![[Nuremberg_chronicles_-_Dance_of_Death_(CCLXIIIIv).jpg]] *Inspired by the Black Death, The Dance of Death, or [Danse Macabre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre "Danse Macabre"), an allegory on the universality of death, was a common painting motif in the late medieval period.* Either way, the Black Death was a nightmare that changed European culture. The Church, which was unable to either explain or prevent the plague, lost a lot of its prestige and power. The papal city of Avignon lost up to 70% of its residents at the same time the Church was violently suppressing a Flagellant Movement in which tens of thousands of lay people would march through the streets of European cities, whipping themselves to atone for the sins of humanity they imagined had caused the pandemic. Pogroms in cities like Strasbourg, Basel, Frankfurt, and Mainz drove Jews (charged with poisoning wells) out of the Rhineland and into Poland and eastern Europe. Artistic depictions of death proliferated, such as the *Danse Macabre*; and death became central in literature like Bocaccio's *Decameron*, a hundred stories told by people fleeing plague-ridden Florence, and Chaucer's *Piers Plowman*, which deals with the labor shortages and social chaos caused by the plague. ----- Next: [[13.7 - End of Feudalism]] Back: [[13.5 - Black Death]]