1349
Black Death reaches England and Scandinavia
The plague ferried north on coastal traders. By autumn it had killed perhaps half the population of London, Bristol, and York. Norwegian fishermen brought it home and watched their valleys empty, whole parishes left with no living priest. Rural manors collapsed for lack of laborers. Wage agitation across northern Europe began that winter.
Strasbourg burns its Jews
On Saint Valentine's Day, the city council let a mob round up around two thousand Jews and burn them on a wooden platform in the cemetery. Their property was confiscated and divided among the city's debt-strapped guildsmen, who had demanded the massacre to cancel their debts. The plague had not yet arrived in Strasbourg. It would come anyway.
William of Ockham dies of plague at Munich
The English Franciscan philosopher, exiled under Louis IV's protection, died of the contagion in his Bavarian refuge. His razor - do not multiply entities beyond necessity - would become the cardinal principle of late medieval and early modern science, a methodological discipline that cut through metaphysical speculation. He had outlived his pope and his emperor.
Flagellant processions roam Germany
Whipping themselves bloody with iron-tipped scourges, bands of laymen marched from town to town chanting Christ's passion and demanding the plague's end. Their processions drew crowds of thousands across the Rhineland and Low Countries. Clement VI forbade the movement in October. Some flagellant brotherhoods diverted into anti-Jewish rampages. The Church rediscovered its fear of unregulated lay piety.