirizes English society, most of all the Church. It paints a picture of a lazy and greedy clergy, including a Monk who prefers to hunt on his fine horse rather than pray, and a Friar who has taken a vow of poverty but gleefully pockets money from destitute widows to fund his extravagant lifestyle.